ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Secret Invasion's AI Art Intro, Explained

Episode Date: June 24, 2023

ScreenCrush Rewind tackles all the movie and TV hot topics, offering reviews and analysis of Marvel, Star Wars, and everything you care about right now. Hosted by Ryan Arey, and featuring a panel of industry professionals. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Okay, let's just say I had a crisis of faith. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie. As amazing as the first episode of Secret Invasion was, it's been mired with controversy. It included the death of a beloved character and a terrorist attack on Russian soil. But by far, the biggest controversy was literally in the opening credits.

Oh, I pegged you right from the start. Yeah, what was up with that intro? It is super weird looking. Like it was made with one of those like AI maker things. Well, that's because it was. The intro was created by Method Studios at Visual Effects Company with a killer resume that includes movies like Watchmen, Mad Max Fury Road, and many Marvel films. They used a custom AI tool to give the intro a specific look, and the reaction from fans has been mixed at best. Yeah, makes sense. Isn't there a writer strike going on right now to protest this exact same thing? There 100% is, which is why the timing of this couldn't be worse. Now, a little later, I'm going to talk to anime. producer Noah Sterling and IDW Comics editor Heather Antos about this, but first let me give you some background. As we've discussed in other videos, on May 2nd, 20203, the Writers Guild went on strike for the sixth time since its founding, and a month later, they are still going strong.

I bet old man crabs is going to break any day. Now, while the main focus of the strike is to get fair compensation for the writers who create the stories that we love, one of the other major concerns is preventing AI script writers from replacing real ones. Replacing the world's foremost Thespians with robots. While Method Studios was only used in AI-generated animation, the situation feels eerily similar to the exact scenario these writers are striking to prevent. I told you guys this is going to happen.

Beyond that, how the software creates those visuals is also a reason for concern. One of the problems, specifically with AI-generated art, is the fact that it uses data from thousands of neural networks. These networks use images from various artists across the internet, many, without permission, to produce art identical to their internet. own. So we're stealing stolen art? In some cases, it's outright copyright infringement, and in others, it's really close to the line.

Where more implications aside, it does kind of fit the vibe. Yeah, the intro looks cool and there's a portion of fans that agree with you, hence the mixed reactions. The visually deceptive elements of AI, morphine objects and textures back and forth, as well as the big feelings people have behind the technology, couldn't be more emblematic of a series about aliens secretly replacing humans. It was a risky creative decision by creator Ali Saleem, but definitely an intentional one. They said, it felt explorative and inevitable and exciting and different and in that way it's a success we can always tell when something digital feels off it's like the uncanny valley effect yeah like shy le buff swinging with all those monkeys and crystal skull exactly now compare that to the tank chase and last crusade where everything feels real that's actually my favorite action scene in an indiana jones movie because like i love old school world war two vehicles and military tactics that's actually how i first got into the game war thunder er what's that well war thunder is the most realistic comprehensive military vehicle game that i have ever played and they're the of this video. The game features more than 2,000 vehicles, including ships, planes, helicopters, and tanks. And you fight other players in PVP combat on the PC, Xbox Series S-RX, and PlayStation 5 or previous-gen consoles. I mean, every vehicle in this game is intricately detailed and historically accurate, and it makes the game incredibly immersive. The gameplay spans more than 100 years from the 1920s to today. Now, I love that there's also no generic hit points. You have to inflict actual damage to parts of the vehicles or their crew. This is the most

authentic war game that I have ever played. And the interaction between the air, naval, and land forces gives it this comprehensive tactical experience that, well, frankly, blew me away. So you can play War Thunder on the Xbox, PC, or PlayStation today. And if you click my link in the description, you get a huge free bonus pack, premium vehicles, premium account, boosters, and more. Just click that link and I'll see you in game where I will destroy you. Now back to the intro to secret invasion. It's easily the most controversial Marvel intro ever. Even some of the concept artists who have worked on the project have had pretty harsh public comments about this. Jeff Simpson said, Secret Invasion intro is AI generated. I'm devastated. I believe AI to be unethical, dangerous,

and designed solely to eliminate artist's careers, spent almost half a year working on this show and had a fantastic experience working with the most amazing people I ever met. Some fans have even proposed boycotting the show altogether. Wait, you're telling me that they're going to boycott a show made by a bunch of humans just cause some of them used AI. That's like skipping on 50 minutes a show for a 40 second intro. Yeah, when you put it like that, it does sound silly, but essentially, yes, that's the point. It's also important to note that creating an intro like that with AI takes more than just inputting a few prompts and calling it a day. As advanced as AI is now, if you typed Create Secret Invasion intro into some video GPT, you're just not

going to get what we saw on screen. AI has to be constantly coached to come up with the results as specific as this. In fact, Method Studios actually created their own unique visual language deemed scroll cubism just for this intro. An entire team of artists assisted with the process, all of whom were constantly inputting new information and testing multiple prompts to get to the final product. The product finally perfected. Now I know that our guest Noah Sterling, who has animated countless projects, actually knows a lot more about this process than I do, so I'm looking forward to hearing from him in just a little bit. Man, it sure does seem like these robots need a lot of help to do their jobs. That's kind of my point, Doug. I mean, look, to sci-fi nerds,

Artificial intelligence is not a new concept. Terminator, Star Wars, Rick and Morty, I-Robot, the list is endless, but you get the point. While tons of stories have cast the AI as a villain, there's just as many that show it in a more optimistic light. Congratulations, you are being rescued. It's easy to forget that characters like Jarvis, R2D2, Optimus Prime, data, are also fictional characters based on AI.

And when you think of AI as like data, it just becomes a lot less scary. When AI does play a villain, though, it's typically because the AI sees itself as superior to the humans and that they are of existing without the human race. I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through.

For instance, here's an AI-generated Ryan Erie. Welcome back. Screencrushers. Almost anything AI generated is fairly distinguishable from what humans can create, although the margin is getting thinner. Regardless though, AI can't work without human input. Malfunction, need input. Human interaction is at the very core of AI's design. Without it, it's literally lifeless.

Which is something to keep in mind when we're talking to people who think that they're Sarah Connor. You're terminated f***. Now, while the Secret Invasion intro is certainly one of the more unique intros we've ever seen, it still looks off. Like, there's no reason to put a nose like that on the side of Sam Jackson's face mid transition here. There's just some things that AI is going to overlook.

Even the most advanced forms of chat GPT have a hard time carrying a story or keeping facts straight without humans having to constantly correct it. If you douse me again and I'm not on fire, I'm donating you to City College. People worry that AI will replace talented artists and creators, but in reality, AI is a tool, not some capitalist Ultron. Not yet. Keep your friends rich and your enemies rich and wait to find out which is which. It works best when it's in a symbiotic relationship with the creator, augmenting the quality and speed of production.

In fact, AI could actually be the answer to many of the problems caused by the ongoing rider's strike. Head number that, earn our reverse card. Love to see it. Look, hate it or love it. AI integration not only simplifies the production process, but it's been doing so for years. The only thing that's really changed is the capability of the technology. The strike has already delayed numerous. projects, which could make AI vital in closing that content gap once the strike is over. So we can see our favorite shows sooner?

Exactly. Now, of course, this only works if these creators are willing to work with AI and if the creators are getting paid. Pay your writers. AI also makes big budget quality more accessible, which means smaller studios and indie creators can create cutting-edge visuals without breaking the bank. Also, you know, let's not ignore the moral panic that humans get every time you guys create a new technology. A little hurtful, but fair. CGI, for example, was an innovation that directly threatened prop makers, set designers, makeup artists, and more. Now, CGI is a part of every movie we see, for better or worse. It's meant to wind like a river.

And its prominence didn't necessarily kill all those other industries. I mean, heck, they even said streaming would kill the video rental industry, but, as you can see, business is booming. Anybody in anything? Anybody? Creating art is uniquely human, and AI literally can't replicate anything close without increasing interaction. I need human brains to survive. So, while controversy around Secret Invasion's use of AI and its intro has valid points on both sides, at the end of the day, AI isn't necessarily a threat when used as a tool,

which seems to be exactly how it was used here. And now I am joined by two people who know way more about this topic than I do. have animation producer Noah Sterling. You've seen his work on Marvel, DC, and all over the internet and various music videos. And we also have group editor of licensing at IDW, Heather Anto. So both of you have some expertise about art and artists and AI and animation, things like that. So I'm very excited to get your take on this. Noah, I just want to start with you. So can you talk about this actual intro to secret invasion? Like what kind of AI art is this? And, you know, could it have even been done by humans? Like, what was the means of creation?

here? Yeah, it's hard to know the exact process that they used. My guess would be is that they had a series of art pieces or still photographs of the different elements that were likely created by a human or photographed, and then they put them through an AI diffuser model, either stable diffusion or one of the other variants built on top of stable diffusion. And what you can do is go through the process of creating these weird morphi images where one kind of distorts and moves into the other based on the input data that you've put into the software. It's hard to know exactly which software that they used because there are a lot of different ways you can do that particular technique. But my best guess is that they had original illustrations, photos, or renders that they then put through the AI model to create that looping, warping, distorting effect. So just to follow up on that really quick, as an animation producer, I know you've touched on a lot of different genres, love your work, how could this have been made just by a human being?

The interesting thing about that type of animation is it's not meant to look like it was made like a human being. That style is notably meant to look AI generated, meant to look artificial, meant to look like a computer creating weird connections between the different images. You're getting strange artifacting that looks unnatural and distorted. And thematically, I'm sure that's what they were going with. They were trying to go with the thematics of something looking off. They were going for a facsimile of imagery that looks unnatural, that looks strange. And so probably baking in the process of creating this imagery using AI with the thematics of the TV show itself. You know, I looked at this and I thought, boy, if you wanted to do that with a human,

it looks like it's painted, it's hand-drawn, like that short film, that Oscar-winning short film, the old man in the sea. To me, it looked like something that would have just taken thousands of man hours to accomplish, and then AI can use these images to take the shortcut. I thought it was interesting that you said it would have to start with an image generated by a human. Is that because just from a technical perspective it would need to start as an image drawn by a human? Or is it like a legal, like a copyright thing? They couldn't have just told like an app to say, make me a scroll? So the copyright gets complicated

because you cannot copyright AI generated imagery because it is not created by a human. You can only copyright imagery and creations made by humans. But if you hand alter and adjust that imagery, then it is the work of a human.

But the line of where something is purely purely artificially generated and where it's created by a human. It is honestly kind of blurry because you can use these AI tools in a very focused direct way. You can train your own models. You can use it as a tool where you are very active in the creation. And I think that there's a bit of nuance that is lost in terms of how this imagery is made and how the technology works. Because I think that people's discomfort has largely to do with the lack of, you know, human input and human choice in the way the images are created.

And let's be real, if you're using something like Mid Journey or Stable Diffusion or Leonardo, a lot of the time, you're not acting like a creator or an artist. You're acting more like a producer or maybe a client that is commissioning. artwork. You know, as an animation producer, I give a lot of instructions to real animators on what to create and the specifications, but I wouldn't call myself the creator of the work that is then made. Conversely, you can use this technology in a way that is a lot more deliberate. You can train models on your own work. You can train them with a lot more specificity. where you are active in the way the technology is working.

And in that case, I would say you are the creator. You are using this as a tool as an artist, where the work is the output of a human. It really depends how you're creating the work and your relationship with the technology and the level to which you are making yourself a part of the process of creation. Now, Heather, your background is primarily in comic books. So it's not quite in the same AI art doesn't quite fall in the same

categories that Noah's talking about. Before we get into like a few follow-ups to what Noah said, what are just your general feelings on AI art? With people like making fun portraits of themselves with AI art or with corporations using it, where do you land on this? I mean, yeah, the conversation when it comes to commercial artists has always distilled down to what are the ethics and how this art is being obtained to try. the AI models. And when it comes to, I mean, Mid-Journey, for example, the developers in Mid-Jurney have very openly said that they are stealing the art, they are pulling the art, you know, and it's been a very big topic of debate across the board. These AI companies do need art

to train their models so that they can produce more art. But you can't, you can't like I can't steal another company's IP or steal another company's product and sell it as my own, right? That's illegal. It should be treated the same way for these artists. And I think that is where a lot of my questions come in for how, for instance, this opening crawl was made is, you know, are you taking art from artists that was ethically sourced to train this? You know, If you're hiring an artist specifically, as Noah was the saying, to create images to train the AI to produce this, you know, I, whether or not I personally agree with that, like, it is, at least it's coming from someone who's getting paid to do that job, you know. But if this is just a method to, you know, how do we get out of paying artists? we, you know, cut the man hours, how do we, you know, it becomes tricky. And that's where a

lot of artists today have issue with AI. What is the threat you think in your industry or in other industries about AI, you know, thicken their jobs away from artists? It's, it's because the average human doesn't care whether or not a real artist touched us or whether whether it is good, so to speak. The average human just cares about if it's good enough, right? And if I can get it cheap, fast, and good enough. And that's where you get a lot of, like, you know, everyone was using those profile image generators very early on, right?

Throw your photo in and mess around with it and make yourself a superhero, make yourself like a Van Gogh painting, right? And what we like, it all distills to ego, right? I get this image of me done in this cool way for free. I don't want to pay an artist $100 to do that when I can just throw it in this filter and have it done for me. And it's generally coming down to undervaluing what artists are contributing. And I think that is where a lot of the conversation tends to go. I think it's important to provide a bit of a broader context in which a lot of this new AI technical

technology is being introduced. And Heather, I'm sure you might have your own thoughts on this, but I think a lot of a big problem that artists are facing broadly, even outside of all the AI stuff, is that being part of the entertainment industry and part of the media industry is progressively, is supporting fewer and fewer stable careers and lifestyles. We're reaching a point where the entertainment industry is progressively run, as a gig economy where if you want to participate in it, you need to have a pre-existing support structure and be willing to do a lot of unpaid or underpaid work in the hopes that you reach a point where it will be sustainable as a career. And we are seeing fewer and fewer jobs like that in the industry.

Generally, this is a big reason that the writers Guild is striking right now because, you know, this entire industry is supporting fewer and fewer stable incomes and jobs. So that's already happening because of the gigification of entertainment. And then this new technology is introduced where is it going to, you know, replace the quality of work, the intentionality of a human artist? no, but it kind of, or at least not any time immediately soon, but it kind of doesn't have to.

And the concern is less that it will meet the threshold of a human artist and more that producers who are mostly concerned with cutting corners are going to do things like one of the things the Writers Guild is most worried about is not that studios are going to use the AI to write scripts wholesale, but more so that they are going to use the AI to say

write an outline or write a first draft of a script where they like input maybe a book they got the rights to tell the AI to turn it into a first draft and then you know pay a human to fix all of it but use the excuse that it is technically

now a second draft to pay that human writer less and you know that is likely to happen with art and imagery as well right now you know, work that comes out of an AI generator, it is not production ready. But it gives you a base to where you can make the process of that work, sustain, you know, the work of fewer artists, and so that you can underpay artists by giving them less work to do. That's already happening. I mean,

it's something we've seen on smaller scales. I don't think it's reached, you know, the really high scales of like you said art is not being production ready but we're already seen oh here I've screwed around with AI concept here's all my concept art for this project it's really cool now you artists copy it so when you say Heather when you say oh I've I've messed around with this now you are just copy it specifically are you speaking I don't want you to like get I'm not going to name names or anything but writers. Writers are doing this. Writers are doing that. I've seen producers doing it as well when it comes to like,

you know, this is just my general concept art. I'm taking it to, you know, the storyboard artists or the, you know, costume designers. We've already done all the basic design. As you said, no. And now you, you human, fix it. So you're almost eliminating an entire design phase. of everything and this. And artists themselves are like getting handed, here's AI that I trained off of your art. Now you, you know, finish it. And like that's where it gets really uncomfortable is when artists are seeing their work being used to train these AI, right? that they are not getting compensated for. So just to follow up on that, you know, there's a certain, if I'm going to take like a parallel to this, right?

There used to be this book Marvel sold called How to Draw Comics to Marvel way. And it was essentially a guide, and I believe they would train new artists on this of how to draw like Jack Kirby. Yes. And I think they continued to do this even after Kirby had left for, well, what he thought was Greener Pastures at D.C., but that's for another video. So is there something parallel to that, like in the world of art or comic book art? I mean, there's always been like house styles, right? You look at the 90s and everyone wanted to draw like Jim Lee, right? And that's, you know, if you want to get a job under these editors, these editors like this style,

train yourself to draw in this style. I would say that's an entirely different skill set. it's still like you've been getting a job, right? But in terms of like the company saying imitate Jack Kirby and will pay you less than we have to pay Jack Kirby, you're getting, sort of similar to AI art where you're getting substandard work, no offense to artists I won't name who were told to copy Jack Kirby and then years later became grades in their own. But you are getting the same kind of thing. It's the corporation saying it's not just a house style, it's do this.

Scott. Again, I feel like I would have to disagree. I think it's more like your self-checkout situation where we're going to have a self-checkout happen and then one person is going to oversee the self-check, all six self-checkout lanes. I think it's a much similar, you know, situation to that. Okay. So as long as we have a human being, it's kind of what Noah said that surprised me so much was that with this art, it likely started with one person, like an actual, like rendering done by a human being. So I think we can all agree that that's, like the dividing line that we need. So Noah, just, you know, this is all branching out into your field too because now there's like text to video and text animation and make this thing

claymation. And as Heather said, the models are being trained. They're getting smarter. So eventually this technology is going to come for animators and animation producers. How do you, how do you think that'll your field can stave that off from happening? Oh, we can't. I mean, like, listen, I don't know where the technology is at right now. It could be that it's already hit a bit of a plateau and it's not going to get that much better from here. Or we're still at the very beginning and it's not going to be long before, you know, you can output full movies with, you know, really clear fidelity. I have no way of knowing. Either, you know, we could be at the beginning, the middle, or the end in terms of where this

type of technology plateaus. I can say that right now, you know, there's a funny saying that we've been saying around the entertainment industry, which is that, well, in order for the clients to entirely replace us with these AI text to video generators, they have to be able to clearly articulate what they want. We'll be fine. Is this industry going to sustain fewer careers because the barrier for creation is just going to get lower and lower? Yeah, yeah, that seems kind of inevitable.

It seems like that is what is going to eventually happen. The point of art, even commercial art and advertising, is that it is a form of communication, humans communicating with one another, even if it's in a corporate salesmanship way. But I think my real issue is a humanistic one of I don't want to suddenly look around and every billboard, every piece of advertisement was generated by an AI based on an algorithm deciding what is going to be most visually impactful and appealing to me. And so instead of a human or even community of humans communicating with one another, it's, we're just surrounded by, uh, AI art imagery machines creating a facsimile of what they think, um, effective human communication is.

Heather, um, let's say for example, uh, given, you know, I think we all agree, like what Noah said is not controversial. We all agree, and the internet agrees that a human should be behind art. There's something just kind of icky and sky net about this idea of, you know, uh, mish. machines making art for humans, because eventually it's just going to be machines making art for other machines that spend cryptocurrency. We're not even going to be a lot of consumers anymore. So that being said, we're all against that. We can agree on that. God, I just gave somebody an idea somewhere. And I spoke. Yeah. So the matrix has begun. You did it. I know. That was my fault. Okay. So let's say I can put Heather Antos in charge of this. And I can say, Heather, you know, I'm the president of this part of the government or whatever that can, decide the rules and regulations. What kind of protections, right, would you think that would need to be in place? Because, you know, I talked earlier and Noah's talked about how AI can be a great tool. Like we were, you know, you were talking about AI writing scripts.

AI can't write scripts. They can do good research. AI can. I use an AI tool to help with our YouTube videos and algorithms and keyword SEO searches. So it's not like AI is all bad. It can be used as a tool. Where do you, where, what safeguards would you put in place to protect artists? I think it's point in blank if AI is going to be trained on your work, whether that's writing, whether that's art, whether that's your videos, whatever it is. If your work is being used to train and feed this AI, it should be done with consent and it should be, and if, you know, the person is going to be profiting off of this AI creation, there should be some sort of royalty fee, you know, credit. It's, you know, if I'm going to create something that's going to profit off of someone else, else's contribution, that person should be profiting as well. You know, otherwise it's just, it's theft. On the note of AI art being theft, I think it's a little more complicated than that.

And I think the usage is what matters, because the way that the AI models work is, you know, you're taking these giant data sets, you're putting them through, you're asking a learning, model to create connections and inferences, and then you're putting it through a diffusion process and creating something entirely new. When you create a derivative work using an AI image generator, you are technically creating a brand new piece. And I think that to, I think the language around calling it theft is a little unnewanced. Because I think that there serious issues with using the AI to copy someone's style and aesthetic and then commercially profit off of it. However, I think the ramifications of making any type of derivative work,

something that you need to pay for, would really limit creators, not just of AI work. Also, in my defense, too, Ryan gave me an impotent power. So I was just, obviously, it's a much more nuanced conversation, but if I have an infinite power, everyone whose work is being, you know, fed through this, through the diffusion, you know, would be, one, it would just be consensual. I think that's the biggest thing is, you know, all of these artists who have decade, you know, over a decade of work on deviant art or, you know, any of these other platforms where the platform just is universally agreeing, your art can be used to train all of this stuff, right? That's, that's not great, you know, whether or not it's in the terms and

services. That's where things get tricky for sure. I think if you're creating a commercial product, 100% I agree with you. Unambiguously, I think that a strong argument can be made that the derivative work from an AI is new art, right? It's not just simply a filter, or a derivative work, like taking pieces from someone's pre-existing work. It is creating a new thing. However, I think that people's and especially artists, visceral emotional discomfort that I agree with, that I empathize with, comes from the fact that I think for people, a lot of the people online

that create art using Mid Journey and other software like that, and especially using it to emulate the work of other artists, do so in a way that seems not to respect the artists that they're creating derivatives on. And, you know, you have this magic box that just sort of outputs these beautiful images. And the work that comes out of the magic box to a lot of the people engaging with it

feels more real than the human artwork that went into training it. And I think that's the distinction that makes so many artists really uncomfortable. Yeah, and I think right now, we're at like phase one of 100 when it comes to this argument, morally, ethically, legally.

I do stand by that AI is a great tool that to be used by a human. It's just not should, you know, I don't think anyone's going to disagree with this. It should never be used to replace a human. Well, thank both of you very much for coming. I learned a lot, and I hope everybody else did too. Noah Sterling, where can the people find you out on the internet?

You can find me on Instagram at Noah Sterling 42. And my website is nois sterling.com. And Heather Antos, where can the people find you? You can find me at Heather Antos on all of the things. And just a reminder to check out War Thunder on the Xbox PC or PlayStation today. And if you click my link in the description, you get a huge free bonus pack, premium vehicles, premium account, boosters, and more. Click that link and I'll see you in games.

And we want to hear from all of you about this. Did you like the intro to Secret Invasion? Do you think AI arts should replace human beings? Are you a soulless monster? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below or at me on Twitter. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. Thank you.