Leonardo DiCaprio - having just been named Time magazine's Entertainer of the Year and got himself a Golden Globe nomination for his part in Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another - has been talking openly about how he sees AI changing the face of cinema. In a chatty interview with Time magazine, this highly acclaimed actor and producer described Artificial Intelligence as a potential tool that can make new filmmakers really empowered to take risks and push the boundaries of what's possible ... but he's also cautioning that without that human element, some of these AI innovations could end up being just empty digital tricks.
DiCaprio's words come at a pretty interesting time in Hollywood, where the rapid advancements in AI technology have everyone from the top dogs to the newcomers scratching their heads. On one hand, as these generative tools get more sophisticated, they look like they could make filmmaking a lot more accessible - suddenly, anyone can produce visuals and sounds that were once only available to big-time productions. But DiCaprio is saying that true artistry requires a spark that only comes from being human: "It could turn out to be a game-changer for some young filmmaker to create something completely new and amazing," he said. "I reckon any art that's worth calling original has got to come from the heart and the soul of a human being. Otherwise, have you ever heard one of those mashup songs that sounds incredible and you think to yourself 'Wow, that's Michael Jackson doing The Weeknd', or 'This A Tribe Called Quest track done in the style of Al Green - it's bloody fantastic.' And for a second, you think 'that's cool'... but then it's gone - forgotten in amongst all the other internet junk. There's no substance to it, no real feeling, no humanity behind it - even if it sounds incredible."
The entertainment industry is getting increasingly mixed up over the double-edged nature of technology, and this view is a perfect example of that. Writers and Directors alike have been expressing concerns that all the material cranked out by machines is going to water down the very heart of storytelling by replacing real-life, weird and wonderful experiences with boring, cookie-cutter stuff. The fact that DiCaprio has managed to work with some of the most creative directors of our time - the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese - throughout his career is a testament to his commitment to stories that come from the heart and are born of real collaboration. His latest film, "One Battle After Another" does this beautifully by combining raw emotion with technical skill, all without taking the easy way out by relying on some formula or shortcut.
DiCaprio had been thinking about the future of film and what might come as a complete surprise in a business where change is the only constant. "I was just sitting there the other day thinking about what might come next in cinema, given all the things that have already shaken things up" - he said in a typical musing mode, and some of the current crop of directors are really pushing the boundaries right now and coming up with all sorts of different and innovative things at the same time - "What's going to be the next big astonishment, the next thing that really makes people sit up and take notice?". The secret to DiCaprio's three decades of taking on ground-breaking roles probably lies in that unpredictable spark of creativity that comes from being human rather than from a computer chip.
His views mesh with those of contemporaries like James Cameron, who reckons the value of AI lies in streamlining Visual effects, yet remains convinced it falls woefully short of true creative potential. Cameron said, "Generative artificial intelligence just can't produce anything completely new that's never been seen before; it's almost as if the models are just a clever trick - what they can do is pretty darn impressive. But the thing is, the models have been trained on every single thing that's been done before - there's no way to train them on anything that hasn't been done. So what you end up with is basically a mishmash of all of human art and experience, tossed into a blender, and out comes something that's roughly an average of all of that. So what you don't see is all the quirkiness of that particular actor - you don't get the personal character of that individual filmmaker's life experience or their oddities - that just can't be replicated. Filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, Celine Song and Denis Villeneuve have voiced similar complaints about AI - they're convinced it's all a bit of a curse that's threatening to undermine the collaborative heart of the film industry.
Leonardo's balanced take on things puts us in mind that, as Hollywood pushes the boundaries of what's possible with AI, it can enhance our tools, but it just can't replicate the messy, deep core of what makes films truly important. His plea for humanity sounds like a battle cry in a world more and more turning into a virtual reality - one that just might motivate the next generation of storytellers to tap into their creativity without losing sight of what's real.
Source: Deadline