With the acquisition of InterPositive, the startup founded by Ben Affleck, Netflix is not only adding a new AI brick to its production chain, but is also offering itself leading artistic support to make the technology more acceptable in an industry still marked by fears around employment, rights and creative control.
In announcing the acquisition of InterPositive, Netflix partners with Ben Affleck who becomes Senior Advisor, in an agreement whose financial conditions have not been disclosed. In this announcement, the technological dimension is only a congruent part of the story, the other, perhaps more important, relates to the story that Netflix is building around AI.
Buy technology, but above all legitimacy
Netflix’s press release is designed to develop a pro-cinema narrative, talks about tools designed for filmmakers, the protection of creative choice and an innovation supposed to remain at the service of stories. InterPositive is presented as a company whose mission is to use emerging technologies to protect and expand creative freedom. This framing is not trivial, Netflix knows that, in the audiovisual sector, AI does not only come into play in the area of technical performance, but also in that of acceptability.
In other words, Netflix decided to build a carefully calibrated storytelling to respond to Hollywood’s main concern, namely that of AI perceived as a means of replacing, standardizing or dispossessing professionals in the sector.
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Ben Affleck as interface between tech and creators
This is where Ben Affleck becomes central and serves as a cultural bridge between technology and creators. the actor, director and producer explains that he began in 2022 to observe the weaknesses of emerging models for cinema uses. He says he launched, with a small team of engineers, researchers and creatives, work on a proprietary dataset filmed on a controlled set, in order to build tools capable of understanding the visual logic, editorial coherence and the real constraints of a shoot. The promise is that this AI will not come “from above”, imposed by platform logic, but “from the profession”, thought in the language of directors and directors of photography.
A narrow, supervised AI presented as non-substitutive
The other strength of the story lies in the very scope of the technology. InterPositive does not put forward a general AI capable of generating everything, but more narrow models, focused on manufacturing techniques. Netflix and BenAffleck discuss uses linked to visual continuity, missing shots, background replacements and even lighting problems. Ben Affleck also insists on the idea of safeguards intended to preserve creative intention and keep decisions in the hands of the artists.
For Bela Bajaria, Chief Content Officer of Netflix, these new tools must expand creative freedom, and not replace the work of screenwriters, directors, actors and technical teams.
