Actress Natasha Lyonne dropped out of NYU and watched movies instead. Now, she’s helping to shape the future of AI

The actress, director, and wild-style futurist Natasha Lyonne is fascinated by technology. She speaks of the beauty and power of interstellar travel and muses about living long enough to walk a Hollywood red carpet as a reanimated cyborg.

But she also has a grave concern, she explained to the Fortune Brainstorm AI audience on Monday in San Francisco: With all this boundless possibility, why is AI focused on replacing screenwriters instead of, say, figuring out a solution to fixing plastic bottles polluting the oceans? “I don’t think that’s an accident,” said Lyonne, 46. “It’s about cutting costs.”

What the cofounder of media production company Animal Pictures would like to see is people paid for their expertise, work, and creative ideas, and the democratization of filmmaking so more people can engage in a business that has traditionally had sky-high barriers to entry.

Her rallying cry to C-suites and AI leaders—delivered in her signature wry, New York City accent—is to think really hard about what it means to be human in this age where AI is all the rage, and act accordingly. “We are the ones who are deciding what this use is going to be and how we choose to use it,” Lyonne said. “I really want this to mean a seat at the table for more people to do even more extraordinary things.”

Lyonne, who was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025, jo...