Joe Hill on AI: ‘It’s just part of the general rot’

Joe Hill is uneasy about the future.

The horror author’s feelings about technology, and particularly AI, are evident in both his novel King Sorrow and his frequent posts on Threads.

Hill’s new book is a decade-spanning story about six friends entering into a terrible pact with a dragon. It doesn’t sound like the kind of novel that would be fascinated with technology, but mentions of social media and tech oligarchs — including several name checks for Elon Musk — are dotted throughout.

Mashable sat down with Hill to ask him about his uneasy relationship with tech, and why AI is a particular concern to him.

“It’s just part of the general rot, in a lot of ways. There are these tech companies run by these multi-billionaires who are richer than nations. Guys like Elon Musk,” Hill says. “None of these people really have to answer to laws, because when you’re that rich you just buy new laws if you don’t like the way things are shaking out. Or at least that’s what the cynical part of me believes. There’s a slightly more optimistic part of me that thinks they might run into trouble yet.

“But these guys, they don’t care what they break. They just release one shitty, reckless, addictive tech product after another on the whole world and you know, as long as it makes them money, they don’t really care about the repercussions.”

Speaking about artificial intelligence in particular, Hill is critical of OpenAI’s Sora app, launched in 2024, which can generate AI videos based on text prompts — and its second, 2025 version, Sora 2, has led to a proliferation of AI videos being shared across social media.

“OpenAI released a video tool, a video creation tool, which is just obviously going to lead to an ocean of misinformation in every election,” says Hill. “You know, videos of people saying things they didn’t say and doing things they didn’t do, and you know, Sam Altman and these guys just kind of shrug and say, people will get used to it. I mean, what kind of attitude is that?”

The creative industries have had a tense relationship with AI in recent years. Streamers and studios have come under fire for using AI instead of paying human workers, while authors — including big names like George RR Martin — are currently suing OpenAI for copyright infringement. ,Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) Animation companies including Studio Ghibli and video game publishers including Square Enix have demanded OpenAI stop training Sora 2 on their content.

Hill’s father, legendary horror author Stephen King, wrote an essay for The Atlantic in which he spoke of his own “dreadful fascination” at the possibility of AI writing fiction. That was published two years ago, though, and Hill thinks his dad’s views have changed since.

“I don’t think he realized at the time that they had stolen 80 of his titles that they had literally downloaded from pirate sites like any thief. And I think maybe that was a little bit of a shock to him,” Hill says. “You know, all of this software is built on towers of theft, enormous towers of theft, to say nothing of the tremendous environmental waste.”

Hill views AI in its current form as a kind of auto complete — something that spits out what it thinks is the sentence most likely to follow. It does make him worried for upcoming artists, but he doesn’t believe it will replace real art.

“I do think that there will always be a market for humans expressing themselves to other humans through their hard earned craft,” he says. “Not through typing in a prompt.”

King Sorrow is available now in bookstores and online retailers.