Ben Affleck Calls AI Job-Loss Fears 'Propaganda' as Netflix Buys His Startup

Netflix paid $587 million earlier this year for InterPositive, the AI-focused filmmaking startup Ben Affleck founded in 2022 — and the actor behind that deal says fears that artificial intelligence will destroy jobs, or humanity itself, amount to "propaganda."

Affleck, whose net worth is estimated at $300 million, told Bloomberg he believes the alarm around AI collapses once people actually use the technology.

"[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.

The actor and screenwriter, known for films like Good Will Hunting, has become one of Hollywood's most vocal AI advocates. But when Bloomberg asked how AI figures into the production of his new movie Animals, Affleck declined to give specifics.

"I'm a little bit hesitant to point out what they are or even talk about it because in my business, we're trying to foster the illusion of reality," he said. "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."

Employment claim meets a shrinking industry

Affleck's central argument is that AI augments film workers rather than replaces them. "It's being used on films now where they have the same number of people—in fact, more people technically are being employed," he said.

His experience runs against the broader trend. Between 2016 and 2026, the U.S. motion picture and video production industry shed 49,000 jobs, a decline of 21%, according to Labor Department data.

Affleck is not uniformly bullish. His sharpest concerns center on education and overreliance — not job destruction.

"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."

In Hollywood specifically, he said he has not seen AI used to "smash costs or do heinous things."

A widening camp of AI-friendly A-listers

Affleck is not alone in urging the industry to engage with the technology rather than resist it.

James Cameron, the billionaire director of The Terminator, joined the board of AI company Stability AI in 2024 — a notable turn for the filmmaker whose franchise built its premise on machine uprising.

Actor Natasha Lyonne, known for Netflix's Russian Doll and Orange Is the New Black, cofounded Asteria Film Co., an artist-led animation and film studio developing copyright-friendly generative AI. She has argued Hollywood must help shape how the technology develops.

"I don't think it's super kosher copacetic to just kind of rob freely under the auspices of acceleration or China," Lyonne said at Fortune's Brainstorm AI conference last year. "We need human beings in AI so that the tools don't run us."

Matthew McConaughey has taken a more defensive posture. He has reportedly filed a series of trademarks covering his image and signature expressions to make it harder for AI companies or bad actors to simulate him without permission.

"It's not coming. It's here," McConaughey said at a CNN Town Hall in February.

"Don't deny it," he added in a recent conversation alongside actor 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."

The $587 million Netflix acquisition of InterPositive suggests studios are willing to put serious capital behind that thesis — even as Labor Department data shows the industry Affleck describes as thriving has been contracting for a decade.