Ronny Chieng
Comedian
Malaysian-born comedian, actor, and senior Daily Show correspondent. In his 2026 Harvard Class Day address he turned a furious, profane riff against generative AI into a rallying cry, telling the graduating class that destroying AI is the mission of their generation.
In their words
Fuck AI, fuck AI, fuck AI.
The mission of your generation is to destroy AI.
Biography
Ronny Chieng (born 1985) is a Malaysian-born comedian and actor who has become one of comedy’s most quotable AI skeptics. A former lawyer turned stand-up, he is a senior correspondent on The Daily Show and has appeared in films including Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and M3GAN, alongside a run of acclaimed Netflix comedy specials.
Invited to address Harvard’s Class Day on May 27, 2026 — the eve of Commencement — Chieng used the podium to channel a broader cultural anxiety about generative AI into a blunt, profane charge. Where many commencement speakers that season urged graduates to master AI for the future, he framed the technology not as a tool to be mastered but as something to be opposed outright, and the graduating class roared its approval.
His position was not entirely one-dimensional: he told the Class of 2026 to apply AI to hard problems in medicine and physics, but never as a substitute for creativity or critical thinking. The speech landed because it said out loud what a lot of the room felt — that the AI rollout had been done to them rather than with them — and a clip of it spread quickly online.
Where they stand in the war
Who opposes them
Andrea Iervolino
Film Producer
Italian-Canadian producer behind dozens of features and one of the film industry’s most outspoken AI advocates. He produced what he calls the first feature directed by an AI — a synthetic “director” named FellinAI — while insisting it complements rather than replaces traditional cinema.
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.
James Gurney
Artist & Author
Painter and author best known for Dinotopia, his best-selling illustrated world of humans and intelligent dinosaurs. A traditional plein-air craftsman, he holds one of the most careful, balanced positions in the whole debate: genuinely inspired by what generative AI can do, yet clear-eyed and unflinching about its harms.
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/ronny-chieng