Leonardo DiCaprio is sharing his deep thoughts on artificial intelligence, acknowledging its potential as an "enhancement tool" while firmly asserting that it can never be deemed art. The Oscar-winning actor recently sat down with Time magazine, named Entertainer of the Year, and delved into the controversial technology with a mix of both foreboding and optimism. "While he mourns the fact that talented and experienced people could lose their jobs due to AI," writes Time's Stephanie Zacharek, DiCaprio also sees the potential for AI to be a catalyst for young filmmakers to create something truly unique and unseen before.
However, the One Battle After Another star quickly adds that the technology will never be considered art because it lacks humanity. "I believe anything genuinely considered art must originate from a human being," DiCaprio continues. "Think of those mashup songs that are absolutely brilliant and you think, 'Oh my God, this is Michael Jackson doing the Weeknd,' or 'This is funk from A Tribe Called Quest's 'Bonita Applebum' done in 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. There's no anchoring to it. There's no humanity to it, as brilliant as it is."
As AI looms over Hollywood, many industry creatives have slammed the technology. Earlier this year, SAG-AFTRA and several actors criticized the news that a newly launched AI talent studio was looking to get representation for a computer-generated actress named Tilly Norwood. More recently, Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro declared at the Gotham Awards that his movie Frankenstein, starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, was made "for humans, by humans," before leaving the stage with a mic-drop declaration of "fuck AI."
