Project Hail Mary Author Andy Weir Has Some Controversial Thoughts On AI [Exclusive]

There's no question Andy Weir is an absolute wizard at crafting wildly entertaining hard sci-fi adventures. The man wrote "The Martian" and "Project Hail Mary," both of which have been adapted into hugely successful blockbusters, with "Project Hail Mary" absolutely dominating the box office. But Weir also has some dodgy opinions, like when the "Project Hail Mary" author took "Black Mirror" to task for being anti-tech. Evidently, the writer also has no time for artificial intelligence doomerism, maintaining that this darkly sinister tech is good, actually.

/Film's Jeremy Mathai spoke with Weir, who characterized AI as a "tool" that can be used for good or evil. "It's the first time that we've had something on Earth that's smarter than us," he said. "So that's a little scary, but we have forklifts that are stronger than us. We have race cars that are faster than us. Okay, so we have computers that are smarter than us." It's not a great start is it, comparing advanced technology to a forklift? Maybe if forklifts consumed exorbitant amounts of electricity and water, were capable of replacing large swathes of the global workforce, and were pumping out the artistic equivalent of effluent via music, images, and videos that essentially represent the most large-scale theft of copyrighted material in human history, it might be a fair comparison. 

You'd think a creative like Weir might be a tad hesitant to embrace this still nascent technology, but it seems he's all for it. "It's a tool that we can use and we can unplug when we don't want to use it," he continued. "In the end, if I give you a hammer, you can build a house or you can murder someone. It's not the tool that's the issue, it's the user."

"AI is a tool" is an oft-used defense of the technology that doesn't hold up. Co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, addressed this point during a GZERO World interview:

"Imagine a hammer that can think to itself at a PhD level about hammers, invent better hammers, recursively go off in the world, duplicate itself, do research on what would make better hammers, make money, send crypto around [...] It is not a tool. It's more like an intelligent species that we are birthing that has more capability than us."

It's not an unreasonable point. According to Weir, however, it's one not worth considering. Unfortunately, he had more to say on the topic. The author admitted to having "dorked around with AI" only to find it lacking in the narrative fiction department. For him, however, this is temporary. "I think it's only a matter of time," he said. "Honestly, I think I'm lucky that I ended up being a writer right when I did, because I might be among the last generation of fully human writers." If you keep talking about AI like it's a hammer, you might well be.

Weir also went on to claim that AI usage in entertainment is more widespread than we realize and posed a hypothetical example of a director using AI to see how a line from their lead actor might sound, before asking that actor back for ADR. "If you say, 'Okay, I like that,' call Brad Pitt, have him rerecord the line. So no AI gets into the finished product." Fine. But Weir has claimed to be writing a book that tackles AI and you'd hope for at least some acknowledgement that this is all a slippery slope. 

In 2023, Joe Russo set forth his vision of an artificial intelligence garbage future, in which AI creates tailor-made movies for specific viewers. That's a vision Andy Weir evidently shares. The author told /Film he believes entertainment is going to "stop being such a group phenomenon" and that instead of audiences gathering at the multiplex to watch "Avengers: Endgame," they'll be staring at their laptops. "AI will be powerful and portable enough that your own computer will be as good as a modern day AI data center," Weir said, adding:

"It'll know you. It'll know you. It won't even have to tell you about you. It's just by your browser habits, by reading your emails and just by paying attention, it'll get to know you. Then you can say, 'Hey computer, make me a story that I'd like.' It'll make a story that you will like. You'll read it and you'll say, 'This is the most amazing, awesome story ever.'" [...] eventually, the computer will be able to do the video for it as well. You can make a movie that's perfect for you."

It's just sort of hard to believe that this hellish future will actually come to pass given the widespread pushback AI has faced from a public still clearly invested in human expression. In that sense, it's disappointing not to hear a word of support for that sentiment from Weir. Likewise, for a guy who's made his name as a hard sci-fi maestro capable of weaving real science into his narratives in a way that speaks to his knowledge of the current state of technological and scientific progress, it's surprising not to hear him address larger points about about how AI might possibly differ from a forklift.