What Every Filmmaker Can Learn From Spielberg’s Take on AI

As artificial intelligence gets better and better, I am relying on the great auteurs of filmmaking to help shape our points of view on the future and how we should react.

That's why I was excited to see legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg talk about AI openly, and hear him offer a cautionary perspective on the rise of Artificial Intelligence and its implications for the future of humanity and art.

And fun to hear Colbert prompt him with Spielbergian bits to elicit answers.

Especially after he made a great movie that tackles this very subject.

Let's dive in.

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The Morality of Innovation

One of the things we don't usually get into on this site is the morality of AI, and the massive amount of resources and data centers it takes to get it to work.

Outside of its implications in film and TV, these are things we should be talking about because they're affecting the world around us.

In the clip, Spielberg expresses a deep concern that those leading the AI revolution are more focused on the "climb" than the consequences.

"I don't think it's about morality; it's just about climbing a mountain and getting to the top... to ask the question: 'Is this going to better serve humanity?'"

Then he references the philosophical dilemma from Jurassic Park, which feels very apt for the moment. These AI people are so preoccupied with whether they could build something that they never stop to think if they should.

Life Imitating Art: A.I. Artificial Intelligence

As I said up top, it's so funny to have AI rise up just 25 years after Spielberg took the topic on in his __2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

This is a movie that is beginning to mirror reality.

In the film, "Super Mecha" look back at their human creators as extinct gods who left them behind.

It's a powerful statement on how humanity is constantly evolving, and how, as we surpass our inventions, they are sort of left by the wayside to define our past.

Spielberg points to the character of David, played by Haley Joel Osment, who is the first sentient robot boy. In the movie, he's a symbol of something "touched by human hands," which the machines of the future eventually come to revere because humans no longer exist.

The "Ineffable" Human Soul

Spielberg also comes out strong, defending humanity and the arts. He argues that while machines can be programmed to generate content, they can never replicate the essence of human experience and the soul of what it takes to create stories that people identify with and care about.

He describes the soul as "unimaginable" and "ineffable," asserting that it cannot be created by any algorithm. And I think that's where many artists agree.

There is something we need inside us to connect to visuals and stories, and robots just cannot tap into that.

Of course, Spielberg admits to being "terrified" by the prospect of books, movies, and music being written by machines. For him, and I think for many of us, letting machines take over the creative process means losing the very thing that makes us human.

And that takes away the importance of being alive.

Summing It All Up

It was cool to hear Spielberg talk so openly about what makes us human and how powerful human stories can be, in the face of an era of AI. I loved his reflections on his own work and thinking about what comes next in all of this.

Let me know what you thought of the clip in the comments.