📰 Key Summary

Mark Wahlberg said at TechCrunch Disrupt that AI still has a place in the film industry “if used the right way.” The actor and entrepreneur-investor said he’s considering using AI in his upcoming Pete Rose biopic, where he’s set to star, to enhance visuals like ballpark scenes rather than replace real performances. He drew a clear line: he’s not on board with tossing an idea into ChatGPT, generating a script, and shooting it with no real actors involved — but if AI is just being used to “enhance” what’s already being produced, he’s all for it.

Wahlberg also emphasized that story is still the core of filmmaking. Looking back on the era of big VFX-driven movies he’s been part of (like the “giant wave” era of blockbuster effects), he said that kind of computer-generated spectacle felt groundbreaking at the time, but it’s hard to recreate that same sense of awe today — so he now cares more about films built on genuine storytelling than ones leaning on effects.

Asked whether he’d visited CAA’s (Creative Artists Agency) “The Vault” — a facility where actors get scanned to capture their body, face, movement, and voice to build an AI double — Wahlberg said he hadn’t been yet, but he’s open to it. He even said it would be “cool” if, down the line, his own grandkids ended up managing his AI likeness and image, letting him “appear” in good films long after he’s gone. As for his animated show Ted, he’s not opposed to it continuing for decades through an AI version of himself either — if audiences genuinely want to see it, he thinks they should have the right to.

💬 JudyAI Lab’s Take

Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt, Wahlberg didn’t take a blanket stance against AI — instead he drew a specific line: using AI to enhance scenes or other elements of production is fine, but having AI generate the script wholesale and ditch real actors is not. That “enhance, don’t replace” position lines up more closely with where most of the industry actually stands than either full embrace or full rejection would.

For AI builders, this points to a design principle: the threshold for user acceptance of AI usually isn’t about whether the technology can do something — it’s about whether AI is stepping in to reinforce the core value or to replace it. Wahlberg is open to the scanning tech behind AI clones, on the condition that humans decide how it’s used, rather than the tech automatically taking over for the person. If a product first figures out which parts of the experience users consider core, then decides where AI should step in, it’ll land a lot better than full automation would.

Next time you’re designing an AI feature, it’s worth asking: is this amplifying the user’s core capability, or quietly replacing it?

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