Benedict Cumberbatch Says AI Is Turning Hollywood Vanilla — and Stripping Away What Makes Us Human
From Turing to today: The Imitation Game star wades into the AI debate, weighing the hype, the hazards, and what’s next.
Another day, another high-profile actor side-eyeing AI. After Guillermo del Toro said he would rather die than use it, Benedict Cumberbatch just weighed in during a Reddit AMA, and yeah... he is not exactly jazzed about where things are headed.
Cumberbatch on AI: not thrilled, mildly conflicted
Asked how he feels about the tech creeping into creative work, Cumberbatch called the whole thing "Pretty depressed, to be honest." Coming from the guy who played Alan Turing in The Imitation Game — a role that nods directly at the origins of artificial intelligence — that lands with a little extra irony.
"I feel we are in danger of vanilla-fying and perfecting and asphalting over the thing that makes us human, which are our fallibility, our mess, and our inaccuracy, all of which creates the tension, conflict, and necessary friction for original creative thinking to occur."
That is the heart of his argument: if you sand off all the rough edges in the name of speed and convenience, you lose the weird, imperfect bits that actually spark ideas. He also called out our appetite for instant results and endless content — that rush for easy output, he says, is bad news for how humans think and make stuff.
He is not anti-tool, he is anti-shortcut
To be fair, Cumberbatch is not saying torch the laptops. He thinks there is room for AI in the workflow, as long as the human messiness stays in charge and the tech is used in a way that does not flatten authenticity. He even pointed readers to Nick Cave's widely shared letter pushing back on AI-written lyrics, nodding to Cave's point that our limits and struggles — the blank page, the slow thinking, the failing and trying again — are what give art its reward and meaning.
- Where he is worried: AI making everything taste the same; the industry chasing instant gratification over genuine process.
- Where he is open: using AI as a tool without letting it erase the human hand, flaws and all.
- Who he cites: Nick Cave's letter on why human limitations matter for storytelling.
- Context worth noting: he once portrayed Alan Turing, which makes his caution hit differently.
Meanwhile, if you want actual human Cumberbatch
You can catch him on the big screen in The Thing with Feathers, now playing in theaters in the UK and Ireland.