Tom Cruise Earns BAFTA Applause Defending Human Craft vs AI — SkimNews
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- Tom Cruise earned spontaneous applause at a BAFTA 'Life in Pictures' event in London after delivering a six-minute monologue on why human art beats AI in filmmaking, with an otherwise low-key audience breaking into applause mid-answer.
- Host Edith Bowman posed what she called the 'AI question' about how the technology will disrupt filmmaking, prompting Cruise's response that 'there is nothing like human' and that a blockbuster summer at movie theaters shows 'people want human experience.'
- Cruise told BAFTA members 'What you put attention on, you give life,' adding that he does not want to lose the craftspeople who dedicate their careers to making movies; he did not directly address the downsides of AI.
- Cruise has previously pushed for AI protections during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA negotiations and has repeatedly emphasized the importance of people over technology in filmmaking.
- The BAFTA event was staged to promote Digger, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (who read Cruise the script over two nights), in which Cruise plays oil baron Digger Rockwell trying to avert an environmental catastrophe he caused — set for an October 2 theatrical release.
Why it matters: Cruise's six-minute, applause-winning defense of human craft gives Hollywood's most bankable star a public platform to shape the narrative around AI in filmmaking as studios and guilds continue negotiating protections, and his October release of 'Digger' will serve as a built-in commercial exhibit for the theatrical experience he was championing.
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