Marlon Brando predicted the rise of AI with terrifying accuracy: “It’s going to happen”
AI has become the latest existential threat against cinema, not that Marlon Brando would be surprised when he saw it coming from a mile away, making his eerily accurate prediction back in the 1990s.
It shouldn’t be too surprising that he was ahead of the curve, though, which was something of a habit for the legendary actor. He was light-years in front of everyone else when it came to embracing, adopting, and popularising a more naturalistic, authentic style of performance, and everyone else followed suit.
Audiences in the 1950s, and the rest of the profession, for that matter, had never seen anything like Brando before, which is why he continues to be spoken about in such deified tones. It wasn’t just the craft, either, with the two-time Academy Award winner also something of an online Nostradamus.
For one thing, he spent his free time in his later years logging into AOL chatrooms and starting arguments with strangers for no other reason than shits and giggles, and these days, you can barely scroll on any social media platform without seeing a bunch of randoms hurling insults at each other for kicks.
Beyond that, Brando also had an inkling of what the future held, and it was ominous. In the grand scheme of things, nobody of any importance, value, or merit gives a single fuck about Tilly Norwood and the like, but AI has been advancing at such a rapid rate that Hollywood has no choice but to sit up and take notice.
Several well-known actors have signed their voice and likeness rights over to AI companies so they can be deepfaked, digitised, and replicated in perpetuity, while modern films have also developed the nauseating habit of using CGI to bring actors back from the dead, a method that artificial intelligence has been eager to jump all over, with Val Kilmer set to make his return as a leading man from beyond the grave.
In an ideal world, the bubble will burst sooner rather than later, but with AI only becoming more prevalent and continuing to blur the lines between the real and digital worlds, Brando’s thoughts on the matter from three decades ago are starting to sound more and more like a prophecy.
“Actors aren’t going to be real; they’re going to be inside a computer,” he said. “You watch, it’s going to happen. Maybe this is the swansong for all of us.” Even for major blockbusters, digital models of actors are used for set pieces and stunts that are too dangerous, far-fetched, or fantastical to be performed in person, even by trained stunt professionals, so it’s a prognostication with many layers.
While we’re a long way away from a full-fledged AI takeover, which is the worst-case scenario that should never be allowed to happen in a million years, the continued attempts on behalf of the increasing number of slop merchants to convince the masses they’re actually onto something that could shift the paradigm was something Brando saw coming.
