Over the past few years, Artificial Intelligence has come a long way, oftentimes confusing people over what’s real and what’s not. And now, AI is all set to take over the NBA with its new system which is quite cleverly called, ‘NB-AI.” However, producer Chris Miller does not seem too happy with this feature that lets the viewer personalize his viewing experience.
Chris Miller called out the NBA’s new AI system, which can turn any live basketball game animated with just one voice command. According to Chris Miller, animation created by Artificial Intelligence will never compare to the old-school filmmaking style.
Chris Miller Criticizes NBA’s NB-AI
Recently, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama presented the NB-AI at the NBA All-Star Tech Summit. Through the new system, basketball enthusiasts will be able to personalize their viewing experience on the NBA’s app. During the unveiling of the NB-AI, Silver commanded the system to play the Pacers game “as if it were a Spider-Man” movie, and it did exactly that.
Adam Silver and Wemby unveil NB-AI at NBA All-Star Tech Summit in Indy – now you can use your voice to activate “movie mode” and make a live NBA game look like your favorite film pic.twitter.com/NItNQSvyTC
— NBA (@NBA) February 16, 2024
While many quickly became a fan of the new technology, producer Chris Miller was not one of them. Miller has previously worked on many popular animated films, including The Lego Batman Movie and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Miller was so disappointed by NB-AI that he bashed the NBA for “scraping” the style of animated movies.
Miller stated that while he’s a huge fan of the NBA, the “janky-a** AI looks nothing like the hand-crafted artistry of the films.”
For the record, as far as I know they never reached out to us about “scraping” the films’ style
— Christopher Miller (@chrizmillr) February 17, 2024
Clearly, the NB-AI does not have the approval of the man who has worked on some of the most loved animated projects of today’s time.
Chris Miller’s Words Backfire
After the producer/writer put his unfiltered feelings out in the open, there were many who agreed with him. However, it did not take long for Miller to become the one standing on the receiving end of criticism. Users were quick to call out Miller’s hypocrisy as they reminded him of the controversy he was caught up in where the VFX artists of Across the Spider-Verse called the producers out for over-working and underpaying them.
Check out what fans have to say to Miller:
While i do agree with what he says, It is rich coming from the guy who abuses his animation team and treats them like shit because he can't make up his goddamn mind about a single frame.
— Stylus Surgeon #FlashPack ⚡️ (@nwartstudios) February 19, 2024
IF YOURE GONNA PRAISE THE INNOVATIVE ARTISTRY OF FILMS YOU BETTER TREAT YOUR ANIMATORS FAIRLY THAN IF YOU TRULY CARE ABOUT INNOVATIVE ARTISTRY YOU JERK!!!!!!!!!!!
— SuperNerdBoy (@SuprNrdBoy) February 19, 2024
This is coming from the dude that overworked and mistreated the vfx artists severely lmfao
— bob sacamano (@rhcheeeese) February 19, 2024
The hand crafted created artistry of his overworked and underpaid crew
— Drew O. (@someguy_9) February 19, 2024
Chris definitely appreciates the hand-crafted innovative artistry just not said artists’ working conditions or time.
— Daniel (@DanielJJohnson) February 19, 2024
For context, last year Vulture’s Chris Lee reported on the miserable working conditions of VFX artists on the Spider-Verse movies. According to the report, many artists described the work as “arduous, involving a relentless kind of revisionism that compelled approximately 100 artists to flee the movie before its completion.”
While Phil Lord’s management style received the most heat from the VFX artists, his frequent collaborator Miller, too, was put on blast. According to one of the four anonymous artists,
“I was warned. It was like [other workers] were amping themselves up to run a marathon. Phil and Chris have a reputation. As producers, they used to come onto a project when it was 80% finished. Once they could ingest the movie properly and see what it is going to be like, they would come through with the guillotine and start enthusiastically editing. They’d come in and start to rewrite lines, throw out entire sequences, through out animations all over the place, everywhere. And this is animation that people have been working on for a long time.”
Needless to say, the artists were not very pleased with how the management was disregarding them. And thus, Miller’s words about the “artistry” of animated films did not sit right with fans.
