Panoplia and AI, or how I learned to start worrying and hate the bot.
There has been so much chat around AI lately, and we’re all sick of talking about it. Yet as the use of generative AI is embraced by more and more creative sectors, we want to share our firm decision to reject it, making sure that all Panoplia Production content is 100% human made.
While we do believe that technical AI can be a wonderful tool to advance scientific research and reduce the instance of human errors (see its use to detect breast cancer1, 2), we are against the implementation of the use of generative AI in our work for a few different reasons:
1. Environment
One of Panoplia Production’s core tenets is to reduce our own carbon footprint, and to showcase other companies who work hard to do so too. AI not only consumes enormous amounts of energy and water, placing heavy strains on the electricity grids and emitting toxic carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In addition, it also creates huge amounts of hard-to-dispose of electronic waste, all the while fuelling the exploitation of peoples and soil for the mining of precious metals. 3
2. Creativity
Nothing can replace an artist's work, even less a tool engineered to actively steal legitimate artists' work to create new, sub-par art. Oscar Wilde said it best himself: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness”. All it takes is a quick google search to find millions of soulless, samey images. Needless to say, those will never stand out. Plus…our animators will never give characters extra fingers, unless you really ask them to.
3. The human touch
We consider ourselves artisans, and look at our work as such. Crafting strong content takes passion, trust, knowledge and a little bit of silliness. Our team brings together over 20 years of combined experience: this has been created through years of studying, trying, succeeding and failing. The knowledge that comes from making mistakes, learning from them, communicating, liaising, and painstakingly honing our skills could never be replaced by a bot. As AI has no feeling of emotion and only the ability to mimic such feelings, it will never be able to generate content that speaks to the genuine human experience.4
4. Cost
AI is often seen as a quicker and cheaper way of getting the job done. We are surely not the first (or the last) company to have lost clients to the “I can do it myself!” attitude that AI encourages. Yet in addition to its lack of customisation and its unethical sources, generative AI is not always the cheapest option. While it might get a project delivered faster, it will never be to the same standard as a human-made creation, meaning that it will need to be replaced sooner, requiring a heavier workload and more resources. These will inevitably lead to higher costs for the company, and consequentially for the client. Additionally, there has been a real push-back from the public actively boycotting events and businesses advertised through AI-generated content5): so AI might make your ad for much cheaper, but that will come with a potentially very high loss of revenue… sounds counterproductive!
So, this is a very long-winded way of saying: Panoplia Productions proudly says no to AI. We promise our clients that our content always has been, and always will be completely made by humans who rely on coffee, snacks, and the unbridled power of ADHD.
