Miyazaki interview, 11/13/2016

[captkool]

"Well, we would like to build a machine that can draw pictures like humans do."

The absolutely worst thing to say at that time

[americanIDOLfan]

The funniest part is: the team came into this presentation thinking "yeah, we fucking nailed it".... and he literally told them "I strongly feel this is an insult to life itself". Lmao.

[jacobashburner]

"The worst he can say is no"

Miyazaki: I feel that this is an insult to life itself.

[RM-fxmc]

I’m Japanese, and I’m a little sad that many people do not get the point of what he’s saying.
He always says in many interviews that he draw the reality. For example when he draw a scene of a person crying, he deeply think about how the person feel and why cry, and from that, he imagines what movement the person would actually do.
“the movement that humans can’t imagine” “creepy(the presenter is saying 気持ち悪い so it’s more like gross or disgusting)” “it doesn’t feel any pain”
These words probably made Miyazaki so uncomfortable.
For all miyazaki’s work the concept is life and death. They chose the wrong person to present it.

[leorolando]

Why, out of all people; would you try to pitch this to Miyazaki?

This couldn't be farther from what the man likes or does. OF COURSE he was going to hate it.

[Bokchoylover]

Dude is so ahead of his time for dissing AI art

[zekenotech]

"Modern Day Anime is made by humans who hate seeing other humans."
-Miyazaki

[FRISHR]

Should have showed it to Junji Ito instead, not Miyazaki.

[Fook_Yu]

"I strongly feel this is an insult to life itself"
A simple NO would have sufficed lmao

[Surannhealz]

Telling Hayao Miyazaki to his face that you want to replace human drawing with a robot. Wow. I couldn’t even imagine trying that.

[ThyRavenWings]

"I feel like we are nearing to the end of times. We humans are losing faith in ourselves..."

Wasn't expecting to get hit so hard in the feels like that

[bezoticallyyours]

In all fairness. The zombie looked more like it was a videogame enemy that was glitching out.

[tisbutascratch]

The absolute empathy that Miyazaki has towards people is what makes his movies so moving and beautiful. He is a sensitive soul with a great love for all living things. It doesn't surprise me that this would upset him.

[leanby]

"Humans are losing faith in ourself." That is the most important.

[roccoanthony]

So many triggered tech-geeks lol. Most of them are missing the point here.

He isn’t opposed to CGI or modern tech (he used it in Mononoke and Spirited Away, and all his films afterwards). The problem with Kawakami was that he used phrases like “disgusting”, while creating a movement very reminiscent to people with physical disability. If he had just explained that CGI or AI can create movements for people who are physically disabled (in this case, not talking about actual disabled people but also characters or things that are missing some kind of body parts), I don’t think he would have gotten mad about it.

The problem is that he was smiling and excited while explaining that AI and CGI can create disabled movements, while using words like “disgusting” and “creepy”. This pissed him off.

People who are criticizing Hayao Miyazaki as an “anti-tech old man” is being ignorant. He isn’t anti-tech, nor is he anti-CGI or anti-AI. He was mad about Kawakami’s lack of heart when he described the movement of a “physically disabled creature” as “disgusting”. The fact that Kawakami was speaking it in a happy tone made things worth too.

Kawakami should have been careful with his words. Happens a lot with “tech guys” who are too devoted into science. I think he learnt his lessons (chose words wisely), so it was a positive experience for him too.

By the way, Kawakami and Miyazaki has actually met many times prior and after this “incident”, so it’s not as “serious” as people make it out to be. Kawakami was just getting lectured by Miyazaki. That’s all.

[natalietme]

Miyazaki's art is about love, about light, about warmth between humans, about adventure, growth, family, childhood, cozy nights and comfort in homemade meals. There's a personal, human touch in every single hand drawn frame in a world dominated by the artificial and the computer-generated.

The zombie thing was about the exact opposite. About generating extremely disgusting imagery with as little human effort and thought as possible to quickly create violent mass market videogames. They really pitched it to the wrong guy. It's a problem with the philosophy of the project. When people are inexperienced or desensitised, grotesque and gory video-games are entertaining and fun. But for someone who's old and who is as empathetic as Miyazaki, he sees a cruel indifference to real pain and suffering in the world. That it's just entertainment and profit to these guys.

[jimbeam]

What a fucking boss. I love a man that holds his convictions so strong to his heart and isn’t afraid to speak his mind

[RoyalKnightVIII]

I love how utterly unprepared the makers of that video are for Miyazaki's critique, how utterly dumbfounded they are by their lack of foresight.

This reminds me of what Ian Malcolm says to Hammond about what his computers could do.

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should... The complete lack of humility for nature that’s being displayed here is staggering."

[sushantsrivastav]

Item 79: Don't show AI generated Art to actual artists.

[Tarkus-Ivalice-dweller]

They showed the wrong project to the wrong man at the wrong time, a recipe for disaster.