Keanu Reeves Warns Us About the Dangers of AI Editing Actors

Is there a limit to using AI tools to enhance an actor's or film's performance?

We have been talking a lot about digital editing actors’ performances. From deepfaking actors like Bruce Willis to virtually dubbing out curse words or translating films to another language, AI has become Hollywood’s favorite friend.

While there are good reasons to use deepfake edit performances to save your film from going way over budget, some actors like Keanu Reeves have a problem with this technology.

During a recent interview with Wired for John Wick: Chapter 4, Reeves spoke against deepfake technology in Hollywood, saying “When you give a performance in a film, you know you’re going to be edited, but you’re participating in that. If you go into deepfake land, it has none of your points of view. That’s scary. It’s going to be interesting to see how humans deal with these technologies. They’re having such cultural, sociological impacts, and the species is being studied. There’s so much ‘data’ on behaviors now.”

In his fight against the dangers of deepfake technology, Reeves confirmed that he has a clause in each of his movie contracts that prevent studios from digitally manipulating his performances.

“People are growing up with these tools: We’re listening to music already that’s made by AI in the style of Nirvana, there’s NFT digital art,” Reeves said. “It’s cool, like, ‘Look what the cute machines can make!’ But there’s a corporatocracy behind it that’s looking to control those things. Culturally, socially, we’re gonna be confronted by the value of real, or the non-value. And then what’s going to be pushed on us? What’s going to be presented to us?”

“It’s this sensorium. It’s spectacle. And it’s a system of control and manipulation,” Reeves continued. “We’re on our knees looking at cave walls and seeing the projections, and we’re not having the chance to look behind us.”

How we use AI in film and TV should be a tool that helps us enhance the stories we are telling, but Hollywood isn’t doing that. Instead, Hollywood is seeing AI as a solution to a non-existent problem. They are so committed to nostalgia, IP recognition, and something familiar that they are willing to take away anything real and meaningful, and strange in favor of something profitable. 

I should clarify that I am not against AI technology helping with film productions. AI tools exist for a reason and should help us make an easier workflow. What is dangerous is building a reliance on these tools. We need human minds and hearts behind these projects. We need human stories that speak to our existence rather than turning moon-eyed for spectacle filmmaking.

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