Here Are the Best Burns of Natasha Lyonne After She Claimed David Lynch Was Pro-A.I.

David Lynch believed that generative artificial intelligence was the next step in filmmaking technology, a revelation that certainly has no connection to the fact that Lyonne and her boyfriend, Bryn Mooser, co-founded an A.I.-powered film production company through which she is producing her A.I.-utilizing directorial debut film Uncanny Valley.

Back in January, the world of arthouse cinema lost one of its all-time greatest visionaries when Lynch, director of acclaimed, ground-breaking classics such as Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man, ed away from cardiac arrest at the age of 78 following a battle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Lynch had been struggling with lung disease for the last few years of his life, but according to his neighbor Lyonne, the beloved director used some of those precious and strained final breaths to issue a full-throated endorsement of filmmakers like her using generative A.I. 

In a recent interview with Vulture, Lyonne defended her utilization of A.I. filmmaking tools instead of leaning on human creatives for her project, citing a conversation she had with Lynch before his death as a motivation behind her decision to advance the field of A.I. filmmaking through her newly founded production company. Whether or not the conversation occurred as Lyonne described it, fans of the late, great director interpreted Lyonne’s claims as ghoulish and opportunistic as they took to Twitter to ask her if Lynch also used his last breath to tell audiences to pre-order tickets to Uncanny Valley using promo code “NOMOREJOBS.”

Conversely, Lyonne had ample defenders on Twitter, although they were significantly less viral and hilarious than her haters. As many Lyonne fans pointed out, Lynch had long been a proponent of new technologies in the field of filmmaking, and shortly before he ed away, he expressed much more optimistic views on the influence A.I. will have on the medium of cinema than those that many of his fans hold today.

In a conversation with BFI, Lynch opined on the controversy about A.I. in film, saying, “I know a lot of people are afraid of it. I’m sure, like everything, they say it’ll be used for good or for bad. I think it’d be incredible as a tool for creativity and for machines to help creativity. The good side of it’s important for moving forward in a beautiful way.” 

However, he added, “I’m sure with all these things, if money is the bottom line, there’d be a lot of sadness, and despair and horror. But I’m hoping better times are coming.”

Ultimately, the issue of whether or not Lynch actually told Lyonne to treat A.I. like a writer treats a pencil (or whether or not he used the word “phone,” given his famous affinity for the full “telephone”) is beside the point. Right now, the use of A.I. in creative fields is an ethical issue that has the potential to cause massive, widespread job-loss for the lower-and-mid-level creatives whose human-powered work enabled Lyonne to reach this stage of career success wherein she can start film companies with the expressed goal of cutting down on labor costs.

Using the completely unverifiable words of a dead man to defend a controversial business strategy and advance your own professional interests is simply bad taste, and not the fun, intentional kind of bad taste like the monster baby scenes in Eraserhead.