Leonardo DiCaprio Says AI Can Never Be Art Because It Lacks Humanity: Even ‘Brilliant’ Examples Just ‘Dissipate Into the Ether of Internet Junk’

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/leonardo-dicaprio-ai-lacks-humanity-cant-replace-art-1236603310/

28 Comments

  1. He’s fully right, there’s some pretty ai art and cool AI videos but they definitely do dissipate into the ether fast af

  2. DmitriMendeleyev on

    Fr, AI is all impressive and hi-tech, and it can have its uses, but not in art.

    Like imagine going and watching ai generated titanic… might turn out well, maybe even good fun, but certainly not the same without the humans and their experiences that lead to it.

  3. AvailableReporter484 on

    The entire AI in entertainment issue will come down to audiences and the general public.

    If Viacom and the rest of the blood sucking worms who own the entertainment industry make trillions in sales, at the box office, etc then they have no incentive to ever stop.

    The real question is going to be: do consumers care about humanity in art?

  4. Gen AI fundamentally relies on statistics, having never actually experienced what humans did. It cannot make art

  5. Everyone who isn’t shitting prompts into consumer AI and patting themselves on the back for creating a work of art already knows this.

  6. Worst_Comment_Evar on

    Maybe the bigger issue is there is no serious care or focus on arts education, broadly speaking, that teaches why art has importance within the context of human experience. AI can replicate images all day long – usually the anchor of good art is emotional weight within the context of a piece. Yet we lag on teaching critical thinking, a key concept in appreciation of art. So, yeah, a computer can rob you of “art” the same way a computer can rob you of your money if you think an attractive woman on the internet cares about you if you pay to see her tits. Discernment is important. AI is not.

  7. Intelligent-Wall-614 on

    Art is a means by which humans seek to connect with each other. It’s more than just recycling other people’s ideas in new ways. AI can never do the former, only the latter.

  8. I share the sentiment but “humanity” is too vague. Dogs and elephants lack humanity (presumably bc they’re not humans), but they can create art. 

    I think this part may be a bit more insightful though: “And you go, ‘Cool.’ But then it gets its 15 minutes of fame and it just dissipates into the ether of other internet junk. There’s no anchoring to it. There’s no humanity to it, as brilliant as it is.”

    I read this as meaning that the artist (the person) is an anchor to the meaning and appeal of art. The staying power of (much) art is because we wonder about the intentions of the artist and think about who they are. Or we become attached to the possibility of their future creative work. 

    So while AI can make something “brilliant,” it has no staying power because it isn’t a person. I’m not sitting here wondering what Gen-AI is thinking about or what it will create next. Because it isn’t a person with intentions; it lacks humanity. 

    Dogs and elephants, while not people, do have intentions. I can wonder about their minds and look forward to what they will make next. 

  9. He is right. After all the rage settles down we will come to value human made and discount AI generated as junk.

    Unfortunately right now we don’t have systems in place to know the providence of a thing to know how it is made.

    A lot of good artists are going to have a bad time until we have those systems.

  10. Just like ai generated music lacks a certain “depth” I imagine AI artwork feels the same to an artist.

    I’ve played music a bit so I can tell that ai songs are a bit off but also most legit “art” I see doesn’t make sense to me anyway.

    Maybe there’s some way to process an image multiple times to make like layers or something I don’t know how you go about creating digital depth and even the process I described involves a human stacking layers in a certain way I guess.

  11. He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean AI is not an existential threat to the creative class.

  12. The whole fucking point of art is the human expression that goes through it. Art is a direct reflection of the thought, beliefs and history of the people who make it. How come I will get this feeling if I see something generated with a machine in less than 1 minute, vs an art piece that took months? It boils down to empathy and honesty the “AI” artists are the most selfish snowflakes I have ever witnessed.

  13. Because it doesn’t meant to do something on its own. It’s just an instrument, so you would waste less time on some things. If you know nothing and do shit, well, results is slop where you can see only ai

  14. AI could write a better star wars movie than we’ve got in the sequels or tv show from these “artists”