Ben Affleck is getting a lot of attention for his views on artifical intelligence.
Last week, the actor spoke at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha 2024 investor summit, taking time to share his thoughts on how AI will affect the entertainment industry.
“Movies will be one of the last things, if everything gets replaced, to be replaced by AI,” he explained.
“AI can write you excellent imitative verse that sounds Elizabethan, it cannot write you Shakespeare,” Affleck went on. “The function of having two actors, or three or four actors in a room and the taste to discern and construct, that is something that currently entirely eludes AI’s capability and I think will for a meaningful period of time.”
He continued, “What AI is going to do is going to disintermediate the laborious, less creative and more costly aspects of filmmaking that will allow costs to be brought down, that will lower the barrier for entry, that will allow more voices to be heard, that will make it easier for the people that want to make ‘Good Will Huntings’ to go out and make it.”
The A-list actor, who has gone on to build his own production company, Artists Equity, with longtime friend and fellow star Matt Damon, said AI is “a craftsman at best,” a tool that can observe other people building certain things and then learn to imitate.
“They’re just cross-pollinating things that exist,” Affleck said, referring to AI’s ability to pull from a library of preexisting examples to build something. “Nothing new is created.”
When a moderator argued that that’s only true for the moment, Affleck insisted that it will be true for a long time to come.
“Craftsman is knowing how to work, art is knowing when to stop,” he said. “And I think knowing when to stop is going to be a very difficult thing for AI to learn because it’s taste.”
He did admit, “I wouldn’t like to be in the visual effects business – they’re in trouble, because what costs a lot of money is now going to cost a lot less. And it’s going to hammer that space, and it already is… but it’s not going to replace human beings making films.”
Eventually, he said, the goal would be to use AI to help with the more technical parts of filmmaking so studios can create more content for viewers more quickly.
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Affleck suggested that AI use could create a new revenue stream in the industry that would “replace DVD,” with companies negotiating rights to intellectual properties for consumers’ benefit – using the example that eventually, someone might be able to pay $30 for the technology to create their own episode of “Succession.”
A video of Affleck’s comments was shared on X, formerly Twitter, and it quickly went viral, with many people weighing in on what he had to say.
“Didn’t expect Ben Affleck to have the most articulate and realistic explanation where video models and Hollywood is going,” one person wrote.
“I have not been surprised by anything in the last 10 years like I’m surprised by Ben Affleck being so intelligent and articulate,” another comment read.
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Another person wrote, “He absolutely nailed this. I love how he talked about it, and it applies across industries, too.”
Others argued that he’s wrong about future AI uses, writing, “He’s right in the short term about VFX, color, sound design and other production costs coming down, but he’s DEAD WRONG in the long term. Soon enough, AI will replace the need for all humans and will create hyper-compelling films and games at an absolutely superman level.”
“I think he is underestimating the rate of AI improvement,” another X user suggested.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Affleck for further comment.
