Day: September 12, 2025

• Stephen Colbert said AI can mimic art, but it might feel “alien.”
• He compared AI-mediated experiences to processed food, missing key “micronutrients.”
• “The Late Show” host said machines can’t replicate the flaws that make art human.

Stephen Colbert doesn’t buy that machines can make art that feels human.

“The Late Show” host said on an episode of the “Possible” podcast published Wednesday that AI can mimic art but will always struggle to escape the “uncanny valley.” He asked whether AI-generated art will ever stop feeling “alien.”

True art comes from people because it fuses ideas with emotional experience, he said.

“Art is by humans for humans about being human. It’s not about ideas because ideas are constructs, and humans are not a construct,” Colbert said.

Humans “experience ideas and they have emotional responses to them,” he added.

Beyond art, Colbert also likened AI-mediated experiences to eating processed food: technically complete, but missing something vital.

“There is a growing suspicion that there are micronutrients of which we are not aware that we are robbed of,” he said.

Those “micronutrients,” he added, may lie in the very failures and imperfections of human connection. The flawed nature of human interactions is inextricable from our experience of the world, he said.

Colbert isn’t dismissing AI altogether. He said the technology could expand access to healthcare in underserved regions, where “a medical station manned by AI” might be better than nothing. But he remains skeptical of claims that machines can replicate human intimacy, such as in therapy.

Colbert did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

AI and art

AI has already begun reshaping the art world.

In Hollywood, studio giants have spoken publicly about their use of AI, pitching it as a way to both save money and make better films.

Lionsgate last September said it would work with Runway to experiment with its AI tools. AMC Networks followed suit this year. Amazon has talked about its use of AI to provide TV recaps and invested in Fable, a startup that lets people make their own TV shows using AI.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in July that the series “The Eternaut” was the streamer’s first to have shots fully generated by AI in its final footage.

“That VFX sequence was completed 10 times faster than it could have been completed with visual, traditional VFX tools and workflows,” Sarandos said about visual effects.

The release of OpenAI’s new image generator sparked a tsunami of Studio Ghibli-style memes and raised copyright concerns earlier this year. But OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, said in April that AI art is a “net win” for society.

Altman said in an interview published on YouTube by the founder and content creator Varun Mayya that AI can expand creativity by lowering the barriers to entry.

Still, many worry about unauthorized or ethically questionable uses of AI.

In June, Disney and NBCUniversal sued the AI company Midjourney, saying it stole their famous characters, such as “The Simpsons” and “Minions.” Midjourney denied the claims in its legal response.

AI is central to a lawsuit that says Amazon MGM Studios violated copyright in its “Road House” remake and used AI to replicate actors’ voices to finish the film, in violation of labor contracts. Amazon said the suit was without merit and that the film didn’t use AI-cloned voices.

• Ray Dalio warned that AI will increase inequality, benefiting the top 1% to 10%.
• Dalio suggested that AI could replace jobs, necessitating a redistribution policy in society.

Ray Dalio is worried about what AI could do to the world.

In an episode of “The Diary of the CEO” podcast released on Thursday, the Bridgewater Associates founder called AI a “truly fantastic” tool to leverage, but one that will drive inequality.

“There’ll be a limited number of winners and a bunch of losers,” he said. “It’s going to create much greater polarity, which we’re seeing through the system.”

It will lead to “the top one to 10% benefitting a lot. So that will be the dividing force,” the billionaire added.

Dalio founded Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund, in 1975. He has written several books on financial and economic history and has spoken frequently about the soaring debt problems in the US and China.

On the podcast, he said that in a world where humanoid robots and AI can do the jobs of accountants, doctors, and lawyers, people will “fight over about what we do, unfortunately,” and society will need some type of rebalancing policy.

“Certainly there and there certainly needs to be a redistribution policy,” he said. “I don’t think that’s just a redistribution of money policy because uselessness and money may not be a great combination.”

He added that he’s concerned that society may be too fragmented to figure out how this redistribution will work.

Dalio could be referring to a universal basic income model, which has become a keyword in conversations about artificial general intelligence and the need for human work. The system involves giving every citizen a regular, minimum cash payment from the government — no strings attached.

While the concept has gained traction from its roots as a utopian dream, it remains a tough political sell. It is also not yet clear if funding basic income long-term is possible in the US or elsewhere.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and AI’s “godfather,” Geoffrey Hinton, who have warned about AI’s potential to eliminate jobs and widen wealth gaps, have advocated for universal basic income.

“I think giving people money is not going to go solve all problems; it’s certainly not going to make people happy,” Altman said on a podcast last year.

“But it might solve some problems, and it might give people a better horizon with which to help themselves, and I’m interested in that,” he said.