For all the anxiety about AI—from warnings that it will eliminate jobs to dire predictions it could threaten humanity—actor and screenwriter Ben Affleck says much of the fear is overblown and amounts to “propaganda.”
Affleck, known for films including Good Will Hunting, told Bloomberg that when people actually use AI, they tend to see it as “another form of computing that does tools and is a technological advancement,” rather than the nebulous, terrifying force some portray it to be.
“[Once] it moves from this nebulous, abstract, terrifying alien—‘It’s going to kill us all, we’re paperclips, and it’s going to wipe out half of white-collar jobs, all this propaganda’—and they actually see what it is, it’s like another form of computing that does tools and is a technological advancement,” Affleck said.
Affleck has been an outspoken proponent of AI in filmmaking. He founded InterPositive, an AI-focused filmmaking startup, in 2022, and earlier this year that company was reportedly acquired by Netflix for $587 million.
When asked how AI factored into his new film Animals, Affleck declined to detail the specific uses, saying he was reluctant to reveal techniques that help preserve the “illusion of reality.” “It’s like if you went to a magic show and the magician walked out and said, just before I start, I want you to know there’s another bunny under here, this guy’s a plant—it sort of ruins it,” he said.
Concerns about education and dependence on AI
Affleck, whose net worth is estimated at $300 million, said he is not unreservedly optimistic about AI. He worries about its effects on education and the risk of people becoming overly dependent on the technology.
“When I worry about AI, I worry about my kids in school, I worry about the 30% rise in the number of As given out at colleges in the last three years,” Affleck said. “I worry about learned helplessness. I worry about responsible use.”
That tension—using AI as a tool versus relying on it too heavily—has become central to debates across industries. Affleck said he hasn’t seen AI in Hollywood primarily used to slash jobs. Instead, he argues, it’s often augmenting work and, in some cases, “the same number of people—in fact, more people technically are being employed.”
Still, Labor Department data show the broader motion picture and video production industry lost 49,000 jobs between 2016 and 2026, a 21% decline.
Other film figures back engagement with AI
Affleck isn’t alone in urging the industry to engage with AI. Director James Cameron joined the board of Stability AI in 2024, and actor Natasha Lyonne co-founded Asteria Film Co., an artist-led studio aiming to develop copyright-friendly generative AI tools while protecting artists’ rights.
Lyonne told attendees at Fortune’s Brainstorm AI conference that Hollywood should help shape AI development rather than simply resist it. “We need human beings in AI so that the tools don’t run us,” she said, and warned against unchecked appropriation “under the auspices of acceleration or China.”
Actor Matthew McConaughey has also urged artists not to sit out the AI transition. “It’s not coming. It’s here,” he said in a CNN town hall, and has reportedly filed trademarks covering his image and signature expressions to make it harder for AI systems to simulate him without permission. “Don’t deny it,” he said alongside Timothée Chalamet. “It’s not enough to sit on the sidelines and make the moral plea that this is wrong. That’s not going to last.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.
Source: fortune.com
