Ben Affleck weighs in on AI’s impact on Hollywood

Ben Affleck has recently addressed artificial intelligence’s impact on Hollywood, saying it is highly unlikely that AI will destroy movie industry.

Speaking to Squawk on the Street co-anchor David Faber at this month’s 2024 CNBC Delivering Alpha investor summit, Affleck stated, “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,” said the Argo star.

Ben noted, “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 alludes AI’s capability and I think will for a meaningful period of time.”

The actor and producer explained that AI’s ability is to “dis-intermediate the more laborious, less creative, and more costly aspects of movie-making 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 want to make ‘Good Will Huntings’ to go out and make it”.

Ben reasoned, “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, large language models, basically work They’re just cross-pollinating things that exist. Nothing new is created,” pointed out the Air actor.

Ben compared AI to “craftsman” which is about “getting to know how to work”.

“Art is knowing when to stop. And I think knowing when to stop is going to be a very difficult thing for AI to learn because it’s taste, lack of consistency and lack of quality,” remarked the Hypnotic actor.

Meanwhile, Ben revealed one area of the industry might be affected with AI and that’s “visual effects business”.

“Because what cost a lot of money is now gonna cost a lot less. It is gonna hammer that space and it already is,” he added.