May 29, 2026
MAN AND ROBOTS: A weekly column from MARS Magazine on AI, Hollywood, and the future of work.
🎬 The Rise of AI Horror Films
1. Self-described AI-native film production company Secret Level has teamed up with one of the most successful horror movie producers of all time for its next project. Secret Level’s Christina Lee Storm will co-produce alongside Steven Schneider (Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch, Insidious) a film called Terrarium, directed by Jason Zada. The film will also have backing from Artlist, which will serve as the film’s financing arm. “This is a new kind of film and it deserves the most forward thinking partners, filmmakers, artists, and collaborators,” said Storm via her LinkedIn account. “Looking forward to pioneering long form Done Right and sharing best practices.”
What It Means: I’ve long advocated for the idea that the two pioneering forms of AI film will be live-action horror and animation. My preview of Amazon’s work on AI animation came to fruition this week with the announcement of three new Amazon Prime Video AI-animated series greenlit at the studio. Despite one of the traditional animators working with Amazon dropping out of the project after anti-AI fan backlash, the AI series remains on track. With Terrarium, we have one of the masters of horror film production steering the enterprise, which means it could very well turn out to be the first major AI hit feature film. Schneider also produced the V/H/S horror anthology franchise, the recent Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk, Split, Blair Witch, and many other successful horror films. His involvement is a signal thatTerrarium isn’t another AI video experiment. This is the big leagues. Stay tuned.
🏀 NBA Betting on AI Refereeing
2. “[There will be a] whole category of calls [that] will be automatic. [Certain] calls will be done by an AI automated system with cameras lined around the court, and it’ll take all those so-called objective calls out of the hands of the referees. It’ll just be instantaneous. This will be automatic. It’ll also allow the officials on the more difficult subjective calls to give their full attention to those [calls] where there’s often contact on every play. I think technology will really be helpful here.”
-Adam Silver, NBA Commissioner, this week on The Pat McAfee Show
🎥 Spielberg Finally Reveals His AI Take
3. Long before AI became the lightning rod for everything from tech to politics to art and education, Steven Spielbergweighed in on the topic with his epic 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. The film was loosely based on the 1969 short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss. In 2026, like many in Hollywood, the Oscar-winning director is being forced to confront the reality of what was once just science fiction.
Spielberg did just that earlier this week, finally delivering his take on what effect AI might have on his work. He acknowledges the positive impacts AI may have on medicine, science, and education, but he’s not convinced that AI can stand in for human cognition when it comes to creative expression.
“Where I don’t love AI is where it takes a position. Or there’s an empty chair at a writer’s table, and there’s six writers, and there’s an empty chair, and there’s a computer in front of the empty chair, and it [the AI] is the seventh writer at the table,” said Spielberg, during an interview with former first lady Michelle Obama on her YouTube show earlier this week. “I’m not willing to substitute, because I don’t really believe in [AI] sentience. I don’t believe that there’s any substitute for the soul. I don’t think that [the soul] is an algorithm that is inventable.”
Spielberg then doubled down on his position in no uncertain terms, outlining what he sees as the appropriate limits of AI’s influence.
“I think that [there is a] difference between a computer that’s smarter than people [and] a computer that thinks it feels more than we feel. [That] is anathema to the way I was raised and how I’ll practice my own trade of producing and directing in the future. I don’t want AI involved in that way,” said Spielberg. “If AI wants to help me find locations, that’s great. Save us all a lot of legwork. But don’t tell me that I don’t have the right antagonist in this movie. Don’t tell me how to write my dialogue for this character. Don’t tell me where the camera has got to go. And also don’t tell me what the set should look like, unless AI is simply a tool in a large tool chest of the production designer and just one of many tools the production designer uses, so their own impulses are what is going to determine how good my sets look. Use AI as a tool, but do not use AI as the final word on anything creative. That’s where I draw the line.”
🎬 Star Wars ‘Rogue One’ Director on AI
4. “I can’t see a reason why you wouldn’t become interested in [AI] as a filmmaker. It’s so clearly a tool that might be up there with the camera. It’s going to be better than CGI… I’m excited, I hope you are… It has no taste whatsoever. It is a fucking genius at helping you. I view it like having a second-unit director who is a billionaire on acid. Like, it’ll do anything you ask, not a problem. Sometimes it’ll [go] batshit crazy. And you’ll give it notes, and it’ll be like, ‘I don’t do notes. I’ll just do something totally different.’ But it’s worth it.”
-Gareth Edwards, director, Rogue One: Star Wars, The Creator, Jurassic World: Rebirth
*Source: The Hollywood Reporter
🤖 Users Ditching Google Search for AI-Free Alternative?
5. Earlier this week, I laid out how Google is slow rolling users into paying for search under the guise of AI, and I suggested using DuckDuckGo as an alternative. Well, it looks like Google’s AI announcement indeed has users looking for an alternative, as DuckDuckGo has revealed that installs of its search engine surged by 30% this week in the U.S. “People aren’t just complaining about Google’s AI search overhaul, they’re leaving,” the company wrote on X.com. “Momentum is growing. It’s time to Fire Google.”
Yes, But: Although DuckDuckGo is championing an AI-free search experience and more privacy, it should also be noted that the company does offer an optional AI search experience as well. The difference is that it isn’t as aggressively pushed on users as with Google. When you visit Duck.com, you’re presented with a search field as the default, with “Ask AI” listed as an optional feature, not automatically stuffed into your results screen. This makes a big difference. Additionally, DuckDuckGo offers more privacy because it doesn’t track your searches by building a personal profile tied to your searches and IP address. As I mentioned in my piece, this could change in the future, but for now, DuckDuckGo feels like the Google alternative some have been hoping for. ✍︎
MAN AND ROBOTS is a weekly column from MARS Magazine on AI, Hollywood, and the future of work. All editorial text is written by humans.
Cover image: A scene from Steven Spielberg’s ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence’ Warner Bros.)
