Cate Blanchett Warns of AI Dangers: ‘You Can Replace Any Person’ — Highlights Writers’ Strike and Tesla Robots

Key Takeaways

• Cate Blanchett has spoken about what she perceives as the negative impact of some AI technologies.
• In an interview with the BBC, Blanchett said she was “deeply concerned” about AI’s impact on humanity.
• The actress questioned whether Tesla’s humanoid robots would bring about any positive change.

In a recent interview  with the BBC, actress Cate Blanchett said she was “deeply concerned” about the direction of AI, especially its ability to easily impersonate anyone.

However, although the future of her profession looks uncertain in a world where convincing voices and film can be easily AI-generated, she said she was more worried about the technology’s wider impact.

From Writing to Acting (and Beyond)

Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Blanchett said discussions around AI “were not mainstreamed until the writer strike really brought it into public discourse.”

Through that strike, which rocked Hollywood in 2023, screenwriters won protections against uses of AI that might threaten their livelihoods, but as Blanchett observed, writing is just the first phase of AI’s encroachment on the industry.

For actors, “the voice will happen first, and the image comes second,” she predicted.

“You can totally replace any if anyone, any person, forget whether they’re an actor or not.”

Resisting AI Impersonation

With AI impersonation on the rise due to increasingly sophisticated deepfake generators, technology companies and lawmakers have scrambled to adapt.

In October, Meta unveiled a new facial recognition tool designed to automatically flag celebrity deepfakes on its platforms.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in the U.S. have proposed banning AI voice impersonation entirely.

Tesla Robots

Aside from the steady creep of generative AI into the film industry and beyond, Blanchett was also concerned about technologists pursuing ideas that may not benefit humanity.

Referring to Tesla’s humanoid robots and the emergence of self-driving cars, she said: “I don’t really know what that’s bringing anybody.

“Sometimes it’s just experimentation for its own sake.”