Werner Herzog on the films generated by Ai: “ they look completely dead ”

The legendary filmmaker and “Here come honey Boo Boo” shell Werner Herzog can see beauty in just about everything, with two notable exceptions: chickens and art created by artificial intelligence. During an appearance on the podcast “Conan O’brien needs a friend”, Herzog spoke of the incredible possibilities presented by technological advances, but deplored the pure lifeless of its application in fields that require humanity.

A large part of the conversation between O’Brien and Herzog focused on the idea of ​​truth (adapted to a guy who has just written a book entitled The future of truth), which inevitably led them to a conversation on AI. Herzog, who is a fascinating mixture of a man somewhat removed from technology but also filled with endless wonder over everything, has not rejected technology immediately, but has serious concerns about this.

“AI, I do not want to deposit it completely because it has magnificent and magnificent possibilities,” he said, citing its potential uses in scientific fields. “But at the same time, it is already on the way to resume war. … It will be the crushing face of the war of the future.”

Nor can he find a lot of value in the generation of works of art.

“I saw films, short films, completely created by artificial intelligence. Story, acting, everything. They look completely dead. These are stories, but they have no soul,” he told O’Brien. “They are empty and soulless. You know that it is the most common and lowest denominator of what fills billions and billions of information on the Internet. The common denominator and nothing beyond this common denominator can be found in these manufacturing. ”

These AI manufacturing is a real point of fascination for Herzog. In his new book, according to an extract from the New Republic, he writes the AI ​​”sees his occasional errors, and arrives at strategies and decisions that were not programmed by humans”, and notes that his results arrive “with a small pinch of chaos and imprecision, as is also integrated into human nature”.

While speaking to O’Brien, Herzog explained how AI generates these lies and how we must navigate them. “And of course, cheat, pretend, propagandalize – all these things are like an enemy. It is there, and we must be alert there.” His advice? Just take nothing entirely at their nominal value. “Again, I say, when you are curious and access different sources, you will very quickly find that this is invented.”

In general, Herzog is not much for technology. He did not have a mobile phone as long as, according to his story, he had to get one after he could not recover his car (an 18 -year -old Ford Explorer) in a parking lot in Dublin without downloading an application. But it is not that he fears it. He just doesn’t trust her. “Everything that happens via your mobile phone or laptop, emails, no matter-you must be wary, you must doubt,” he told O’Brien. In response, O’Brien offered that he receives updates on his phone when his cats use the litter because he is connected to the Internet and has proposed that he is illegal so that everything is demanding that an application works.

Herzog explained to what extent the natural navigation technology is for young people, how efforts they use a phishing email that he could not identify. He compared the instincts of humans using technology to those of prehistoric men for food for food and learning to avoid toxic berries. “They had a natural suspicion acquired on things, and it was so natural that we can certainly assume that they do not hate nature,” he said. “They just knew how to sail. And it’s the same thing – you don’t have to hate the internet and the mobile phone and everything that comes to this new media, just maintain a full level of suspicion.”

All this comes from the greatest search for Herzog’s truth, which is at the heart of his new book. On the podcast, he assessed: “No one knows what the truth is.” And in some respects, it does not matter. O’Brien and Herzog share this in art, the truth is sometimes less important than telling a good story. But in the rest of the world, the concept of truth is just as elusive and the cause of conflict and conflicts. What truth do we operate?

“Truth is not a point somewhere in the distance,” explains Herzog. “It is more a research process, approaching, having doubts.” At one point, O’Brien added: “Emotions sometimes bring us to the truth that the facts cannot deliver.” That may be why has an art falls so flat. The truth lies in the emotion that work transmits and causes. AI has nothing to offer.