GoKawiilSign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Email address Sign Up Thank you!
At first, it felt a bit like Emmy-winning writer director Jorge Gutierrez had been living under a rock.
On May 27, Amazon announced that it had ordered an animated series, dubbed “Punky Duck,” as part of its GenAI Creators’ Fund, celebrating it as a “creative breakthrough.” The fund, a collaboration between Amazon’s MGM Studios and its Amazon Web Services, was designed to hand creators “access to professional-grade AI tools and funding” to “produce high-quality cinematic entertainment.”
Gutierrez seemingly couldn’t believe the power he’d been handed.
“The best way I can describe it is, it’s like you have sex, and then someone hands you the baby,” he told a panel during an announcement last week. “It’s pretty crazy.”
However, given the way the conversation surrounding the use of AI in creative industries has been headed, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that reactions to the news were overwhelmingly negative, with Gutierrez swiftly becoming the target of an astonishing amount of online outrage.
His Wikipedia profile was edited to describe him as a “sellout” and early attempts to allow his fans to vent their frustration on his Instagram account didn’t go over well, either, forcing him to delete swaths of posts.
Not all the derision was from the online peanut gallery.
“It is very seductive that something now exists that contains the collective works of millions of artists and wordsmiths all thrown in a blender allowing one to pour out on demand things based on suggestions and prompts,” wrote acclaimed voice actor Billy West. “You become a soul stealer, a grave robber of sorts. You are an artist! God gave you a far greater gift and purpose to share with others. We need your true self!”
The backlash was so extensive, Gutierrez ended up backtracking on the lucrative gig entirely, in one of the clearest signs yet that AI has become toxic sludge to much of the audience Amazon is trying to woo.
... continue reading