Disney is planning to flood its streaming service, Disney+, with user-generated AI slop.
During the company’s recent earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that the streaming service is “in the midst of rolling out the biggest and the most significant changes” since its inception six years ago, as quoted by The Hollywood Reporter.
Specifically, Iger was referring to what sounds a bit like 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 cook up your own AI-generated take?
“The other thing that we’re really excited about, that AI is going to give us the ability to do, is to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience, including the ability for them to create user-generated content and to consume user-generated content — mostly short-form — from others,” Iger said.
While plenty of questions remain about how exactly Disney is hoping to roll out the new feature, OpenAI’s foray into user-generated AI slop should probably serve as a cautionary tale. The ChatGPT maker has attracted plenty of negative attention with its Sora app, from glaring instances of copyright infringement to users generating highly problematic content.
Besides, as the Wall Street Journal reported in August, Disney had already scrapped several AI projects over legal concerns that using AI to clone actors could draw anger and retaliation from human performers and trade unions.
Disney’s latest gambit is an especially surprising development considering Disney’s extensive efforts to protect its own intellectual property. Disney has fought to keep its own intellectual property from appearing in Sora, as Reuters reported in September. Disney also sent a cease and desist letter to Character.AI, accusing it of using its copyrighted characters without permission.
Iger claims that the company had “productive conversations” with yet-unnamed AI companies to reach an agreement that would “reflect our need to protect the IP,” as per THR.
Regardless, Disney will likely also have to double down on content moderation to ensure that the platform remains family-friendly — which is far easier said than done, as previous failures to implement meaningful AI guardrails, including effective age restrictions, have demonstrated.
Iger also hinted at the possibility of integrating a “number of game-like features into Disney+,” based on its agreement with video game developer Epic Games.
“The opportunity here, we think, is enormous in terms of increasing our engagement with Disney fans across the world,” Iger gushed during this week’s earnings call.
But whether the reality of launching a short-form AI-generated content feature will live up to those lofty promises remains anything but certain. Given the mayhem that has unfolded following OpenAI’s launch of its Sora app, Disney will likely have its work cut out to ensure that such a feature won’t immediately plunge its streaming service into chaos.
It certainly would be far from the first time Disney’s IP has been abused with the help of AI on the web. A quick search on Sora reveals a litany of photorealistic renditions of Disney movie clips, among other videos featuring the company’s widely known characters.
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