Disney’s Loki faces backlash over reported use of generative AI / A Loki season 2 poster has been linked to a stock image on Shutterstock that seemingly breaks the platform’s licensing rules regard...

I don't understand the controversy really. A graphic designer at Disney used stock photography in their design of the poster, that's pretty normal and extremely common. It turns out that whoever uploaded that stock image to the service used AI to create it, but how is that Disney's fault? I don't get it.

AI taking the job of someone else by stealing art aside,
According to Shutterstock’s contributor rules, AI-generated content is not permitted to be licensed on the platform unless it’s created using Shutterstock’s own AI-image generator tool.
The picture was not flagged as AI, so it was sold as real art against their TOS.
I don't think the artists or even the studio did this maliciously, but there needs to be discussion on how stock art should be vetted when used like this
- How is that Disney's fault?
- Can we talk about how Shutterstock only allows their own AI-generated images? Stock image sites will be the first to face the guillotine of AI generation, and this is how they protect themselves?
  Good riddance. I got my video card and several Stable Diffusion models that are way better than the prices they charge.
- More reason for Disney to just use AI generated art. I don't see the point of artists anymore other than being in the way of creating things. Seems like all they do now is sue everyone and help create tools to limit everyone else
Because the corporation is ALWAYS at fault, duh. This is the internet, there’s only one way to look at things
It is literally why stock photographs exist in the first place.
There's one that comes to mind: registration of works with the Copyright Office. When submitting a body of work you need to ensure that you've got everything in order. This includes rights for models/actors, locations, and other media you pull from. Having AI mixed in may invalidate the whole submission. It's cheaper to submit related work in bulk, a fair amount of Loki materials could be in limbo until the application is amended or resubmitted.
- AI collides with Copyright. The 2 systems don't work together at all.
  Because if an image is generated, who "owns" it?
  The person who wrote the prompt
  The AI that generated the image
  The researchers that developed the AI
  The artists the AI is based upon
  It just doesn't work. And AI is here to stay. So the only possible solution I see is that we revise the entire copyright system.
  Which is long overdue anyway. Disney has gotten away with too much already.
Why would they use a stock image of Loki? That already seems like its own copyright issue. Any image or likeness of a Disney character isn't exactly "stock".
- Read the fucking article, man. It's not a stock image of a character, it's the spiral clock background.
- It's just the spiraling clock in the background in question, not the Loki stuff.

Idk if it’s immoral or not, but if Disney is resorting to AI to keep the content slurry flowing that’s more a sign of growing creative bankruptcy than anything.

They're using as much AI as possible now that there's open revolt from many of the world's top CGI effects studios.

So people are mad at the show creators... because an image that some designer purchased for a poster... may have been AI generated... even though it's not confirmed... and even if it's true, that makes the designer of the poster a victim of a scammer...

So, what, are we just going full rabid at the very mention of AI now?

I think people are mad because they banned technology on the platform and then clearly continued to use it.
Rules for thee, not for me.
- Okay, so then why are people targeting the show instead of Shutterstock?
  Even then, being mad at Shutterstock doesn't make sense because the person who started selling something AI generated on a platform that doesn't allow it obviously wouldn't disclose that fact.
  And you can't just ban anything you think might be AI generated immediately, because then you just become the fuckwit mods of r/art.
anything to make marvel look bad. haters are just grasping at straws now

Quick everyone! Let's rush to defend Disney based on a technicality, even though they've been creatively bankrupt for years and no one watches MCU shows.

Loki is a legitimately good show, and I say that as someone tired of MCU stuff and not the least nostalgic about American comics in the first place (I grew up on Asterix, Tintin, the like).
- I'd even go so far as to say it's my favorite MCU show. I remember liking season 1 alot so I had high expectations for season 2. And I think they exceeded my expectations. Ke Huy Quan was delightful as OB and Tom Hiddleston & Owen Wilson had so much chemistry. Can't wait for the next episodes.
You can still think Disney is a shitty company while acknowledging that this is a stupid article/headline. They're not mutually exclusive.
And let's automatically assign blame with no evidence at all, based on the fact that you don't like the company.
The MCU shows (not you, Secret Invasion) have been the best thing they've put out over the past few years. I am speaking as an MCU addict.. can't really call myself a fan since the films mostly suck these days but I'll still watch em... yo ho ho

This article is so dumb that their entire basis for the artwork to be an AI artwork rests on the fact that there are squiggly lines. Like humans have never edited any photo with squiggly lines.

According to @thepokeflutist who purchased the stock image, it was published to Shutterstock this year — ruling out the possibility of it being too old to be AI-generated — and contains no embedded metadata to confirm how the image was created.

The image uploaded to Shutterstock was 2500 x 2500. Does any AI image generator even produce those resolutions? Sure, you can use super resolution, but that seems like too much work for AI generated artwork.

Also there were Twitter users pointing out how "4" on the clock is represented as "IIII" and not "IV". Have they ever not seen clocks with Roman numerals?

IV is the Roman numeral. IIII is like hatch marks or something, you don't usually see that on a clock.
- Do an image search. IIII is often used on clock faces because visual symmetry.
- YOU don't see that on a clock. Your experience isn't universal. IIII was often used for 4. There were no reduction rules when Roman numerals were in use. The idea of IV being THE way to write 4 is a reflection of modern education.
  Also, the idea the human clocks have IV whereas a computer trained on human images might write it as IIII when no training images are like that is weird.
- IV is used exclusively as 4 (except for clocks as someone else already commented) since the 15th century. Ancient Romans used both writing, IIII and IV.

Oh look, a clever advertisement for a TV show...

The image shows perfect spiral symmetry, which suggests it's not a fully AI generated image. It could be a base AI image that was edited by hand to form the spiral though.

The same base was likely used for https://www.shutterstock.com/pt/image-photo/surreal-infinity-time-spiral-space-antique-2262957649 as well. Same 'squiggles' it seems.

Online 'AI art detectors' are terrible and rarely accurate, so I wouldn't consider that as proof of anything.

This person has made more images in this style, I wonder how old the oldest one is (since this is one of the most recent ones). If the oldest similarly-styled one is too old, then it would be evidence that the image is likely not AI generated.

I think you’re giving Disney too much credit here. Siphoning from shutter stock or ‘free work’ while suing everyone over anything and pretending they are the victims is their brand. They are known for stealing even from artists they wont even hire. Olaf cough
Not to forget the actors are on strike for stuff exactly this. Their likeness being used by AI without being paid.
“It’s a small small world after all…”
- Why care about reality when you can just instead confirm your own biases? Reality is overrated anyway.
- Yeah but we don't know it was AI generated so it's all just made up bullshit unless you can provide some evidence.
  As far as I can tell all of the evidence provided is extremely dubious, and that's giving it the most positive interpretation. If I was being fair I'd say it's basically non-existent.
There's an AI technique called controlnet which can be used to achieve the perfect symmetry.
- It can also be done with Photoshop. For the record, I'm not claiming it wasn't AI-generated or at least AI-assisted, I'm just saying there's no real proof either way.
- There is no proof that that image was AI-generated. Various elements seem like regular old Photoshop techniques. That image could still be AI-generated or AI-assisted, but there's no real proof either way.

There's a chance this is manufactured outrage to help promote the show

Well it definitely needs better advertising. I only found out that season 2 was out because I happened to go on the Disney plus website and saw a link. I wasn't looking for it, I was actually going to watch Inside Out for the 923rd time.
I didn't even know they were filming.
- TBF the actors couldn’t do any press till the strikes were over. But yeah, I had no idea about it, it just popped up when I finished Ashoka

This whole post is a beautiful representation of the fact that pretty much no one reads anything more than the title.

Reasonable people do in fact read the full article, but they're not the same degenerates that feel to post an emotional and juvenile comment under the forum post.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A promotional poster for the second season of Loki on Disney Plus has sparked controversy amongst professional designers following claims that it was at least partially created using generative AI.

Companies like Adobe and Getty are also promoting ways for AI-generated content to be commercially viable, but it’s unclear if these platforms are any better than Shutterstock at moderating submissions that don’t abide by their contributor rules.

Some X users have speculated that it may have been used on sections of the image like the miniaturized characters surrounding Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, noting their awkward positioning.

Disney has ignored our request to clarify if AI was used in the Loki promotional art, and to confirm if the company had licensed the aforementioned Shutterstock image.

These tools aim to make things easier for folks with limited design experience, and are typically promoted to organizations who want to produce cheap art at scale.

Stock images are often used by companies because they’re fast, affordable, and accessible, reducing the need to hire experienced designers to make content from scratch.

The original article contains 655 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 73%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

they're not even bothering to hire artists, why would anyone watch this?

at least they still hire actors (for now (unfortunately for disney) )

If you’d read the article, it appears that this image was posted on shutterstock without being marked as being AI-generated, so this is less Disney not being able to help themselves, and more a person working for Disney inadvertently selecting an AI generated image because whoever uploaded it to shutterstock lied about its source.
- They didn't lie about the source, you can upload AI images to Shutterstock as long as it's made using the shutter stock AI trained on shutter stock uploads with all profits going to Shutterstock.
  Edit: I was mistaken, the image was marked as not using AI by it's uploader
  This is who's trying to regulate this btw, companies like Shutterstock, Getty and adobe.
  AI is a-okay, as long as you don't make it for free with an open source program.
Hilarious considering how litigious they are with their own works.
- It’s always one big clown show of hypocrisy with giant corporations. And then the government and their buddies give them claps on the back for a job well done and reaffirm their shitty behavior. 🤡
- The anti cheese prequel edits being taken down from YouTube was one of the shittiest parts of Disney taking over Star Wars for me.
Not to suggest that Disney is innocent or couldn't have done more to avoid this, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that the marketing art materials were outsourced to a dedicated studio who decided to use AI (possibly even without telling Disney).
Lots of outsource-focused art studios overpromise and overstretch to win their contracts, and then the artists end up having to cut corners to meet the crazy deadlines they've been given.
- You almost hit the nail on the head. Disney is not to blame in this situation at all. One of their designers went to shutterstock (totally normal) to buy and use some art (again, normal, industry standard), shutterstock sold the art that had been uploaded by an independent artist (that's how this all works).
  HOWEVER, the artist used AI to create his image and neglected to add the "Created using AI" tag to his art which is required by the terms and conditions of shutterstock.
  In this instance both Shutterstock and Disney got taken for a ride and are getting the negative press because of an individuals decision.
  You could technically blame shutterstock a little bit for not vetting what they host but as far as I am aware there are no reliable tools for determining if an image is AI with 100% certainty.
A lot of the same sentiments were had when any new technology comes out.
It’s just another tool that artists can use in their repertoire.
- Like lawyers and DMCA

More AI outrage. Who fucking cares? Edit: I don’t give a shit what you say in reply and won’t read it. Fucking sick of all this manufactured outrage about stupid shit when there are actual problems we should be focusing on.

I don't think it's fair to push out incorrect images when you have so much money you could buy a 1st world country.
You cared enough to reply. You seem really upset about this topic. Everything ok?
Anybody who has a skill they’re paid for?
Anybody who respects IP?
Anybody who can empathize?
go focus on real problems then..
just tell me how much of that real problem can you personally solve?
\ coz i know for me it's zero.
Cry harder