Soderbergh: AI Is 'Just Another Tool' and Humans Are Boring

Steven Soderbergh told the Sands International Film Festival in St Andrews, Scotland that his new film with Wagner Moura uses "a lot of AI" across post-production. When the audience raised the industry's broader anxiety about the technology, he offered a brief diagnosis. "Human beings are boring", he said. "AI isn't the problem."

The Wagner Moura Film

The project pairs Soderbergh with Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, best known internationally as Pablo Escobar in Narcos. Soderbergh confirmed at the festival that AI runs through the film's post production workflow at scale, describing its use as extensive rather than incidental.

The application is enhancement based, not generative. Soderbergh's track record of cost discipline on set suggests the AI tools in question handle visual correction and consistency work: relighting shots after the fact, stabilizing footage, correcting background elements, matching exposure across cameras. None of that generates new content. It repairs and refines what already exists in the edit.

Enhancement vs. Generation

Generative AI produces images, video, or audio from a text prompt. Enhancement AI processes existing material to correct or improve it. The two categories involve different workflows and have different implications for labor on set.

David Cronenberg described the same category of tools as "Digital Photoshop" when discussing his use of AI in post-production on The Shrouds, noting he uses it to relight scenes and fix details on actors' faces without additional takes. Soderbergh's framing lands in the same place. The technology reduces reshoots, not screenwriters.

Neural techniques can handle background replacement, shot consistency matching between cameras, and subtle adjustments to lighting conditions. These have been standard in large productions for years. Soderbergh's comment is that they are now standard in his productions too.

A Career Built on Technology as Leverage

Soderbergh has consistently used technology to close the gap between the film he wants to make and the budget he has available. He shot Unsane in 2018 entirely on an iPhone 7 Plus. That project cost under $1.5 million and shot in 10 days. He cited the camera's intimacy as a creative choice, not a budget compromise.

His 2013 HBO film Behind the Candelabra competed at Cannes despite being made for television. Soderbergh shot it himself, as he does on most of his projects, under the pseudonym Peter Andrews. A period production featuring Las Vegas showmanship and elaborate costumes required the same resourcefulness that defines his approach across formats. Ron Howard has drawn the same parallel, arguing that AI adoption follows the same logic as the industry's earlier shift from film stock to digital effects.

The AI tools in his current production follow that logic. Post-production corrections that once required expensive facility time can now run on a workstation. That savings either goes back into the production or lowers the budget required to get the film greenlit.

Where He Stands in Hollywood's AI Debate

Steven Spielberg told a SXSW 2026 audience he has never used AI in any of his films and rejected it as a replacement for human creativity. George Miller chairs the jury of an AI film festival and compares the technology to the Renaissance. The spectrum of working director opinion is wide.

Soderbergh's position is narrower than either. He is not arguing for AI in principle or against it in principle. He is describing what he uses it for on one production: post-production efficiency on a specific project with a specific collaborator. That claim is harder to argue against than a general defense of the technology.

What It Means for Independent Filmmakers

The workflow Soderbergh describes does not require a major studio's infrastructure. The AI tools he uses for correction, consistency, and enhancement are accessible at the independent level without a dedicated post-production facility.

Independent filmmakers can apply the same approach through AI FILMS Studio, which gives creators access to AI generation and enhancement tools in a single workspace.

Sources

The Hollywood Reporter | Variety | Deadline | Screen Daily | IndieWire | Rolling Stone