Ben Affleck: Michael Burry's Unexpected Ally in AI Skepticism

It rarely hurts to have Batman on your side. Michael Burry may have the next thing after Ben Affleck revealed he's also skeptical of the AI boom. The Hollywood star, speaking on the latest episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, echoed the investor's skepticism of grand claims around AI and Big Tech's massive investments in the nascent tech. "I think a lot of that rhetoric comes from people who are trying to justify valuations around companies, where they go: 'We're going to change everything in two years, there's going to be no more work,'" Affleck said. "Well, the reason they're saying that is because they need to ascribe a valuation for investment that can warrant the capex spend they're going to make on these data centers," he added. The "Justice League" and "Gone Girl" actor said that historical adoption of new technologies has been "slow" and incremental." He said that tech companies are trying to justify their huge outlays by promising they'll enable new AI models that will blow away existing ones — but in reality, each subsequent model is only moderately better and requires far more electricity and data to run. "Ben Affleck is clearly a smart guy," Burry wrote in a weekend post on X. "So this does not surprise me. It sounds familiar and on point." Some allies wear capes Affleck backed up Burry's critique of AI's value on the podcast. He said the writing of today's AI chatbots is "really shitty" and "not reliable." "I just can't stand to see what it writes," said Affleck, who cowrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for "Good Will Hunting" and directed, produced, and starred in Best Picture winner "Argo." He predicted that filmmakers would use AI as a tool to save time and money — similar to visual effects — but it probably won't "write anything meaningful" or make entire movies. Affleck said that most AI users are using chatbots as virtual companions, so "there's no work, there's no productivity, there's no value to it." He also cast doubt on the social value of people engaging with AI friends who are "telling you that you're great and listening to everything you say and being sycophantic." Burry has struck a similar tone on AI in recent weeks. He's best known for his prescient bet against the mid-2000s housing bubble, which was immortalized in Michael Lewis' book "The Big Short." Christian Bale, Affleck's predecessor as Batman, portrayed him in the movie adaptation. After more than two years of virtual silence, Burry returned to X late last year with a flurry of warnings about a dangerous AI bubble. He also closed his hedge fund to outside cash, shifting his focus to writing financial analysis on Substack. Burry's central thesis is that AI stocks are overvalued. He's said they're overinvesting in microchips and data centers that will quickly become outdated, to power a tech that will become commoditized and won't yield a return for them, paving the way for large writedowns and sharp stock declines in the future.