Spielberg Says AI Has No Soul
Steven Spielberg, a man who knows a thing or two about films, does not want a robot in the writer’s chair.
Spielberg, the legendary director behind Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T. and the 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence, said he does not use AI as the “final word on anything creative.”
Speaking on Michelle Obama’s podcast IMO, Spielberg discussed the looming presence of AI in the entertainment industry and warned that it should remain a tool, not a replacement for human imagination.
“I don’t believe there is any substitute for the soul. I don’t think that’s an algorithm that is inventible,” he said.
He added that AI should not be telling filmmakers how to write dialogue, where to put the camera, or how to shape a story.
“If AI wants to help me find locations, that’s great. Saves us some legwork,” Spielberg said. “Use AI as a tool, but do not use AI as the final word on anything creative.”
This is, of course, coming from the man who pushed early computer graphics to their absolute limits in 1993 to bring Jurassic Park to life.
It is also worth revisiting A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Spielberg’s adaptation of Brian Aldiss’s 1969 sci-fi short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long.” Stanley Kubrick discovered the story in the mid-1970s and spent more than two decades developing it before the project eventually passed to Spielberg after Kubrick’s death.
The film remains a strange, haunting exploration of what it means to be human, which is probably why Spielberg is not especially keen on handing the soul of cinema over to a machine just yet.