TED Talks Daily - How to stand out in the ocean of AI slop | Mick Mahler

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

AI artist Mick Mahler has a counterintuitive take: the more powerful the machines get, the less the technology actually matters. Showing delightful examples of his own art, from jazz-playing spiders to a Kafka-inspired beetle film, he explains how creators can use new technology to serve their vision (not replace it). The real question — the one that separates meaningful work from AI slop — is the one only you can answer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Most conversations about AI and creativity end up in one of two places, utopia or panic. But for AI artists and filmmaker, Mick Mahler, it's neither. Now, AI can make almost anything I can imagine. And it's getting better and easier to use every single day. That's amazing, but also kind of terrifying, right? But I mean, what happens when everything becomes possible?

Will anyone be able to just prompt a Hollywood blockbuster now? Or will we drown in an ocean of meaningless AI-generated content? Mick's been pushing AI tools to their limits since before most people knew they existed. From spiders playing jazz to Kafka-inspired beetle films, he's one of the most inventive voices in AI filmmaking. In this talk, he makes the case that the creators who stand out in this ocean of AI slop are the ones who use it to serve their vision, not replace it, because the stories worth telling are the ones only a human could imagine.

Filmmakers were never remembered for their tools. They were remembered for their stories, for their ability to move audiences, for their vision. I think when everything becomes possible, nothing matters more than your vision. And as you might expect, this talk is quite visual, so I will jump in at a few points along the way to describe key moments on stage.

If you're able, please visit you. at TED.com to watch the video version as well. It's all coming up right after a short break. And now our TED Talk of the Day. I've always been drawn to the uncanny, the slightly creepy. I make movies about spiders playing jazz on their webs or cockroaches building a rocket to fly to the moon and explore the universe. I love finding the human and what most people find a bit creepy.

So when the first AI images appeared, I was not creeped out. I was really curious. What new ways of filmmaking could this unlock? I started a YouTube channel to find out. Some of my early experiments were a nature documentary generated using one of the earliest AI video models. It was so early that it couldn't even remember

what happened half a second ago, which is why it looks like planet Earth on acid. I imagine, I mean, I wouldn't know. So my favorite early project, though, was using back at the time, cutting-edge AI tools to generate the story, the 3D models, and even the animation to create a sequel to my favorite Pixar movie, Ratatouille, of course. Not exactly Hollywood,

but I really loved pushing these tools to their limits to see where they break. But now, AI can make almost anything I can imagine, and it's getting better and easier to use every single That's amazing, but also kind of terrifying, right? I mean, what happens when everything becomes possible? Will anyone be able to just prompt a Hollywood blockbuster now? Or will we drown in an ocean of meaningless AI-generated content, what we now call AI Slop?

I'm actually more optimistic, and to show you why I brought three projects that really inspired me. When a new AI model was released that could transform audio clips into animation, filmmakers from Berlin went out into the streets and interviewed pedestrians about their meat consumption. And then they used this AI model to transform their voices into this. Hey, y'all, jumping in here, Mick plays an AI-generated video where the main characters are human-esque aliens. We see, one, the interview subject, walking through a grocery store called Alien Mart,

with a sign outside that says human meat, with a close-up picture of a man giving a thumbs-up. The alien walks through the aisles, picking up a cut of meat with text on the wrapping that says 100% human. The second voice you hear is from an alien doctor. I'd like to be a vegetarian. It affects my health. But, yeah, I do feel better when I eat it. We need the meat because

of our brains. Those things that are coming from to me is helping the brains. Now, a lot of people are creating these over-the-top sci-fi movie trailers with explosions and stuff with AI, and I get that. That's a lot of fun. But this stood out to me because

it's not that. It's rooted in reality. It's a with a funny twist, and most importantly, it tells a story. That's how I like to approach my AI projects too. Earlier this year, I felt really burned out from sitting at my computer all day long, testing all these new AI models. I started to feel a bit like Gregor Samsa from Kafka's The Metamorphosis. You know the book about the guy who turns into this beetle creature? Well, inspired by that, I went outside and photographed real Beatles

and then use these photos to train my own AI character model of this beetle. I then wrote an alternative ending for the story where Gregor, instead of dying alone miserably, reconnects with nature and learns that there's more to life than work. We then just went out into the woods and just filmed this on an iPhone. Here we see two videos side by side on the screen. On the left, we see Mick and a forest moving around in front of the camera. On the right, we see a beetle in the exact same location,

and moving exactly as Mick is. The AI is mimicking Mick's movement in real time. And using this beetle model, I was able to transform myself into Greger with just a few clicks. Meanwhile, people are now creating entire movies on their laptops. There's this growing community of filmmakers pushing the boundaries of AI, and to them sharing how they made it matters as much as the final movie. And I think that openness is really cool.

It really invites anyone to come in and join and start creating their own movies. So this is where we are right now. Soon, anyone will be able to tell any story without technical limitations. So what happens when everything becomes possible? I think, yes, we're going to see amazing new aesthetics, new narrative forms we've never imagined, and hear stories from people who couldn't find their audience before.

But we're also going to see, and we're already seeing, a lot more trash. Low effort, AI content to cut costs, deepfakes, misinformation, AI slob. But I think in that ocean of AI slob, authenticity stands out more than ever. Originality stands out. I think effort stands out. Remember the studio Ghibli trend when, like, everyone turned themselves into these anime characters? It was everywhere online for a few weeks, then very quickly vanished, because novelty creates hype, but gets boring fast. And I, too, was drawn to AI for the novelty,

but the more perfect and easy to use these tools become, the more bored I am actually by the technology itself, and the more excited I become about the real question. What stories are we going to tell now? Because filmmakers were never remembered for their tools. They were remembered for their stories, for their ability to move audiences, for their vision. But I think here's also the challenge,

because the tools always kind of shaped that vision, right? When we didn't have sound, title cards became a whole art form. CGI is too expensive. Maybe we need to actually build a part of that set. Early AI looks weird and creepy. Lean into that and make abstract nightmare fuel to make people laugh. Now those constraints are fading. And to avoid getting lost, you have to be more sure than ever

about what it is you want to create. I think when everything becomes possible, nothing matters more than your vision. So here's how I work now for my newer project. For my newest short film about a man who changes size with his confidence, we went story first, tool second. We knew that AI would make the visual effects possible, so we just wrote it, went out and shot it,

and then later we figured out our own AI workflow built on open-source models that you can run for free on your own computer. It's very, very nerdy. that allowed us to control every creative decision. And that's super important with AI to keep that control, because a lot of these AI tools will try to make creative decisions for you. Don't let them do that.

Think about the story only you can tell. Make it weird, make it unique, so that no AI could generate it on its own. And if you want, use AI as a tool to reach that vision, but never to replace it. Thank you. And that was Mick Mahler at TED Next 2025. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at TED.com

slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tonicaa Sung Marnivong. This episode was mixed by Christopher Faisi Bogan. Additional support from Emma Talk. and Daniela Bala Balerzzo. I'm Elise Hugh. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.

Thanks for listening.