Kane Parsons
Director
Self-taught filmmaker who created the viral “Backrooms” horror series on YouTube as a teenager and is now directing its feature adaptation. A VFX prodigy, he is sharply critical of generative AI — saying he gets no creative enjoyment from it and would make it “disappear forever” if he could.
In their words
If I could snap my fingers and make generative AI disappear forever, I probably would.
Creatively, I get no enjoyment from using those tools. It defeats the purpose entirely for me.
Biography
Kane Parsons is an American filmmaker and visual-effects artist who became an internet phenomenon while still in his teens. His found-footage horror series The Backrooms, posted to his YouTube channel, drew hundreds of millions of views and earned him a feature-film adaptation backed by major Hollywood producers — a remarkable trajectory built almost entirely on self-taught 3D, compositing, and editing skills.
Precisely because he is a digital-native craftsman, his rejection of generative AI carries weight. He frames it not as a labor or rights argument first, but as a creative one: the tools, he says, drain the satisfaction out of the work for him, and he experiences the broader flood of AI imagery as a kind of cultural decay.
We already live in a world where you walk outside and there are billboards and signs that are obvious AI slop. That’s become part of our visual reality. To me, generative AI feels less like innovation than a symptom of a broader cultural and economic rot.
It is a striking stance from someone whose entire career was enabled by cheap, accessible digital tools — and one of the clearest articulations of the purist position that the value of the work lies in the human effort of making it.
Where they stand in the war
Who opposes them
Darren Aronofsky
Director
Academy Award-nominated director of Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, and The Whale, and one of the highest-profile filmmakers building AI into the craft. He founded the AI-focused studio Primordial Soup and partnered with Google DeepMind to develop AI-assisted projects.
David Lynch
Director
The surrealist auteur behind Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive, whose dreamlike style gave us the word “Lynchian.” In one of his final interviews, months before his death in January 2025, he called AI “fantastic” and “incredible as a tool for creativity.”
Gareth Edwards
Director
British director of Rogue One, Godzilla, and The Creator who built his career making blockbuster-scale films with tiny crews and lean budgets. A visual-effects artist by training, he sees AI as a tool that could rank alongside the camera — and outdo CGI.
James Cameron
Director
Director of The Terminator, Aliens, Titanic, and Avatar, and one of cinema’s great technological pioneers. In 2024 he joined the board of Stability AI, calling the convergence of generative AI and CGI “the next wave” — while arguing it should speed up and empower artists, not replace them.
Martin Scorsese
Director
One of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, and a lifelong champion of film preservation. In 2026 he became an advisor to Black Forest Labs and spoke openly about using AI-generated storyboards in pre-production — framing AI as another tool for communicating a director’s vision, not a replacement for artists.
Steven Soderbergh
Director
Oscar-winning director and one of cinema’s most relentless technical experimenters, known for shooting and cutting his own films and embracing every new format from prosumer digital to the iPhone. He treats generative AI as just the latest tool worth getting his hands on.
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/kane-parsons