Nigerian filmmaker, Akay Mason, has said artificial intelligence-generated films cannot replace the emotional depth and connection audiences get from performances by human actors.
Mason made the assertion in a post shared on X on Friday, arguing that AI-generated productions lacked the emotional quality that audiences naturally associate with watching real people perform.
“AI films will fail. Every AI short film I’ve seen lacks the emotional connection we instinctively feel when watching actual humans perform. It just feels empty,” he said.
The filmmaker also linked the appeal of human performers to celebrity culture, noting that audiences often develop strong attachments to actors and stars they admire.
“Another reason is our tendency toward idolatry and celebrity culture. We love to worship our stars. With AI films, there are no stars to worship. You know the character on screen is nothing but a series of codes,” he said.
Mason, however, acknowledged that artificial intelligence has useful applications in filmmaking, particularly in handling some technical aspects of production.
“Sure, filmmakers now use AI as a tool to fix VFX, lighting, or sound issues, and that’s perfectly okay (heck, I even used ChatGPT to fix a few grammatical issues with this post),” he said.
Despite the increasing adoption of AI in the film industry, Mason maintained that the technology could not reproduce the human element that gives acting its emotional power.
“But if we’re being real, AI actors cannot replace a real actor’s performance, which is, at its core, the expression of the human soul,” he said.
