An AI video tool just launched, and its already copying Disneys IP

Last week, AI startup Luma posted a series of videos created using its new video-generating tool Dream Machine, which the company describes as a “highly scalable and efficient transformer model trained directly on videos.”

The only problem? At about 57 seconds in, the Dream Machine-generated trailer for Monster Camp — an animated story about furry creatures journeying to a sleepaway camp — features a slightly AI-smudged but still recognizable Mike Wazowski from Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. Many people noticed that multiple characters and its overall aesthetic look borrowed from the franchise, and the questions quickly started pouring in.

Was it fed a prompt asking for animation in a Pixar style? Is it trained on material that includes the Disney studio’s work? That general lack of transparency is one of the biggest concerns about these kinds of models, as Dream Machine joins OpenAI’s Sora, Google’s VideoPoet, and Veo as one of the many text-to-video AI tools shown off in recent months.

Luma CEO Amit Jain said a user was to blame for the presence of Monsters, Inc. characters and that the system “didn’t generate the characters” on its own. The video “was created from a user uploaded image that contains the visuals,” which Luma’s AI model then animated, Jain wrote in an email to The Verge. Jain said that Luma uses “industry standard programmatic methods” to moderate content and that “uploading copyrighted content is against our Terms of Service.”

Jain did not go into detail about how Luma’s moderation system works and what steps the company takes to enforce its terms of service. He did not respond to questions about what content Luma’s AI is trained on and if it includes copyrighted materials.

Luma hyped its Dream Machine model as the future of filmmaking, featuring “high quality, realistic shots” created simply by typing prompts into a box. Watching videos showing cars racing down a dissolving highway or an awkwardly narrated sci-fi short, you can sort of see why bullish fans of this tech were quick to call it a novel innovation.

Currently, Luma is encouraging people to sign up and play with Dream Machine for free, but the company also has “Pro” and other tiers that charge users fees for more features.

Disney hasn’t publicly commented on what Luma seems to be up to, and it’s possible that the company hasn’t even noticed. But at a time when people have been pushing for more transparency about the datasets powering AI tools like the ones Luma is building, things like Monster Camp make it hard not to look at the generative AI ecosystem as prone to plagiarism.

Correction, June 18th: This story initially misstated when the AI videos were first posted. It was last week, not over the weekend.

Update, June 20th: This story has been updated with comments from Luma.

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