Rob Bredow, the Senior Vice President of Creative Innovation, Digital Production & Technology at Lucasfilm, has a TED talk about the future of filmmaking, and yikes. If he intended to quell the fears that fans have about the use of artificial intelligence in movies, he failed spectacularly.
He discusses previous Industrial Light & Magic innovations in special effects, such as the CGI in Jurassic Park and the LED screens of Stagecraft. Phil Tippett, the legendary stop-motion animator, worried that CGI would make him "extinct," but Bredow points out that this concern was unfounded because stop-motion still exists. Blending old and new, he argues, is how ILM has worked for fifty years.
The exec then "treats" the audience to a short film that, he stressed, is not connected to any new film or show and depicts a probe droid on a brand new Star Wars planet. Here are some of the creatures that an ILM "animator" spent two weeks producing. This, he says, is "what happens when you put the latest AI tools in the hands of talented artists …"
An iguana, but pink, with feathers.
A sloth, with sparkles.
There is a blue lion, a polar bear with stripes, and a manatee with tentacles. Each one is either an Earth animal in an unusual color or two of them mashed together. There are some plants and a volcano. Nothing but the binocular overlay or two letters of Aurebesh looks like it belongs in Star Wars. Comparing this dreck to the groundbreaking work in Star Wars and Jurassic Park is insulting to everyone. Do better, Lucasfilm.
Previously:
• Illustrator discovers her art was used to train an AI art generator
• Do AI images violate copyright? A lawyer explains the Stable Diffusion lawsuit
• Dune subreddit bans AI art
