Demi Moore's AI comments at Cannes Film Festival have split the internet in two — but Hacks season 5 episode 6 had the perfect response even before she made them

If you've been on social media this week, you might have seen the controversy surrounding Demi Moore's comments about AI in the entertainment industry, which she made at the Cannes Film Festival.

The actress, who's part of this year's festival jury, said during a press conference that, "Against-ness breeds against-ness. AI is here. So to fight it is to fight a battle that we will lose. So to find ways that we can work with it is a valuable path that we can take."

The above clip quickly went viral, dividing fan opinion over whether actors should or shouldn't endorse something that could change the face of the industry as we know it.

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One X/Twitter user replied, "I’m so done with the 'it’s here' argument. 'It’s here' is utterly meaningless. You don’t aid and abet widely destructive tech just by virtue of it BEING HERE."

Another agreed, "AI is not inevitable. Anyone who says it is has a financial stake in its success and is trying to see a return on their investment."

In truth, no matter how Moore might have responded to the question, it probably would have got a significant amount of backlash.

But for those who are watching AI's increasing inclusion in TV and film with trepidation, last week's episode of Hacks season 5 offered up the perfect response before Moore even touched down on French soil.

Hacks season 5 episode 6 addressed the AI vs. film industry debate head-on with this exceptional monologue

In the above scene, Deborah (Jean Smart) is trying to complete the random side quest of investing in a hotel on the Vegas strip. But when she finally finds funding for it, there's a massive trade-off.

Potential investor Graham Sweeney (Alex Moffat) wants Deborah to incorporate QuikScribbl, an "LLM generative AI model that will help people present the most optimized, funniest, smartest versions of themselves."

For Ava (Hannah Einbinder) who is listening to the proposal, Graham's request goes completely against her moral ethics. Luckily for us, that translates into a breathtaking monologue that deftly sums up 2020s problems.

Graham feeds Ava a version of the same line we heard Moore say at the press conference, telling her "AI is here to stay, so you either get on board or get left in the past."

"See, that is a big part of why I hate it," Ava responds. "This forced inevitability. People are always saying it's happening whether you like it or not. But you're the ones making it happen and you could easily stop it if people could say that they didn't want it.

"But you don't want to give anybody a choice, so you say 'oh, the train is already on the tracks.' And you don't let people decide for themselves."

It's powerful stuff, and is propped up by Deborah's take on AI in comedy later on in the episode. "Every time that joke didn't work, not only did I make it better, but I became a comedian — because to become one, you have to do it and fail over and over again," she explains to Graham later about her past material.

When he responds that he's just "trying to make her life easier" with QuikScribbl, she responds "but it shouldn't be. Why are you trying to optimize the creative process? That's one of the things we've actually figured out, we're good there."

As one of the only TV shows on a main streaming service that is taking an actively loud stance against AI, Hacks season 5 episode 6 gives us a lot of food for thought. One thing's for sure: when the show ends for good in a few weeks time, we're going to miss challenging storylines like these.

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