Nicolas Cage, the 60-year-old actor known for his eclectic roles and intense performances, has recently voiced his profound concerns about the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) on his likeness, especially after his death. In a candid interview with The New Yorker, Cage expressed his fears about the potential misuse of his digital image, revealing that he was scheduled to undergo a scan for a show and a movie he was working on.
“Well, they have to put me in a computer and match my eye color and change — I don’t know. They’re just going to steal my body and do whatever they want with it via digital AI,” Cage told The New Yorker. “God, I hope not AI. I’m terrified of that. I’ve been very vocal about it.”
Cage’s discomfort with the direction of creative industries is palpable. He questions the future of artistic truth in a world increasingly dominated by AI. “And 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?” Cage pondered. His concerns extend beyond his lifetime, as he worries about studios having control over his likeness even after his death. “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!” he exclaimed.
Cage’s apprehensions are not unfounded. He has experienced firsthand the manipulation of his likeness in films. In November 2023, he told Yahoo Entertainment that his Superman cameo in “The Flash” was altered from what he had originally filmed. “First and foremost, I was on set,” Cage said. “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.” However, the final movie depicted him fighting a giant spider, a scene he did not film. While he doesn’t believe AI was involved in this instance, he reiterated his stance on AI: “AI is a nightmare to me. It’s inhumane. You can’t get more inhumane than artificial intelligence.”
The use of AI in Hollywood has been a hotly debated topic, particularly during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, which lasted 118 days. Cage is not alone in his concerns. In September 2023, Sean Penn made headlines by arguing that studio executives who want to create AI versions of him should be willing to let him do the same to their daughters. “So you want my scans and voice data and all that. OK, here’s what I think is fair: I want your daughter’s, because I want to create a virtual replica of her and invite my friends over to do whatever we want in a virtual party right now. Would you please look at the camera and tell me you think that’s cool?” Penn provocatively stated.
The anxiety over AI extends beyond the acting industry. A 2023 Goldman Sachs report found that generative AI could lead to “significant disruption” in the labor market, potentially affecting around 300 million full-time jobs globally. White-collar workers, particularly in the US legal and administrative sectors, are most likely to be impacted by new AI tools.
The technology has pushed negotiations into uncharted territory, with the language used often sounding either utopian or dystopian, depending on one’s perspective. As the technology to create without creators emerges, star actors fear losing control of their lucrative likenesses, while unknown actors fear being replaced altogether. Writers worry about having to share or lose credit to machines.
The proposed contracts that led to both strikes last only three years. Even at the rapid pace at which AI is advancing, widespread displacement of writers or actors within that time frame seems unlikely. However, unions and employers know that ground given on an issue in one contract can be hard to reclaim in the next.
Emerging versions of AI have already infiltrated nearly every part of filmmaking. They have been used to de-age actors like Harrison Ford in the latest “Indiana Jones” film and Mark Hamill in “The Mandalorian,” to generate abstracted animated images of Samuel L. Jackson and several aliens in the intro to “Secret Invasion” on Disney+, and to provide recommendations on Netflix.
All sides in the strikes acknowledge that broader use of the technology is inevitable. That’s why they are looking now to establish legal and creative control. Actor and writer Johnathan McClain likened the battle to fights over automation in other industries, suggesting it foretells many more to come as technology improves. “It’s easy to marginalize what we do because it’s entertainment,” McClain said on the picket lines outside Warner Bros. Studios. “And I get it. But I feel on some level we are, as far as this tech conversation is concerned, a little bit of a canary in a coal mine. This is an important moment and we’ve got to really make a decisive stand.”
AI discussions between the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) went from a theoretical framework to a bitter battle that spilled into the public when the strike broke out on July 13. SAG-AFTRA released a characterization of the studios’ AI position that was widely shared by outraged actors on social media. The union claimed that studios wanted to scan a background performer’s image, pay them for a half-day’s labor, and then use their likeness for any purpose forever without their consent. They also wanted to make changes to principal performers’ dialogue and create new scenes without informed consent, and use someone’s images, likenesses, and performances to train new generative AI systems without consent or compensation.
The AMPTP responded by stating that its offers included an “AI proposal which protects performers’ digital likenesses, including a requirement for performers’ consent for the creation and use of digital replicas or for digital alterations of a performance.”
SAG-AFTRA emphasized the need to protect “human-created work,” including alterations to the “voice, likeness or performance” of an actor. The importance of protecting voice work is particularly notable, as the voices of the late Anthony Bourdain and Andy Warhol have both been recreated for recent documentaries, raising concerns among union members who make a living doing voiceovers.
In screenwriters’ contract talks, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) said it would allow for the use of AI, but only as a tool for writers to use in their own work. They do not want AI to affect the credits that are essential to their prestige and pay. The guild wants to prevent raw, AI-generated storylines or dialogue from being regarded as “literary material,” a term in their contracts for scripts and other story forms a screenwriter produces. This means they wouldn’t be competing with computers for credit or for an original screenplay Oscar.
The AMPTP stated that writers “want to be able to use this technology as part of their creative process, without changing how credits are determined, which is complicated given AI material can’t be copyrighted.” The studios emphasized that previous writers’ contracts established that any “corporate or impersonal purveyor” of literary material is not a screenwriter. “Only a ‘person’ can be considered a writer,” the AMPTP said. “AI-generated material would not be eligible for writing credit.”
While this position could assuage writers’ worries about sharing credit with AI, it could also lead to no one getting credit when they “collaborate” with AI. Modern screenwriting contracts, and who gets what credit, are already complex, with the guild often stepping in to sort out detailed legal language to determine whose name is preceded by “written by,” whose name comes before “story by,” or whose name follows “from characters created by.” Introducing AI into the mix threatens to complicate these terms even further.
Nicolas Cage’s fears about AI reflect broader concerns within the entertainment industry and beyond. As AI technology continues to advance, the ethical and practical implications of its use will remain a contentious and critical issue.
Source: The New Yorker, Yahoo Entertainment, Associated Press, Goldman Sachs
