Nollywood: AI Films Will Fail, Cannot Replace Human Actors — Akay Mason

Nigerian filmmaker Akay Mason has dismissed the idea that artificial intelligence-generated films could replace the emotional impact of human performances, arguing that AI productions lack the connection audiences naturally develop with real actors.

Mason shared his views in a post on X on Friday, saying the AI-generated short films he had watched felt emotionally empty compared with productions featuring human performers.

“AI films will fail. Every AI short film I’ve seen lacks the emotional connection we instinctively feel when watching actual humans perform. It just feels empty,” the filmmaker said.

Mason also pointed to celebrity culture as another reason he believes human actors remain central to the film industry. He argued that audiences often form strong attachments to stars, something he said AI-generated characters cannot easily replicate.

“Another reason is our tendency toward idolatry and celebrity culture. We love to worship our stars. With AI films, there are no stars to worship,” he said.

The filmmaker acknowledged, however, that artificial intelligence has useful applications behind the scenes. He said filmmakers could employ AI for technical tasks such as improving visual effects, lighting and sound.

Mason noted that he had also used ChatGPT to correct grammatical issues in his own post, stressing that his criticism was directed at replacing human actors rather than using AI as a filmmaking tool.

“Sure, filmmakers now use AI as a tool to fix VFX, lighting, or sound issues, and that’s perfectly okay,” he said.

Despite the growing adoption of artificial intelligence across the creative industry, Mason maintained that technology cannot reproduce what he considers the core of a human actor’s performance — the expression of human emotion and experience.

“But if we’re being real, AI actors cannot replace a real actor’s performance, which is, at its core, the expression of the human soul,” he said.