‘You’ll never be able to use AI to create what we’re creating’: Showrunners of ‘Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age’ explain why they’re moving away from the technology

Look, no one is surprised that 99.9% of living things are alive right now. prehistoric planet: The Ice Age there is no reason to move anymore.

Even if the creators of the apple TV show had a much more modern frame of reference (we see rhinos, sloths and monkeys, for example), everything we see has to be created from scratch.

Since season two hit our screens, we’ve gone back in time about 133 million years, meaning the Ice Age fauna is much more similar to our own. The days of the dinosaurs are over and there are…well…lots of giant versions of the animals we have today.

Meanwhile, legends like the one about the woolly mammoth have died out and we cannot revive them on our own. Fortunately, the team at Prehistoric Planet have invested blood, sweat and tears into painstakingly recreating our past explosions.

This time, however, I had a new question about what I saw. Was Apple TV Ice Age Created With Artificial Intelligence? It’s an issue that continues to divide our industry, with major players deciding whether it’s time to vote for (Disney CEO Bob Iger) or against (Frankenstein Director Guillermo Del Toro) its use in our region.

For executive producer Mike Gunton and showrunner Matthew Thompson, the answer is obvious and it’s all about the show’s “authenticity.”

“Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age” was a “labor of love” for its creators.

Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age – Season 3 official Trailer | Apple TV YouTube

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“We really haven’t used AI in the way that people think,” says Thompson. “There are certainly some smaller tools in the background that are used to make certain processes more efficient, but there’s no on-screen AI. And I think any image would say that the work we do is unique.”

“We’re creating creatures that have never been created before and situations that have never been seen on screen. So you’ll never be able to use artificial intelligence to create what we’ve created because these things aren’t meant to be trained. I don’t think what we’ve done can in any way be done by artificial intelligence.”

“It was an incredible labor of love by 1,000 people around the world to achieve these effects.”

Gunton adds: “The beauty of working with visual effects is of course that you can theoretically put a camera anywhere. But we’ve been strict about only putting the camera where you can actually put it, like you would if you were filming a nature show. There are discontinuities, a little loss of focus and interesting little developments of the camera that immerse you in the emotional drama of the animals.

“We’ve traveled all over the world to photograph our locations, and our animals play out their dramas in these real environments, and for many reasons. First, it gives authenticity, but Mother Nature is also a better environment creator than any AI. It’s subtle, but it’s definitely there. You feel the authenticity. And that’s what we do.”

For some, it will be a sigh of relief. Either way, it’s an absolute tour de force in terms of on-screen visuals.