Laika CEO Travis Knight Denounces Generative AI as Wildwood Debuts After 5 Years

1 articles · Updated · The Verge · Oct 22

Travis Knight said generative AI is “antithetical” to Laika’s work ahead of Wildwood’s Oct. 23 premiere, arguing art must come from human experience rather than machine output.
Five years of production, 230-plus puppets, 49 animators and more than 1,000 artists underpin Wildwood, which Knight cast as proof that technology should serve artists, not replace them.
Knight drew a line between tools such as 3D printers and computer workstations and AI systems that ingest artists’ work and “regurgitate” it, calling that process theft without soul or humanity.
His comments land as Hollywood expands AI use in areas from digital actor replicas to model training on studio libraries, even as Knight says AI could still benefit fields like medicine and science.