Disney has been called out for using generative AI to create artwork used in the latest Loki Season 2 marketing. One piece of art in particular is the Loki Season 2 poster which includes Loki’s head with a spiral path around it in front of a clock in the background.
According to illustrator Katria Raden, the image shows all signs of AI generative work. She claims that the clock in the background is a clear giveaway of this due to its “meaningless squiggles” around the artwork. AI tends to create these strange artefacts when generating images.
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While an AI poster isn’t the issue here, it is more the fact that AI image generators are trained to create content based on other artist portfolios. So instead of Disney paying an artist to create a cool poster for the show, the studio can simply generate nonsense in a few minutes and have AI compile the work by referencing actual original art online.
This is not the first time Disney has been called out for this. The studio received some backlash for reportedly using generative AI in another Marvel series, Secret Invasion. The studio didn’t deny this. In fact, it claimed that the use of AI tools didn’t reduce the roles of real designers on the project.
Since the issue with the Loki Season 2 poster went up on social media, more creatives chimed in. One user claimed that the clock in question is actually a stock image on Shutterstock called Surreal Infinity Time Spiral Antique. However, it is reported that the image is in fact an AI-generated artwork. AI image checkers which scanned the original image also flagged it as AI-generated.
This is even more concerning given that Shutterstock has certain policies against AI artwork on the platform. The policy says that AI-generated content is not allowed on Shutterstock unless it has been created by its own licensed AI-image generator tool. As a result, Shutterstock can then prove it owns the image and license it accordingly.
Shutterstock’s policy also helps bypass the issue with human artists as these so-called “in-house” AI-generated images are safe for commercial use and generated through the platform’s stock images. That way, no artist’s work is stolen as a result of the AI-generated image. But that doesn’t mean artists aren’t losing work due to this.
In this case, Disney has not commented on whether or not the Loki Season 2 poster was built using any AI art. At the moment, it all points to the possibility that’s the case.
Running the actual image itself through various AI image checkers (aiornot, illuminarty, huggingface, hive), led to 3/4 stating its AI (not a large sample size I know) pic.twitter.com/xhbjwqhBuy
— Angel 🕷️ (@thepokeflutist) October 3, 2023
