Cage would win the Best Actor award for his role in A24’s surreal comedy, Dream Scenario, and he would use his time to speak out against the technology.
Last year, Nicolas Cage partook in some seemingly common practices for special effects development as his body was scanned for his role in Spider-Man Noir. Cage’s experience, coupled with the ever-growing technology of AI, has made him feel uneasy. “They have to put me in a computer and match my eye color and change—I don’t know,” Cage said. “They’re just going to steal my body and do whatever they want with it via digital AI. God, I hope not AI. I’m terrified of that. I’ve been very vocal about it.“ Cage had also spoken out about his cameo in The Flash being altered due to the scan of his face being on file for the animators.
Variety is reporting that Cage used his platform at the 52nd Annual Saturn Awards to speak out against AI with his deep concerns. As he won the Best Actor award for his role in the A24 film Dream Scenario, Cage thanked his director for “creating this incredibly disturbing but hilarious world that he dreamt up.” He used this statement as a segue into a speech about AI, “But there is another world that is also disturbing me. 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 continued, “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. 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. 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.”
