Leonardo DiCaprio claims AI “could be an enhancement tool for a young filmmaker”
Leonardo DiCaprio has revealed his stance on AI, which he believes could help directors in the future, but only if used correctly.
The actor, who recently secured the 15th Golden Globe nomination of his career thanks to his performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, has been named as Time’s ‘Entertainer of the Year’.
To coincide with the award, DiCaprio spoke with Time and optimistically said of how AI could be used to improve Hollywood, “It could be an enhancement tool for a young filmmaker to do something we’ve never seen before.”
However, the One Battle After Another star believes that humanity needs to remain at the heart of any artistic endeavour, noting, “I think anything that is going to be authentically thought of as art has to come from the human being.”
DiCaprio then used AI-music as an example of the tool being used incorrectly, adding, “Haven’t you heard these songs that are mashups that are just absolutely brilliant and you go, ‘Oh my God, this is Michael Jackson doing the Weeknd,’ or ‘This is funk from the A Tribe Called Quest song ‘Bonita Applebum,’ done in, you know, a sort of Al Green soul-song voice, and it’s brilliant.’ And you go, ‘Cool.’ But then it gets its 15 minutes of fame and it just dissipates into the ether of other internet junk.”
While DiCaprio conceded that, technically, these songs may sound good, they are missing the most vital element of art, which is the ability to forge a human connection.
He stated, “There’s no anchoring to it. There’s no humanity to it, as brilliant as it is.”
The topic of AI in the film industry continues to dominate conversation. In March, Brady Corbet’s Oscar haul for The Brutalist was somewhat overshadowed by the movie’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, revealing that he had used the AI software Respeecher to improve the Hungarian accents of lead actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones.
In spite of this, Brody recently spoke out against AI in Hollywood, stating at the Red Sea Film Festival, “There are new tools that are now available that will definitely enhance all our abilities to do great work, but there is nothing to replace emotion.”
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