Academy Award-winning director Christopher Nolan, whose newly released adaptation of "The Odyssey" is dominating theaters worldwide, recently shared that he finds the widespread distrust of artificial intelligence—particularly among younger generations—to be "pretty encouraging." Nolan made these remarks in response to a question from interviewer Hugo Travers, who runs the YouTube channel HugoDécrypte. Travers drew a parallel between the legendary Trojan horse featured in Nolan's film and AI: just as the horse was a deceptive gift hiding Greek soldiers, he asked whether AI might be something people welcome into their daily routines only for it to transform into "something else and something darker."

With a laugh, Nolan replied, "I think AI is a Trojan horse that everybody knows the Greeks are inside." He later described the technology as "a transparent horse, it's made of glass."

"I've never seen a technology advancing so rapidly [that's been] so completely rejected by the public," he observed. "Everybody's suspicion of it is so extreme, particularly young people. The reaction to AI videos online and people my children's age immediately calling it 'AI slop' and coining that term and just putting it in a box."

Nolan views this as "a very healthy skepticism, because technology is always going to give us great gifts, as you say, but it has to be viewed with skepticism." He added, "The motives of the people giving it to us also have to be viewed with skepticism. That's when we'll get the best out of a new technology, rather than just blind faith that everything's going to be great." (Separately, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been posting angrily about the film's inclusion of nonwhite and transgender cast members.)

Nolan did not elaborate further on the specific dangers he sees in AI, but the technology has become a growing concern in Hollywood and was a central issue during the 2023 writers' and actors' strikes. The Directors Guild of America, which Nolan leads as president, secured some generative AI protections in its latest contract. The director has long been cautious about other technologies, including smartphones; his preference for shooting on film makes him seem both a Luddite and a trailblazer, with "The Odyssey" becoming the first feature film shot entirely on Imax film and Imax cameras. When The New York Times recently asked if he considers himself a technophobe, Nolan responded, "I think of myself as a techno-skeptic," explaining that his love for film stems from its ability to "represent the way the eye sees the world better than any digital imaging system I've seen."

"I embrace new technology all the time, but it tends to be sold to people at the expense of systems that might still be valid and viable," Nolan said. "That's what I saw in my industry—throwing the baby out with the bath water. We almost lost film."