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Donald Trump may have left his audience at the UN cold and baffled with his insistence thatAI should be renamed “Super Intelligence”, but one man did earn applause with his speech on the controversial technology…
Speaking at a career retrospective at a BAFTA event in London, Tom Cruise was asked about how AI could disrupt the medium of cinema.
The Mission: Impossible star embarked on a passionate, six-minute monologue about the importance of humanity in the arts and how this summer’s blockbuster season showed that young audiences are still keen to go to the cinema. He explained that the theatrical experience needs to be kept alive because it brings people together.
“I have nothing against streaming or anything like that,” he explained, but that seeing a film in theaters is simply “a different art form.”
“Here’s the thing: There is nothing like human,” said Cruise, noting that broader use of AI in filmmaking “is coming, and it’s going to happen.”
“But people want to see real things,” he added. “People want that experience. They’re going to movie theaters. I always believe in humanity.”
The Hollywood star is a well-known proponent of the traditional methods of making movies, insisting on doing his own stunts with minimal use of CGI.
Cruise concluded that in the face of AI, human creatives must “keep creating”.
His comments come at a time when Hollywood is wrestling with the existential crisis that AI can represent for creatives. It’s a divisive topic, with the likes of Martin Scorseseand George Lucas receiving backlash for their endorsements of AI.
Recently, Gal Gadot spoke about her upcoming role in the film Bitcoin, which has garnered controversy for using AI to create the movie’s sets and lighting. “I am afraid of AI, but I am going to be afraid and look away? No,” she said on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “I am afraid but I am playing with it and learning it and trying to educate myself. The train has left the station. You’re going to work with it or be out of the game completely.”
These comments prompted backlash, as AI is seen as robbing creatives on their jobs on film sets.
Elsewhere, plenty of creatives like Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Backrooms director Kane Parsons and Guillermo del Toro have remained steadfast in their disapproval of the use of AI in film.
Tom Cruise’s appearence at the BAFTA event on Monday coincided with his upcoming movie Digger, directed Alejandro González Iñárritu. The new film, which is already generating plenty of awards buzz, sees Cruise play an eccentric billionaire who embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is the saviour of humanity.
Digger is released on 2 October.
Additional sources • Deadline