Nicolas Cage has voiced his fears about the rise of artificial intelligence in the industry, questioning what will happen to his likeness when he dies.
The 60-year-old has led the way on some of the biggest films in history, including National Treasure, Face/Off, Renfield and Ghost Rider.
Ahead of Longlegs, his terrifying new horror film, the Hollywood icon opened up about the use of AI in productions.
Speaking to Susan Orlean for the New Yorker, he explained that he was heading for a ‘scan’ for his new TV series, Amazon Prime’s Spider-Man Noir.
‘Well, they have to put me in a computer and match my eye color and change – I don’t know,’ he detailed of the procedure, before joking: ‘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.
‘It makes me wonder, you know, where will the truth of the artists end up? Is it going to be replaced? Is it going to be transmogrified? Where’s the heartbeat going to be?
‘I mean, what are you going to do with my body and my face when I’m dead? I don’t want you to do anything with it!’
A string of famous faces have spoken out against the threats that AI poses to the creative industries, begging for ‘protection’.
Concerns have become more mainstream following the Hollywood strikes last year.
Nic didn’t mince his words when he warned against the use of the technology in November, branding it ‘inhumane’ and a ‘nightmare’.
He was shown in a surprise cameo as Kal-El in the Flash, which was changed by CGI for the final cut.
At the time, he recalled spending ‘maybe three hours’ on set for the role, but it didn’t turn out quite how he expected.
‘What I was supposed to do was literally just be standing in an alternate dimension, if you will, and witnessing the destruction of the universe,’ he said.
‘When I went to the picture, it was me fighting a giant spider. I did not do that. That was not what I did. I don’t think it was [created by] AI, it was CGI, okay, so that they could de-age me, and I’m fighting a spider.
‘I didn’t do any of that, so I don’t know what happened there.’
‘I would be very unhappy if people were taking my art… and appropriating them,’ he added to Yahoo Entertainment. ‘AI is a nightmare to me. It’s inhumane.’
However, he clarified: ‘I don’t think it [was] AI. I just think that they did something with it, and again, it’s out of my control. I literally went to shoot a scene for maybe an hour in the suit, looking at the destruction of a universe and trying to convey the feelings of loss and sadness and terror in my eyes. That’s all I did.’
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