Ben Affleck gives his take on the role of AI in Hollywood

There has been no shortage of thoughts on the effects of artificial intelligence, with the most notable names in Hollywood – we’re talking James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Nicolas Cage, Robert Downey Jr., etc. etc. – giving their opinions and predictions on just where it could lead the industry. Now we can add Ben Affleck to the conversation, as the actor/director/you name it at this point recently gave his thoughts on both the limitations and dangers of AI.

Speaking at CNBC’s Delivering Alpha Summit (via The Hollywood Reporter), Ben Affleck took the stance that certain parts of the film industry will be safe from the harm of artificial intelligence for a while because, unlike monkeys with all the time in the world, it can never actually reproduce works of brilliance. “Movies will be one of the last things, if everything gets replaced, to be replaced by AI. AI can write you excellent imitative verse, that sounds Elizabethan. It cannot write you Shakespeare. 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.”

Ben Affleck added, “What AI is going to do is going to disintermediate the more laborious, less creative and more costly aspects of filmmaking that will allow costs to be brought down, that will lower the barrier to entry, that will allow more voices to be heard, that will make it easier for the people who want to make Good Will Huntings to go out and make it. Look, AI is a craftsman, at best. Craftsmen can learn to make Stickley Furniture by sitting down next to somebody and seeing what their technique is and imitating. That’s how large video models and large language models basically work. Library of vectors of meaning and transformers that interpret it in context, right? But they’re just cross-pollinating things that exist. Nothing new is created.”

Ben Affleck is putting a lot on the table with his comments on AI, particularly because he and Matt Damon launched Artists Equity in 2022, with the mission being to give more monetary meaning to those in the industry, from A-list stars to costume designers. But as we see artificial intelligence emerging in ways that we have long been skeptical of, its companies like Affleck’s that we expect to defend artists and not rely on AI.

As for those who might not fall under certain blankets, Ben Affleck does predict dire things for VFX artists due to the growing use of and reliance on AI. “I wouldn’t like to be in the visual effects business. They are 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. And maybe it shouldn’t take a thousand people to render something. But it’s not going to replace human beings making films.”

What do you think of Ben Affleck’s take on AI? Let us know in the comments section below.