{"id":618244,"date":"2026-10-02T07:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T07:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618244\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T07:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T07:44:14","slug":"ben-affleck-explains-his-approach-to-using-ai-ethically-on-new-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/618244\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Affleck Explains His Approach to Using AI Ethically on New Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter Ben Affleck<\/a> made some news<\/a> this week when he spoke about using AI<\/a> on his new movie Animals<\/a>, and now he\u2019s going deeper on his approach to use the technology in a responsible way. <\/p>\n

\n\tAffleck first spoke about Animals\u2019 use of AI at Bloomberg\u2018s Screentime event on Wednesday, saying, \u201cI used [AI] for lots of things in that movie. I\u2019m a little bit hesitant to point out what they are \u2014 or even talk about it \u2014 because in my business, we\u2019re trying to foster the illusion of reality, right?\u201d He added, \u201cBut 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

\n\tAt the Netflix film<\/a>\u2018s premiere on Thursday, Affleck told The Hollywood Reporter that his approach to AI is \u201creally simple, I wouldn\u2019t use something that trains on or has learned from any work that is copywritten, or that is an intelligence created by a peer of mine or somebody that I look up to. That was why we created a dataset that was proprietary, so that it wouldn\u2019t have to be extractive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued that he\u2019s not at all interested in making movies \u201cwhere you just type things and things come out\u201d because \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s ever going to happen in a way that anyone\u2019s going to give a shit enough to want to see it. I wouldn\u2019t want to be part of it if it was. What I\u2019m trying to do is actually bring this technology into our business, into a place where these companies who are guild signatories, who have relationships with the creative community, who aren\u2019t going to just go ahead and put you in a movie without your permission and without paying you \u2014 that can\u2019t be said for a lot of tech platforms and other spaces where we don\u2019t just abjure this technology and allow others to take it and dominate it, and then weaken ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m already uncomfortable with some of the ways some tech companies behave around image and likeness, and I feel that actually, as my thesis and what was borne out was, if you give this to people who actually make films, you\u2019re going to get way better results. And we have, and we did,\u201d Affleck explained. \u201cAnd like at Netflix, it\u2019s like, \u2018Hey, do you want to use this? Do you want to try this?\u2019 This is a discrete set of tools. It\u2019s not about making fake people or replacing anybody, ever. It\u2019s about another interesting post tool, and if you can see it or if you can tell what it is, like, you\u2019ve ruined it. Just like a bad visual effect, just like a bad performance.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tThe star has been quietly working in the AI space for several years now, and earlier in 2026 Affleck sold his AI company<\/a> InterPositive to Netflix for nearly $600 million. He directed, co-wrote and stars in Animals, which follows a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped and he and his wife (Kerry Washington<\/a>) get their hands dirty to come up with the ransom.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his lengthy red carpet chat with THR, Affleck emphasized \u201cwe do have an issue in Hollywood. It\u2019s not AI, it\u2019s never actually going to be able to do this, in my view,\u201d instead pointing to problems of theatrical attendance, labor stoppages and production tax rebates. He also pointed to his and Matt Damon\u2019s company Artists Equity<\/a> and the belief that \u201cin success, everybody is compensated in a very clear way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe said InterPositive is of the same philosophy, and \u201cif you are a director or an actor and you are contributing something that\u2019s your art, then yes, if you choose to use this technology to train from that, you avail yourself of that intelligence. You don\u2019t have to give it to the rest of the world. They are not entitled to that, but you can use the technology if everyone else uses it. If you choose, if you feel that it helps your film in one way or another, and there are places where it does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAffleck added that \u201cthe truth about AI that people don\u2019t talk about is it\u2019s like deeply and fundamentally limited in a lot of ways. It\u2019s not magic. It\u2019s not super intelligence. It\u2019s not sentient. That\u2019s just old bullshit. And eventually, we\u2019ll look back and be like, \u2018Remember when people were going around saying it was going to be Terminator and these machines were geniuses?’\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tAnimals hits select theaters and starts streaming on Netflix Oct. 9. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Ben Affleck made some news this week when he spoke about using AI on his new movie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,50,363,364,9896,3685,8723,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-618244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-animals","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ben-affleck","tag-events","tag-kerry-washington","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618244","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=618244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}