Werner Herzog gazed upon the "empty and soulless" abyss of AI-generated movies

After a career observing and capturing the chaos of the natural world, in all its splendor and horror, the legendary filmmaker predicts that AI will be "the overwhelming face of warfare in the future."

By Matt Schimkowitz | September 29, 2025 | 6:31pm

(Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for ABA)

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The cold indifference of nature can never be reasoned with, controlled, or predicted. It is a pure, merciless hell that taunts humanity’s desire to cultivate the Earth for our own selfish purposes. And the artificial stuff ain’t so hot either, according to Werner Herzog. Appearing on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend (per Gizmodo) to promote his new documentary and book, The Future Of Truth, Herzog discussed the “empty and soulless” cinematic output of generative AI. “I have seen movies, short films, completely created by artificial intelligence,” Herzog said. “Story and acting and everything, they look completely dead. There are stories, but they have no soul. They are empty and soulless.”

“You know it is the most common, lowest denominator of what is filling billions and billions of informations on the internet,” Herzog said. “The common denominator and nothing beyond this common denominator can be found in these fabrications.”

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Herzog has complicated feelings about technology, noting that he doesn’t mind students using new tools as long as they understand the concepts. He did not “want to put [AI] down completely because it has glorious, magnificent abilities in science, pharmaceuticals, transportation.” However, it is, nevertheless, “already en route to take over warfare. It will be the overwhelming face of warfare of the future.” AI is like “a nemesis” because of the “cheating, pretending, propagandizing.”

O’Brien added that he appreciates the balance of light and dark in Herzog’s philosophy. The filmmaker explained that in his upcoming documentary, Ghosts Of Elephants, he illustrates this tension through elephants. “I show the glory and magnificence of elephants and at the same time, as you have suggested, yes, there’s this glorious side and this dark side,” Herzog said. “If we exterminate them, it will probably lead to our own self-destruction […]I do not want to live in a world without lions, period. I just want them around.”

“Is there an animal you hate that you’re fine if we get rid of?” O’Brien asked.

“Well, yeah, I’m worried about spiders.”