Ben Affleck is confident AI cannot replace Hollywood movies for this reason

Last week, the actor spoke at CNBC's Delivering Alpha 2024 investor summit, taking time to share his thoughts on how AI will affect the entertainment industry. 

"AI can write you excellent imitative verse that sounds Elizabethan, it cannot write you Shakespeare," Affleck went on. "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 eludes AI's capability and I think will for a meaningful period of time."

"They're just cross-pollinating things that exist," Affleck said, referring to AI's ability to pull from a library of preexisting examples to build something. "Nothing new is created."

When a moderator argued that that's only true for the moment, Affleck insisted that it will be true for a long time to come.

"Craftsman is knowing how to work, art is knowing when to stop," he said. "And I think knowing when to stop is going to be a very difficult thing for AI to learn because it's taste."

Eventually, he said, the goal would be to use AI to help with the more technical parts of filmmaking so studios can create more content for viewers more quickly.

Affleck suggested that AI use could create a new revenue stream in the industry that would "replace DVD," with companies negotiating rights to intellectual properties for consumers' benefit - using the example that eventually, someone might be able to pay $30 for the technology to create their own episode of "Succession."

"Didn't expect Ben Affleck to have the most articulate and realistic explanation where video models and Hollywood is going," one person wrote.

"I have not been surprised by anything in the last 10 years like I'm surprised by Ben Affleck being so intelligent and articulate," another comment read.

Another person wrote, "He absolutely nailed this. I love how he talked about it, and it applies across industries, too."

Others argued that he's wrong about future AI uses, writing, "He's right in the short term about VFX, color, sound design and other production costs coming down, but he's DEAD WRONG in the long term. Soon enough, AI will replace the need for all humans and will create hyper-compelling films and games at an absolutely superman level."

"I think he is underestimating the rate of AI improvement," another X user suggested.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Affleck for further comment.