PHOTOS: Outrage as Marvel Studios decided to use AI for the intro credits of Secret Invasion

Outrage as Marvel Studios decided to use AI for the intro credits of Secret Invasion.

The world of Secret Invasion is decidedly sketchy. With thousands of shapeshifting Skrulls on Earth, you can’t trust what you think you’re seeing. One second, you’re looking at Nick Fury or an esteemed world leader; the next, you see their face morph into something (or someone) else entirely.

Of the process, he explained: “We would talk to them about ideas and themes and words, and then the computer would go off and do something. And then we could change it a little bit by using words, and it would change.”

The revelation is prompting some backlash from audiences on social media, given that using AI presumably eliminated the need for graphic designers and animators to craft the opening credits.

The argument is especially timely, since the WGA is currently on strike after failed negotiations with the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which included language about protecting writers against the use of AI in the writing process. Over the past eight weeks, the use of AI to replace laborers has come to the forefront of many discussions about the strike.

This is a description of the plot of the new Marvel Cinematic Universe show on Disney Plus (as well as its comic book counterpart), which follows Nick Fury as he uncovers — what else? — a secret invasion by the Skrull population on Earth. But the concept of shape-shifting is also seen in the series’ very different approach to its opening credits, which look like a sort of watercolor rendering of the key players and themes of Secret Invasion.

As we see a sort of jittery and ominous sequence of the Skrull green taking over more and more of the world, it looks a lot like if an AI was prompted with the concept of “Skrull cubism” — which, actually, isn’t that far off of what it is. As director and executive producer Ali Selim tells Polygon.