Ben Affleck admitted he once thought Hollywood was “finished” after seeing AI but now he is embracing it in filmmaking.
The actor and filmmaker, who has used AI in his upcoming movie Animals, revealed that he wanted AI to assist filmmakers and workers in the industry to increse their creative workflow.
“At first, I kind of had a heart attack. I called Matt Damon, and I was like, dude, we have to do as many movies in the next few years because we’re finished,” Ben told Bloomberg.
He then began working on how AI can be used “in an ethical way” and how it can help filmmakers to work efficiently.
Ben came to a solution of making his own dataset so the technology could work “hand in glove” with artists.
So after rigorously working for eight months and shooting a big collection of footage and training AI models, he made AI tools for his company, InterPositive, that are meant to help creatives work more better.
The actor shared, “In order to obtain that information, I was concerned that most of the models being used had been trained on my peers’ — people I know — work and I was uncomfortable with that.
“I thought, that’s not really a viable business.”
Ben added that the AI is not meant to “replace people” nor “eliminate” them.
He further shared, “I don’t believe that there will ever be ‘Just type it in and make a movie that people want to see.’
“But the whole effort behind it was to do something ethical, to do something that did not displace people, but that allowed people in this economy and this world to benefit from this technology.”
Moreover, Ben revealed that he used an AI tool “for lots of things” in the post-production phase of his new movie Animals.
However, he did not share exactly how.
Ben responded when asked, “I’m a little bit hesitant to point out what they are or even talk about it because, like, in my business, we’re trying to foster the illusion of reality, right?”
Animals is set to stream on Netflix on October 8.
