An anonymous Marvel source has denied that the new Fantastic Four poster was made with generative AI. More on the story here.
Yesterday, a new poster released for Marvel and Disney’s upcoming The Fantastic Four: The First Steps attracted ire and no shortage of it, for looking like it was created in part using generative AI. Here’s a reminder of some of the bizarre inconsistencies in the poster, just as a reminder.
Not unreasonably, the assumption was that generative AI was used in part on the poster, as otherwise someone would have put together a piece of publicity with a whole lot of very odd errors all over it. This wasn’t, after all, just one or two things slipping through the net. There’s a whole host of stuff in the poster that suggests AI was deployed.
But not so, according to an anonymous Marvel spokesperson.
Chatting to io9, and it’s best I quote the article direct, “a Marvel spokesperson confirmed to the Wrap (as well as to io9) that AI was not used in the creation of these new Fantastic Four posters. No other details were revealed”.
io9 adds that ‘some fans might be quick to dismiss the denial, especially since Marvel has used generative AI in the past (in the credits of Secret Invasion). But the studio definitely knows lying about it would be worse than actually using AI so we believe it.’
Something, though, is awry here (although I accept that io9 and The Wrap may know something I donāt). The blanket nature of the anonymous denial doesn’t really put out the fire here. The entire poster certainly wasn’t produced using generative AI, but it still looks like a plug-in or something of its ilk was used somewhere to fill in the crowd sequence. Perhaps then filtered.
Looking at the poster again and again, one of two things have happened to my tired old eyes. Either a human being has gone through and introduced the kind of mistakes, in quantity, that we’re seeing via AI technology. Or that AI was used, at least in some small part, on the poster.
To some, I get this isn’t a big deal. But for those in the creative industries who are seeing their work all but stolen by AI training models, and then splurged out so that people can save money – who can forget the Coca-Cola adverts before Christmas – this feels like a line in the sand. A poster, then a trailer, then opening credits, then editing, then… well, you can see how this creeps up.
As better people than me have pointed out, the problem that generative AI in the creative industry is trying to solve is paying people wages. Weāve had art since the dawn of time, and now humankind is trying to outsource that to computers, to save some cash.
I think, given that Disney is a multi-billion dollar corporation built off the work of artists, it’d be useful in this instance if it could detail just how the Fantastic Four: The First Steps poster has come out in the state it has.
For the moment, we’re honour bound to report that Disney/Marvel has denied using AI to create the poster. It is an entirely convincing anonymous source denial.
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