The use of generative AI in creative fields has turned into a flame war — a nightmare of meaningless and derivative AI slop that we’re seemingly unable to awaken from. The internet is being asphyxiated by incoherent AI-generated drivel as tech leaders continue to assure us that it’s the future we’ve always wanted.
Even Hollywood hasn’t been safe from the onslaught, despite some of the biggest names in the industry publicly excoriating use of the tech.
Now, noted director Darren Aronofsky — a renowned filmmaker behind films including “Requiem for a Dream,” “Black Swan,” and “The Fountain” — signed a partnership between his AI studio Primordial Soup and Salesforce, TIME Studios, and Google’s DeepMind for an almost entirely AI-generated drama series about the American Revolution titled “On This Day… 1776.”
The first two three-minute episodes are already available to watch on YouTube, but we can’t in good conscience recommend anybody to seek them out.
Even an early teaser trailer suffers from all of the usual drawbacks of the tech, from uncanny facial features to scrambled, illegible text.
Users were appalled at the tasteless result, accusing Aronofsky of relying on the tech as a gimmick and refusing to pay real actors — while exploiting existing art by regurgitating it through AI.
The production appears to have little regard for historical accuracy, with historian Mateusz Fafinski noticing the AI bungling up the front page of the important 47-page pamphlet “Common Sense,” which was distributed by Thomas Paine to advocate for American independence prior to the Revolutionary War.
“Happy to see that there is no need to worry about the historical accuracy of new 1776 AI slop because it happens in the mystical land of Λamereedd,” Fafinski wrote in a post on Blusky, referring to the mangled letters visible in the series’ teaser.
Fafinski also pointed out that despite being fresh off the press, the pamphlets are already somehow “stained and foxed immediately after printing to look real and ‘old.’”
Those aren’t the only signs of an uncanny valley. Facial features appear massively oversharpened. Teeth are just a little too white, considering the lack of dental hygiene at the time.
An AI render of what appears to be Benjamin Franklin looks more like it was yanked out of a lower-budget video game, resembling Gollum from “The Lord of the Rings” more than the Founding Father, as PC Gamer points out.
Another user noticed that the siding of one of the buildings looks a touch too modern for the 1700s.
“Love that early American colonial vinyl siding,” they wrote.
The AI’s ability to gauge perspective also leaves much to be desired. One brief moment shows a group of people gathered on top of a distant hill. But compared to the height of a nearby building, the individuals appear to be well over 12 feet tall.
In short, attention to detail is clearly lacking — a sign that AI may not yet be up to the task, even for a beloved filmmaker like Aronofsky. Other netizens were similarly appalled by the poor showing, likening it to a “Coca Cola Christmas ad,” a reference to a familiar AI slop slip-up that blew up in the mega corporation’s face last year.
“A director should completely lose their career for this,” one user tweeted. “His Wikipedia should say former filmmaker from now on no matter what else he does.”
“I hope the Google money was worth the reputational damage,” another user mocked.
Aronofsky didn’t completely snub human actors, signing on Screen Actors Guild-represented voice actors for the slop fest. It was also edited, mixed, and color graded by a presumably human “post-production team,” according to a press release. American film music composer Jordan Dykstra has also signed on to score the series.
The people behind the project are adamant that the lazy reliance on generative AI is the future of Hollywood.
“This project is a glimpse at what thoughtful, creative, artist-led use of AI can look like — not replacing craft, but expanding what’s possible and allowing storytellers to go places they simply couldn’t before,” said TIME Studios president Ben Bitonti in a statement.
But considering the outpouring of criticism that the teaser trailer has already received, “On This Day… 1776” likely won’t be one for the history books. It’s yet another embarrassing instance of once-respected filmmakers cashing in by cutting one too many corners.
One thing’s for sure: the haters are having a field day.
“As a lifelong Aronofsky skeptic, I’m feeling insanely vindicated right now,” quipped playwright Ashley Naftule.
“What a terrible time to have eyes,” one YouTube user lamented.
More on AI slop: AI Is Causing Cultural Stagnation, Researchers Find
The post Darren Aronofsky’s AI-Generated Show Contains Garbled Neural Gore, Even Just in the Teaser Trailer appeared first on Futurism.
