The One Thing That Terrifies Pluribus Boss Vince Gilligan: AI
Hollywood’s AI jitters just got louder. Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan tells Rolling Stone he’s unnerved by the idea of algorithms graduating from tools to power players in entertainment.
Vince Gilligan is not here for AI writing your movies and TV shows. The Breaking Bad creator is deep into his next series, a sci-fi drama called Pluribus, and the guy could not be clearer: he wants nothing to do with artificial intelligence in his process. He knows the tools exist. He just refuses to touch them.
Asked about AI by Rolling Stone, Gilligan did not hedge:
If you really want to wake me in a cold sweat at three in the morning, AI is the stick to poke me with.
That fear is not abstract. AI has gone from a novelty to a bargaining chip in Hollywood pretty much overnight. It is now part of the negotiations between filmmakers and studios, which is about as fun as it sounds if you write for a living.
Gilligan told Variety that when he first clocked ChatGPT, he had a borderline apocalyptic reaction:
When I first became aware of ChatGPT or whatever it is called, it scared the living hell out of me. I thought, 'We are done for as a race.' I do not mean in the 'Terminator' sense, like they are going to start exterminating us. But who wants to live in a world where creativity is given over to machines?
After that initial panic, he did not just ignore it. He watched the tech for a couple months and came away unimpressed, calling it basically BS, more of a massive plagiarism engine than actual intelligence. He does not think the systems are truly smart yet, but he also worries they could get there eventually. And he is not buying the hype from rich founders packaging AI as world-changing so they can sell you more world-changing.
Where does that leave him? Still swearing off AI entirely. He is aware of the tools, he just will not use them.
He is not alone. Guillermo del Toro told NPR, 'I am 61, and I hope to be able to remain uninterested in using it at all until I croak.' Emma Thompson vented on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that AI keeps intruding when she is trying to write, and it drives her up the wall. Plenty of other folks in the industry are sounding the alarm, even as some embrace the tech without blinking.
Meanwhile, Gilligan is busy building his next world the old-fashioned way. If you are curious about that part:
- Title: Pluribus
- Showrunner: Vince Gilligan
- Release date: November 7, 2025
- Where to watch: Apple TV
Bottom line: Gilligan would rather trust messy, human originality over machine-made word soup. Given his track record, hard to argue with the guy.