Like many followers this week, you could have observed one thing odd concerning the opening credit of Secret Invasion, Marvel’s new present. Amidst all of the Skrull inexperienced, there’s something very … Midjourney about the entire thing. If you bought that sense, you weren’t improper: Those credit have been made with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

The thought, Secret Invasion’s government producer Ali Selim told Polygon this week, was to make one thing that mirrored the present’s theme of aliens hiding amongst us. “When we reached out to the AI vendors, that was part of it—it just came right out of shape-shifting, Skrull-world identity, you know? Who did this? Who is this?” Selim stated.

On its face, this logic is smart. But in the true world of 2023, the place TV writers are currently on strike to make sure AI isn’t used to switch them, it got here off as woefully cringe. Method Studios, the corporate that made the credit sequence, piped up after the Polygon report, telling The Hollywood Reporter that the AI was “just one tool” used and that “no artists’ jobs were replaced.” But to the culture-consuming public, that didn’t matter. After the present premiered on Disney+ yesterday, followers took to social media to decry the brand new credit: “gross,” “unethical,” “SO fucking disappointing,” “this is the worst intro for any TV show ever.”

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Having already droned on concerning the grueling nature of the AI hype cycle, I’ll as a substitute take this chance to say that one thing about this feels hopeful. It signifies that some of us, followers particularly, are taking note of these items, and maybe received’t blindly settle for the work of nonhuman creators—and even the work of people augmented by AI. A couple of tweets don’t a revolution make, however at a time when tech geniuses appear inclined to supply an AI answer for all the things, the response to Marvel’s Secret Invasion exhibits Hollywood can’t mission-creep machine studying into films and TV exhibits with out dealing with criticism.

That’s to not say that every one makes use of of AI deserve criticism. As WIRED author Marah Eakin wrote just last week, Pixar was in a position to make use of AI instruments from a Disney lab to make the flames in Elemental look extra actual—with the assistance of plenty of human illustrators. And whereas it appears as if Method Studios used people for Secret Invasion’s credit, when of us like Selim inform Polygon “we would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go off and do something,” that’s much less inspiring. And viewers see it.

It’s solely barely coincidental that information of AI in Secret Invasion got here a day after star Samuel L. Jackson told Rolling Stone that he’s lengthy been cautious of studios wanting to make use of his likeness in perpetuity, saying when he encounters these clauses in contracts “I cross that shit out.” A couple of months in the past, Keanu Reeves told me that he is lengthy had a clause in his contracts saying that his performances cannot be digitally altered with out his approval. Actors, and their lawyers, have been cautious of the implications of know-how and AI for some time. So have writers. Now, as AI infiltrates everybody’s each day lives, followers are monitoring the invasion.