Penguin Responds

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In regards to Wednesday’s post about my suspicions of the use of AI in the spectator’s reaction to the effect, What the Flip? Acar Altinsel, the owner of Penguin Magic writes:

Thanks for your thoughtful blog post. It was actually more helpful than you may realize.

I hate to admit, I didn't realize the trailer had AI in it. So when you posted about it, we had a meeting and immediately took down that video and ripped the AI stuff out, and put up a new cut.

I'll write a newsletter about this topic at some point, but I feel very strongly that we definitely *do not* want AI to help reactions OR effects.    There was a trailer that was submitted to us a year ago that used an AI reaction and it triggered me to say very clearly to our team that people won't trust us if they think we do this. Since then, until "What the Flip", as far as I know we haven't done this.

And *because* I've been very clear to our team about that, I kind of assumed our videos didn't have it, so it was really disappointing to find out some had made it into our new video.  Thank you for pointing it out in a respectful way.

We work with a lot of editors, which makes it difficult to police especially as AI gets better, but we added a new requirement that editors we work with give a complete list of *any* AI that was used to help work get done no matter how, to hopefully prevent this kind of thing again.

Anyway, just to be clear, I hate the idea of AI being used to enhance effects or reactions, and frankly find it creepy in general, and I'll always appreciate another set of eyes helping us catch it. You helped us quite a bit today. —AA

Now, you may be saying, "That sounds good, but he's only saying it because they got caught."

That's not the impression that I get. I take him at his word. More importantly, I take him at his actions. They re-cut the trailer, pulling out the AI content. And he okayed me posting this email that publicly states they're not going to use AI to enhance effects or reactions in future demos.

That's good enough for me.

Speaking of me and my incredible AI-dar and ability to spot digital manipulation, I don't want this site to become just me calling people out, but I have to be honest… I don't think this is Craig's real physique.