Yahoo Lifestyle Nicolas Cage Sends Major Warning About 'Disturbing' Hollywood Trend During Speech
While accepting an award this weekend, Nicolas Cage took the opportunity to speak out against the use of AI in acting.
Cage, 61, won Best Actor in a Film at the 52nd Saturn Awards on Sunday, Feb. 2, for his role in the film Dream Scenario, as Variety reported.
“Thank you for recognizing Dream Scenario,” Cage said in his speech. “This is in fact one of my favorite movies I’ve ever made. I have to thank Kristoffer Borgli for his direction, his writing, his editing and for creating this incredibly disturbing but hilarious world that he dreamt up.”
"But there is another world that is also disturbing me," the Raising Arizona star continued. "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. 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 went on to say that the "job of all art," including film performance, "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."
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"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," he added.
"There will be no human response to life as we know it. It will be life as robots tell us to know it. I say, protect yourselves from AI interfering with your authentic and honest expressions."
Cage also paid tribute to the late David Lynch in his speech, sharing a memory from the filming of Wild at Heart.
“The enthusiasm in this room is not like any other award show and you remind me of one of my greatest collaborators, David Lynch,” Cage said. “When I was doing Wild at Heart, I was a very serious, young actor and I said, ‘David, is it okay if I have fun on this movie?’ He said, ‘Buddy not only is it okay, it’s necessary.'”
Many public figures have spoken out against AI in the past, including David Attenborough, who bluntly responded to the unauthorized cloning of his legendary voice after it was discovered in YouTube news reports, and the late Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda, who slammed faux audio bites of her father's voice as "personally disturbing."
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