Ben Affleck Reveals Why AI Can Never Outwrite Hollywood’s Top Screenwriters

So, with all the constant headlines about artificial intelligence coming for everyone’s jobs—including, apparently, the ones in Hollywood—a lot of people are on edge. But if you ask Ben Affleck, he’s not losing sleep over the idea that some chatbot is about to win a Best Original Screenplay Oscar.

Affleck recently dropped by The Joe Rogan Experience alongside Matt Damon, and—classic Rogan—AI and the recent Hollywood strikes came up fast. Rogan laid it out: the worry isn’t just about writers, but about how actors’ faces, voices, and entire identities could be repurposed or even outright stolen in the future. Throw in studios experimenting with AI-scripted movies and you’ve got a recipe for some very nervous humans.

Affleck’s Take: AI Just Isn’t That Good (Yet)

Affleck’s opinion is pretty direct. Sure, AI can spit out scripts, but his verdict? Mostly garbage. In fact, he went all in on just how unimpressed he is with the usual suspects—ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, etc.—saying:

'If you try to get ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini to write you something, it’s really shitty. And it’s shitty because by its nature, it goes to the mean, to the average. And it’s not reliable.'

(Anyone who’s asked an AI to finish their screenplay probably feels this on a spiritual level.)

Affleck did at least hand out a small compliment: AI can be handy for brainstorming or beating writer’s block. But he’s not at all convinced artificial intelligence will ever be able to make a real movie—especially not one that matters—'from whole cloth.'

Hollywood Still Has Tools to Fight Back

When the talk turned toward deepfakes and digital likenesses, Affleck reminded Rogan (and everyone else) that copyright and likeness laws aren’t going anywhere. You can’t just sell someone’s face or name—at least not legally. His advice for anyone worried about this stuff? Remember:

'You can watermark it. Those laws already exist. I can’t sell your fucking picture for money... You can sue me.'

(Tough luck, AI-bearded Joe Rogan lookalikes.)

He also pointed out that unions and industry guilds have a job to do here: make sure new tech gets used responsibly, not in ways that trample over people.

Where AI Is Actually Useful (And Where It Isn’t)

• Making movie magic without leaving LA: Affleck said AI could soon let filmmakers fake exotic or impossible locations, save cash, and skip the misery of shooting in the freezing North Pole. In his words: "We can shoot the scene here in our parkas... but make it appear very realistically as if we're in the North Pole. It’ll save us a lot of money, a lot of time."
• Fixing tedious, expensive, or time-sucking tasks: Affleck thinks the real upside to AI is in making stuff easier that nobody actually enjoys—the busywork, the budget-busters, the tech headaches. Not the core creative parts that actually make movies worth watching.
• Sparking a fresh appreciation for real talent: Even Rogan chimed in to say people might wind up valuing the work by actual humans even more, once all the AI-generated stuff floods the zone.

Change Is Slow—And Human Artists Aren’t Going Anywhere

Affleck isn’t buying into the panic about AI nuking the entire industry overnight. He says history shows that new tech doesn’t wipe out everything all at once—it’s usually a slow, step-by-step process, and humans adapt along the way.

He did wrap things up with a big-picture thought: AI might make parts of moviemaking cheaper and more convenient, but it’s always going to need a real person’s artistic sense steering the ship.

'It’s always going to rely fundamentally on the human artistic aspect of it.'

So, basically—AI might help out here and there, but directors and writers aren’t about to be replaced by soulless algorithms cooking up the next Oscar-bait drama. And if a bot does start winning major awards? Ben Affleck will probably be the first to call it out for being, well, 'really shitty.'