Marvel faces backlash after Secret Invasion uses artificial intelligence for credits sequence

In the midst of a strike where the looming specter of artificial intelligence is a key concern, Marvel is offering a taste of the future. The studio’s new Disney+ series, Secret Invasion, features AI art in the opening credits sequence, a move that was so obviously going to generate discourse it almost seems designed for that purpose.

Executive producer Ali Selim tells Polygon that the show worked with AI vendors at Method Studios to create something in keeping with the Skrull-based confusion of the plot. “We would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go off and do something. And then we could change it a little bit by using words, and it would change.” Selim says he doesn’t “really understand” how AI works, but nevertheless calls the sequence “explorative and inevitable, and exciting, and different.”

It is “different” in the sense that AI art hasn’t much been used in mainstream television yet, but it is also not at all different in the sense that AI is inherently plagiaristic. Artificial intelligence (at least in its current form) can’t create; it can only re-create based on art that already exists. That’s one of the reasons writers have been so adamant against its use amid the current strike. As Ilana Glazer put it at a recent Writers Guild of America rally at 30 Rock, “Writing is the recording of the Human Spirit. We reflect the human experience. And right when stories written by women by black writers, trans writers and queer writers are starting to emerge, they want to hire robots to mine stories from the past 100 years.”

Earlier this week, Amy Poehler pointed out that the AI issue in the writers strike is one of the unifying forces that has garnered support outside the writers’ sphere and the industry as a whole. Even if, like Selim, people don’t understand how AI works, they understand that the technology is threatening the work of real people. So it is with Secret Invasion, where the job to create could have gone to, you know, an actual artist.

And speaking of actual artists, at least one who actually worked on the show has spoken up about Marvel’s controversial decision. “Secret Invasion intro is AI generated. I’m devastated, I believe AI to be unethical, dangerous and designed solely to eliminate artists careers. Spent almost half a year working on this show and had a fantastic experience working with the most amazing people I ever met…” Tweeted concept artist Jeff Simpson. “I worked with the Vis Dev team on character design, props, keyframes for the show etc. and nothing to do with the intro which would have been done much later I assume—to clarify.”

There is plenty of backlash from outside the show, as well. “Marvel/Disney have infinite money yet used AI for the Secret Invasion opening credits. A slap in the face to literally every artist Disney has ever worked with & something that overshadows the hard work everyone did on this show. Seriously @aliselim?” Tweeted actor-director Stephen Ford (Teen Wolf). Moonrise Kingdom star Jared Gilman (who previously criticized that Wes Anderson AI) tweeted, “the real secret invasion was shitty AI swooping in and replacing talented real artists.”

In the observation Twitter user @jonathanmb32, “The Secret Invasion AI credits is such an insane miscalculation by Marvel in that it A) immediately created noxious buzz around the premiere of their new program, and B) only further validates AI concerns RIGHT as actors and directors are on the verge of striking because of it.” No doubt Hollywood’s various guilds are filing this one away to strengthen whatever contractual argument might be made about AI in the near future.