Disney is planning to flood its streaming service Disney+ with user-generated AI slop.
During Disney’s recent earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the streaming service is “in the middle of rolling out its biggest and most significant changes” since its launch six years ago. hollywood reporter.
Specifically, Iger was referring to a service a bit similar to OpenAI’s Sora, a service that allows users to generate AI content on the service. Why wait for the long-awaited sequel to Disney’s Frozen 2 when you can just create your own AI-generated take?
“The other thing we’re really looking forward to is what AI will allow us to do, and that’s to give Disney+ users a more engaging experience, including the ability to create user-generated content and consume content (primarily short-form) created by other users,” Iger said.
Many questions remain about how exactly Disney wants to roll out this new feature, but OpenAI’s foray into user-generated AI slop should perhaps serve as a warning. The ChatGPT maker has received a lot of negative attention for its Sora app, from obvious instances of copyright infringement to users producing highly problematic content.
moreover, wall street journal It was reported in August that Disney had already canceled several AI projects, citing legal concerns that using AI to clone actors could invite anger and retaliation from human performers and unions.
Disney’s latest maneuver is a particularly surprising development given Disney’s extensive efforts to protect its intellectual property. Disney has fought to keep its intellectual property from appearing in Sora. Reuters Reported in September. Disney also sent a cease and desist letter to Character.AI for using copyrighted characters without permission.
Iger claims the company has had “productive conversations” with the as-yet-unnamed AI company and reached an agreement that “reflects the need to protect intellectual property.” THR.
Either way, Disney will also need to double down on content moderation to keep the platform family-friendly. This is easier said than done, as evidenced by past failures to implement meaningful AI guardrails, including effective age limits.
Iger also hinted at the possibility of “integrating a lot of game-like features into Disney+” under a deal with video game developer Epic Games.
“We think the opportunity here is tremendous in terms of increasing our engagement with Disney fans around the world,” Iger enthused on an earnings call this week.
However, it is not yet clear whether the launch of AI-generated short-form content capabilities will actually live up to such lofty promises. Given the disruption that occurred after the launch of OpenAI’s Sora app, Disney will likely have to cut back on its work to ensure that such a feature doesn’t immediately throw its streaming service into chaos.
To be sure, this isn’t the first time Disney’s intellectual property has been exploited on the web with the help of AI. A quick search on Sora will reveal many photorealistic representations of Disney movie clips, including videos featuring the company’s well-known characters.
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