Nicolas Cage condemns Artificial Intelligence in scathing statement
Following winning ‘Best Actor in a Film’ for Dream Scenario at the Saturn Awards, Nicolas Cage delivered a scathing statement against the use of artificial intelligence.
In his speech, he acknowledged the Saturn Awards for recognising Dream Scenario, saying that it is one of his favourite films he’s ever done. He gave particular thanks to Kristoffer Borgli for directing, writing, and editing the movie.
“There is another world that is also disturbing me,” said Cage, changing the tone of his speech slightly and directing it towards the use of AI in art, “It’s happening right now around all of us: the new AI world. I am a big believer in not letting robots dream for us. Robots cannot reflect the human condition for us.”
Cage continued, “That is a dead end if an actor lets one AI robot manipulate his or her performance even a little bit, an inch will eventually become a mile and all integrity, purity and truth of art will be replaced by financial interests only. We can’t let that happen.”
Cage then started to talk about what he believes the true role of an actor is. “The job of all art in my view, film performance included, is to hold a mirror to the external and internal stories of the human condition through the very human thoughtful and emotional process of recreation,” he said, “A robot can’t do that. If we let robots do that, it will lack all heart and eventually lose edge and turn to mush.”
Cage’s comments may have been directed towards the film The Brutalist, which has come under fire recently as the director, Brady Cobert, confirmed that the film used AI to help the actors with their Hungarian accents.
The movie’s editor, Dávid Jancsó, confirmed that he recorded dialogue that was used in the film whenever the actors spoke Hungarian. “Most of their Hungarian dialogue has a part of me talking in there,” he said, adding that he was “careful about keeping [the actors’] performances” by “mainly just replacing letters here and there.”
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