Baz Luhrmann
Filmmaker
Australian director of Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby, and Elvis. He curated a 2023 exhibition made with the AI robot artist Ai-Da, says he is “not scared of AI as a creative” and used it in Elvis — while warning of nefarious uses and calling for new rules and governance.
Why this score
How the formula works →- +2.5proCampaigns for AI adoption
- +1.9proHas published AI-made work
- +1.8proUses AI in their work
- +0.9pro3 pro-AI statements (forceful)
- −0.3anti1 anti-AI statement (mild)
Weights, statement counts, the ×1.25 multiplier for having a stake in an AI-impacted field, and the formula’s smoothing are already baked in — the points add up to the score, with evidence on the other side subtracting (direction-free evidence pulls toward the middle instead): Strongly Pro-AI · 6.8/10
In his words
In terms of politics and manipulation, yes, there’s nefarious possibilities there. But in terms of art, AI might be able to create your favorite actor perfectly, but you need the actors on the set — because they create the human condition.
Biography
Baz Luhrmann (born 1962) is the Australian director behind Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, Australia, The Great Gatsby, and Elvis — a maximalist whose “Red Curtain” films are built from spectacle, anachronistic pop, and total authorial control over design, music, and script. Four of his films sit among the highest-grossing Australian productions ever made.
Curating an AI art show in the middle of a strike
In spring 2023, as the WGA strike began and AI became Hollywood’s central labour question, Luhrmann was doing the opposite of keeping his distance. As creative director of Bombay Sapphire’s “Saw This, Made This” campaign, he collected thousands of public submissions, fed them to Ai-Da — the humanoid robot artist built by Oxford gallerist Aidan Meller — and staged the results at London’s Design Museum and then New York’s Chelsea Factory. He told Whitewall he had walked past the picket line on his way to the opening: you cannot ignore AI, he said, you have to look at it front on.
I want to be really clear that I am not scared of AI as a creative, as an artist. Am I concerned and scared that it might do nefarious things? Absolutely.
His confidence rests on a specific claim about what machines lack. Ai-Da, he argued, cannot adapt and cannot be flawed — and flaw is the raw material of art.
But there is one thing that AI can’t do — one thing that Ai-Da cannot do. She can’t really adapt. She also can’t be flawed. She can say the wrong thing, but what makes us artists and what makes us human is the flaws within us. It’s the chaos in us.
A user, and a regulator’s ally
Luhrmann is not speculating from outside the pipeline. He told Whitewall plainly that filmmakers already use AI and that he used some of it on Elvis for visual effects; as a writing instrument he thinks it can help shape something up, while doubting it can produce genius or anything truly original. He also took the actors’ side of the argument early, telling Esquire that AI might render a favourite performer perfectly but that you still need the actors on set, because they are what creates the human condition.
Where he lands hardest is on governance. Reacting to the AI-generated Michael Jackson vocal circulating in 2023, he made the point that the fake still depended on real people existing first — and then argued the law has to catch up.
There’s going to be the need for new rules and governance. You can’t copyright something that AI makes, for example. That needs to be looked at. When the camera was invented, everyone thought painting was over. Art just got more interesting.
The Ai-Da project drew criticism of its own — the robot has been faulted as a marketing device wrapped in an unnecessary feminine persona, and staging an AI art show for a gin brand during a strike over AI was not universally read as brave. Luhrmann’s answer has been consistent: engagement beats avoidance, and the camera did not kill painting.
Quote sources
- Whitewall, 2023(whitewall.art)
- Esquire, 2023(esquire.com)
Sources & further reading
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/baz-luhrmann
