Buzzfeed published an article with photographs over the summer that were produced by asking an AI platform to replicate well-known Disney characters in the Tim Burton fashion. The final images portrayed Princess Aurora from “Sleeping Beauty” and Elsa from “Frozen” as though they were the main characters in Tim Burton’s stop-motion “Corpse Bride.” The piece garnered much attention, but not to Burton’s satisfaction.
Burton expressed his horror at the AI recreations of his recognizable style in a recent interview with The Independent.
Burton said, “They had AI do my versions of Disney characters. I can’t describe the feeling it gives you. It reminded me of when other cultures say, ‘Don’t take my picture because it is taking away your soul.’”He continued, “What it does is it sucks something from you. It takes something from your soul or psyche; that is very disturbing, especially if it has to do with you. It’s like a robot taking your humanity, your soul.”
The fad of fusing AI with cherished authors has gained popularity on social media. Recent months have also seen the rise of AI-made animations that imagine what “Star Wars” or “The Lord of the Rings” would look like under the direction of Wes Anderson. During his summer press tour for “Asteroid City,” Anderson was questioned about these clips, but he largely avoided the subject.
In an interview with The Times of London, Anderson stated, “If somebody sends me something like that I’ll immediately erase it and say, ‘Please, sorry, do not send me things of people doing me, because I do not want to look at it, thinking, ‘Is that what I do? Is that what I mean?’ I don’t want to see too much of someone else thinking about what I try to be because, God knows, I could then start doing it.”