Nicolas Cage Warns Actors to Protect Themselves From AI: ‘That Is a Dead End’

Over the weekend, Nicolas Cage won a Saturn Award for his work in A24’s “Dream Scenario,” a surrealist comedy that saw the performer playing a college professor whose dreams infect the masses. He used part of his acceptance speech to warn against the dangers of artificial intelligence.

“I say, protect yourselves from AI interfering with your authentic and honest expressions,” the actor warned.

After thanking his writer/director Kristoffer Borgli for dreaming up the imaginative world of “Dream Scenario,” he then turned his attention to the threat of 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,” Cage began. “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 cannot let that happen.”

The actor 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 cannot 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.”

What is interesting is that AI has actually been used to aid a Cage performance already, as deep-fake technology was utilized for the 2022 comedy “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” in order to bring multiple Cages of different ages to life on the same screen. But that arguably enhanced his performance, instead of taking something away from it.

Cage is currently at work on “Spider-Noir,” a live-action television spin-off of his character from “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which sees the actor as a superhero in a rain-slicked 1930s New York. The show is expected to premiere in late 2025 or early 2026.

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