
‘I am utterly disgusted’: Legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki takes AI down a peg - Gaessaki
http://www.recode.net/2016/12/11/13908296/hayao-miyazaki-artificial-intelligence-viral-video
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abstractbeliefs
I think the article has mischaracterised Hayao's response to this. His main
objection is that it's "creepy" and doesn't respect the pain and suffering of
those with mobility disabilities.

While it's important that we respect and include those people, it's also true
that had a human animator produced the same work, we should see the same
response. The article's, or Hayao's response is flawed therefore in 2 ways:

1) That this is something that AI / animation technology has brought to us,
truly, and

2) Just because it may not be well received by individuals with disabilities
(by no means would this be rejected by all or maybe even most in that
situation), that it is not effective animation (though I'm not judging its
effectiveness either way, I'm just saying that this alone is a poor argument).

~~~
jolux
>While it's important that we respect and include those people, it's also true
that had a human animator produced the same work, we should see the same
response.

I don't think so. I think part of his point is that having humans do the
animation means that the creators have empathy for the less fortunate and thus
won't use them as cheap creepiness the way a neural network might if it was
just solving for certain constraints.

Miyazaki's movies are often about the conflict between the human spirit and
technology, and as far as high-tech goes he's not really a booster. High tech
in his films is frequently cold and inhuman in creepy ways, and seeing a demo
like this is probably confirmation of this theme.

~~~
rabbyte
I feel like this is the point that's being lost. It's not that it's AI, it
could have been a paint brush, but whatever the tool there needs to be a
connection between the artist and their works. The current state of AI largely
erases that connection. That he mentions we're losing confidence in ourselves
I feel backs this up, that we're engaged in the act of replacing ourselves
from the design of the world with not enough thought in how we're negotiating
our future selves.

The tech crowd are looking at this as an old artist who doesn't like future
tools when I think it's meant to be deeper and more a critique on how we use
our tools. An animator in touch with their disabled friend may come to tears
in their work and create moments that connect with the audience on a deeper
level because of it while AI will only pass over those moments in
microseconds.

~~~
jolux
nailed it. spot on.

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kutkloon7
He doesn't "take down AI" a peg. He is just being really rude to the group
members who came up with a dull excuse for a mostly failed project.

Not that they did a bad job; the project just seems way to ambitious. Was
someone really expecting to see a humanlike walking motion from such a
project? I would expect big companies to have some troubles with such things.

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Pica_soO
What are you talking about? Evolutionary algos in walking animations have been
used far and wide. These guys just took out the rules for using a upright
stance.

And criticizing something like that, as unsubstantial as he did, is just fear
of new tech. Those zombie movements are great.

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reneherse
If the english subtitles are accurate, to me it seemed he was disgusted by the
movements of the character itself, and the motivation for creating them,
rather than the specific AI means by which they were created.

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_Adam
I can't judge this without understanding the context. Was his company paying
for this work? Was he invited for a presentation to a university?

Anyone who knows Miyazaki's films would have known he wouldn't like it. So if
they made it FOR him they deserve the reprimanding they got. But if he was
just dropping by for a casual demo it then his response was uncalled for.

Also the work was pretty bad. I wouldn't be surprised if they just made up the
zombie excuse after they saw how horrible the result was.

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canadian_voter
Imagine if you came to Jean Luc Picard and said "Captain, we found a way to
replace exploration with the holodeck! And the best part is, none of those
boring nebulas or silly aliens -- we can generate endless grotesques unlike
anything you've ever seen!" I believe you'd be asked to leave the ship.

Miyazaki is a humanist. Why would he be interested in simulated zombies?

~~~
Chris2048
A Humanist is someone adverse to zombies?

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iand675
At the risk of oversimplifying:

Why would anyone expect Hayao Miyazaki to be interested in programatically
generated walking algorithms for 3d zombies? That seems so far outside of the
realm of anything that Miyazaki has worked on that expecting meaningful
feedback from him seems rather foolish.

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synicalx
Next up they'll be asking Monica Lewinsky and Bono what they think of it.

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Pica_soO
If you get such a emotional reaction out of a animator legend, on a cliche as
zombies- that is success.

~~~
_Adam
Depends. If he was expecting something else, a negative emotional reaction is
easy to produce.

Like if you were unveiling the iPhone prototype to Steve Jobs and you pull off
the handkerchief and there's a turd lying there.

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Tempest1981
He found this _specific instance_ of AI creepy and disgusting. Seems like a
stretch (or clickbait) to interpret this as an attack on AI in general.

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jackfrodo
As someone who's seen almost all Ghibli movies, I can tell you that Miyazaki
is not averse to the grotesque. Most who have seen Spirited Away probably
remember it as a wonderful and positive film, but when it was showed at my
younger sister's 10th birthday party, most of the children were terrified,
based purely on the animated monsters.

There are creatures more disturbing in his movies than that zombie. The
difference is the deep human empathy that goes into their creation.

IIRC, almost every frame in Ghibli movies is drawn by hand, so to see an AI
created zombie that (in his view) mimics disabilities suffered by his friend
in order to achieve a creepy effect, how could he not find it disgusting?

~~~
ldjb
I think it's worth noting that mythology featuring creatures similar to those
depicted in Spirited Away is hugely prevalent in Japanese culture. Children
grow up with stories and images of youkai, so I imagine that when they watch
Spirited Away, there is an element of familiarity and the feeling of disgust
is lessened.

Zombies, on the other hand, aren't as integral a part of Japanese culture, and
are mostly a western influence. Since we tend to fear and find disturbing
things we aren't familiar with, I can imagine zombies actually being more
disturbing to a Japanese person than youkai-like creatures.

Of course, I'm sure the fact the zombies reminded Miyazaki of his friend
played a big part in his reaction, too.

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golergka
They seem to have evoked a strong emotional response in him. Just not an
emotional response he typically seeks to envoke in his works - but a lot of
artists who do enjoy making creepy stuff would find it delightful.

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informatimago
It seems to me that there are several levels of misunderstanding here.

And the most interesting part is when Suzuki asks "So, what is your goal?",
and the engineer answers "Well, we would like to build a machine that can draw
pictures like humans do.".

This is certainly a commendable goal.

Then we cut to another sequence, where Miyazaki is drawing, and reflecting: "I
feel like we are nearing the end of times. We humans are losing faith in
ourselves..."

It may or may not be so, but this is an interesting point to discuss. I can
certainly understand how it could feel like it, but you'd have to study the
motive for wanting to "replace" humans by machines, or just have machine
perform like humans.

One key misunderstanding in this exchange, and foremost on the part of the
journalists reporting it (damn dumb journalists!), is that "This is a
presentation of an artificial intelligence model which learned certain
movements."

Obviously, they didn't teach it to move, they had a certain model of the body,
and let the AI loose, trying to learn by itself how to move. This is a
classical application of genetic programming. See how some of those creatures
look "creepy" too:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBgG_VSP7f8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBgG_VSP7f8)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgWQ-
gPIvt4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgWQ-gPIvt4)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXTZHHQ7ZiQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXTZHHQ7ZiQ)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yci5FuI1ovk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yci5FuI1ovk)

They obtained some creepy result, added a creepy texture and made it into a
quick & dirty demo for "animating zombies".

Clearly, the people who assisted to this demo didn't understand what it was.

And the answer of the artist was the worst. Imagine assisting to Wright
brothers' demo, and coming with: "I have a friend who is blind, this doesn't
respect the pain and the suffering of those with vision disabilities who will
never be able to pilot a plane." What a tool!

~~~
anigbrowl
_And the most interesting part is when Suzuki asks "So, what is your goal?",
and the engineer answers "Well, we would like to build a machine that can draw
pictures like humans do.".

This is certainly a commendable goal._

Why? It's not like there is some shortage of human artists. Indeed, the main
problem for artists is the difficulty of making a living at it. As a painter I
feel quite depressed when I see a friend on Facebook or somesuch upload an
attractive new piece of artwork that turns out to be a new Snapchat filter.

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m0llusk
old man yells at cloud

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frozenport
Looks like they succeeded at making an accurate zombie. The problem is with
Hayao Miyazaki ethos that ties together artists and their creations. Certainly
we would have no villains if this were taken at face value?

