{"id":617542,"date":"2026-10-01T15:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/617542\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T15:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:40:13","slug":"ben-affleck-praises-his-ethical-ai-use-in-new-film-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/617542\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Affleck praises his “ethical” AI use in new film Animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Animals, Ben Affleck\u2019s new directorial effort for Netflix<\/a>, has been a navigable challenge for the 54-year-old filmmaker. First, he lost best buddy Matt Damon<\/a> as the lead in the film as mayoral candidate Mark Kimball (blame The Odyssey), compelling Affleck to take over the role. That choice complicated initial talks to cast Jennifer Garner<\/a>, Affleck\u2019s ex-wife, who\u2019d have played Kimball\u2019s wife, before Kerry Washington ultimately joined the cast. Knowing when to adapt to avoid any irksome \u201cbaggage\u201d<\/a> for an expensive film production is a thing that mature adults do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, instead of us talking about how mature, nimble, and versatile Ben Affleck continues to be as a director\/actor\/prodcuer triple-threat, Affleck has lobbed the loaded subject of AI into the production like a live grenade, telling Bloomberg that he\u2019s used the generative tool \u201cfor lots of things\u201d in the film (per The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>), and just for funsies, he\u2019s being really cagey about the extent of its use in his film. \u201cI\u2019m a little bit hesitant to point out what they are\u2014or even talk about it\u2014because in my business, we\u2019re trying to foster the illusion of reality, right?\u201d he told Bloomberg\u2018s Lucas Shaw during the media company\u2019s annual Screentime summit. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of like if you went to a magic show and the magician walked out and said, \u2018Just before I start, I want you to know there\u2019s another bunny under here. [And] this guy\u2019s a plant.\u2019 You know, it\u2019s sort of ruined, right? But yes, we did use it, and in fact, I thought it was a good example (of how to use AI ethically) because it\u2019s a very human movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Setting aside the fun visuals of magician Ben Affleck hiding a bunny in his top hat, of course he would extol his own \u201cethical\u201d AI use, as Netflix acquired his artificial-intelligence startup InterPositive for a cool $587 million in March<\/a>, and of course he would use InterPositive\u2019s AI tech in his latest movie for Netflix, because why would he not do those things as a successful businessman and also director? \u201cIt\u2019s another form of computing,\u201d he said, \u201ca technological advancement that\u2019s really in keeping with the longstanding series of technological improvements we\u2019ve made in the film and television business.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ethical credo Affleck has apparently adhered to in the production of his streamer-boosting movie, per his official Netflix release in March<\/a>: No images via prompts, no human-replacing trickery, just post-production work designed to make the job easier that a well-trained employee might otherwise be willing to do for things like money and benefits. \u201cThe results of this foundational work were deliberately smaller datasets and models focused on filmmaking techniques\u2014rather than performances\u2014creating tools that artists can use, control, and benefit from,\u201d Affleck wrote. \u201cIntensive research and development led to our first model, trained to understand visual logic and editorial consistency, while preserving cinematic rules under real-world production challenges such as missing shots, background replacements, or incorrect lighting. We also built in restraints to protect creative intent, so the tools are designed for responsible exploration while keeping creative decisions in the hands of artists\u2014and ensuring that the benefits of this technology flow directly back to the story they\u2019re trying to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps all this AI use is clouding former Batman Mr. Affleck\u2019s memory of Bat-history. Recall the 2005 DC event Infinite Crisis, in which the Dark Knight employed an artificial intelligence named \u201cBrother Eye\u201d to surveil metahuman activity on Earth instead of working with the living, breathing members of the Justice League. \u201cBrother Eye\u201d was later taken over by even more unscrupulous individuals like a renegade Maxwell Lord, who used the AI to launch an army of murderous manhunter robots called OMACs, which was a whole damn mess. Read your book, Affleck!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Animals starts streaming exclusively on Netflix on October 9.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Animals, Ben Affleck\u2019s new directorial effort for Netflix, has been a navigable challenge for the 54-year-old filmmaker. First,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-617542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}