Leonardo DiCaprio Warns AI Is an Enhancement Tool Now, Internet Junk Later

Leonardo DiCaprio is doing the awards-season victory lap and also talking about AI like a guy who has been watching the same tech hype cycle we all have. He’s getting plenty of love for Paul Thomas Anderson’s film 'One Battle After Another' and, in the middle of that, he’s pushing a pretty clear line on artificial intelligence: handy tool, not actual art.

Quick status check

• DiCaprio is up for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Musical or Comedy at the upcoming Golden Globes for 'One Battle After Another' (yes, that category placement is where he landed).
• The film itself is leading the newly announced Globes nominations.
• He was also just named Time’s Entertainer of the Year and used that spotlight to dig into the whole AI-in-Hollywood conversation.

DiCaprio on AI: cool tricks, no soul

In his Time interview, DiCaprio didn’t come out swinging against AI outright. He actually called it a useful add-on for young filmmakers to create things we haven’t seen before. But he drew a hard line between 'enhancement' and 'art.' He pointed to those uncanny AI mashups you hear online — think pretend 'Michael Jackson covers The Weeknd' or 'A Tribe Called Quest’s Bonita Applebum sung like Al Green' — and said that while they can be undeniably clever, they flare up and fizzle out because they aren’t rooted in anything human.

'It could be an enhancement tool for a young filmmaker to do something we’ve never seen before... But it turns into internet junk. There’s no anchoring to it. There’s no humanity to it, as brilliant as it is.'

What he wants next from movies

DiCaprio also looked past the AI noise to the bigger creative question: with directors doing so much wild, ambitious work already, what’s the next shock to the system? He’s basically asking what could truly rattle audiences in a way we haven’t felt yet. Fair question — we’ve hit so many technical milestones that the next big leap might not be about pixels at all.

Cameron weighs in, and he’s in the same lane

James Cameron — who knows a thing or two about pushing tech — is on a similar page. He’s fine with AI as a tool, but not as a replacement. His take is that generative models remix what already exists. They can simulate style, average out influences, and spit out convincing blends. What they can’t do is summon a genuinely new spark that comes from a writer’s specific life or an actor’s odd little quirks. In other words: AI is great at echoing; it’s not built to originate.

One last thought

It’s a little funny that while DiCaprio is out here asking what will shock us next, he’s also front and center in the Globes race for 'One Battle After Another' — and in the Musical or Comedy slot, no less. Awards season gonna awards season. Either way, the takeaway from both DiCaprio and Cameron is pretty straightforward: use the tech, sure, but don’t mistake the shortcut for the art.