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‘I am utterly disgusted’: Legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki takes AI down a peg

Or several pegs.

Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences’ 2014 Governors Awards - Arrivals
Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences’ 2014 Governors Awards - Arrivals
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki often receives comparisons to Walt Disney. But a recent clip shows Miyazaki, the co-founder of Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli, dishing out criticism as brutally as Gordon Ramsay.

The clip shows Miyazaki, director of animated films such as “My Neighbor Totoro,” “Princess Mononoke” and “Spirited Away,” reacting to a demo of animation done by artificial intelligence. For an animated zombie, the demo givers enthuse, AI could devise “grotesque movements which we humans can’t imagine.”

Miyazaki was not amused:

“I am utterly disgusted,” he says. “If you really want to make creepy stuff, you can go ahead and do it. I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all.”

“I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” he adds.

If nothing else, watch the clip above for the eight seconds of un-transcribable silence as the AI camp lets this savage takedown sink in.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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