Disney has been brutally mocked online after sharing what appeared to be an AI-generated photo of Mickey Mouse with a rather noticeable mistake.
Last month, popular YouTube star Garrett ‘The Purple Hoser’ Hilbert embarked on a challenge to visit every Disney park in 75 hours and documented it all on his channel, called Dude Perfect.
The official Disney Parks YouTube account shared his video afterward – but many people were quick to notice something odd about the thumbnail.
It showed Hilbert sitting next to Mickey Mouse on a roller coaster, however, the beloved character sported bizarre, tiny and sharp teeth.
Since Mickey Mouse doesn’t usually have teeth, it left many convinced that the thumbnail image had been created using AI.
It has since been changed to remove the teeth from the snap.
But that didn’t stop social media users and fans around the world from sharing their outrage over Disney promoting a photo that seemed to be created by AI, especially since the company had previously sued an AI company for copyright infringement over the use of its characters.
‘The weird toothy AI Mickey thumbnail = disturbing and gross. Nightmare-inducing,’ one person commented under Disney’s post.
‘The thumbnail itself makes me not want to click on this video. Pass,’ scathed another.
Disney has been brutally mocked online after sharing what appeared to be an AI-generated photo of Mickey Mouse while promoting a video from Dude Perfect’s YouTube channel
The thumbnail showed Garrett ‘The Purple Hoser’ Hilbert sitting next to Mickey Mouse on a roller coaster, however, the beloved character sported bizarre, tiny and sharp teeth
‘Every time I think this account can’t get any worse, you somehow dig deeper. Low quality content and AI slop, just perfect,’ someone else added.
‘Disappointed – Disney should be ashamed of reposting a thumbnail that contains AI Mickey,’ read a fourth comment.
‘You’d think this company would have guidelines or standards for this stuff but I guess not.’
‘Not a chance I’m clicking on this AI monstrosity. Do better. A lot better,’ said a fifth.
‘Glad to see Disney is supporting AI of its characters,’ a different person sarcastically penned.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Disney for comment.
Variety reported back in June that both Disney and NBCUniversal had filed a federal lawsuit against Midjourney, a ‘generative AI start-up.’
The companies claimed Midjourney ‘displays hundreds, if not thousands, of images generated by its Image Service at the request of its subscribers that infringe Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works.’
Since Mickey Mouse doesn’t usually have teeth, it left many convinced that the thumbnail image had been created using AI (stock image)
Hilbert embarked on a challenge to visit every Disney park in 75 hours and documented it all on his channel, called Dude Perfect, which Disney reshared
Even so, Disney has slowly been implementing AI into both its parks and streaming service.
Earlier this month, a Disney animator unleashed a furious tirade against the company and even encouraged people to boycott its streaming service after CEO Bob Iger tease that AI-generated content was in the works.
‘AI is going to give us the ability to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience,’ Iger said during the Earnings Results Webcast, per the Hollywood Reporter.
‘[This includes] the ability for them to create user-generated content, the ability for them to create user-generated content and to consume user-generated content – mostly short-form – from others.’
Dana Terrace, who created the Disney Channel animated series The Owl House, brutally slammed the announcement afterwards.
She told fans not only to unsubscribe from Disney+ but also to watch her own show illegally.
‘Unsubscribe from Disney+. Pirate Owl House. I don’t care. F**k gen AI,’ she wrote in a furious X (formerly Twitter) post.
To ‘pirate’ a film or show means to illegally copy, distribute or share it without the copyright holder’s permission.
It has since been changed to remove the teeth from the snap (above), but that didn’t stop social media users and Disney fans across the globe from sharing their outrage over it
Mickey is seen in 2007 at the High School Musical 2 premiere, showcasing his toothless smile
‘”If you pay us we’ll let you make your own content slop! That we will own!” You can draw and write and post your own s**t for free,’ she added in another post. ‘Bob Iger and his ilk are f**king ghouls.’
Disney also recently teased a brand new AI-powered Olaf robot that will walk and talk just like the Frozen character coming to Disneyland Paris early next year.
The high-tech device can move around through a combination of remote control and AI programmed to adapt to its surroundings.
Kyle Laughlin, product and technology leader at Disney, called it ‘one of the most expressive and true-to-life characters built.’
‘From the way he moves to the way he looks, every gesture and detail is crafted to reflect the Olaf audiences have seen in the film,’ he said.
To make the snowman’s movements as authentic as possible, engineers relied on a type of AI called reinforcement learning.
Disney recently teased a brand new AI-powered Olaf robot that will walk and talk just like the Frozen character coming to Disneyland Paris early next year
The hi-tech device can move around through a combination of remote operation and AI that’s programmed to adapt to surroundings
This is where a robot learns to make intelligent decisions through trial and error by interacting with its environment.
The technology allows Olaf the robot to practice thousands of motions inside a computer simulation until his real-life movements look natural.
‘It takes humans years to perfect our motor skills for walking, and it takes additional years of practice to perform acrobatic motions that only a few of us can master,’ Laughlin said.
‘Deep reinforcement learning is a technology that helps robots acquire such skills in a shorter amount of time.
‘To make this technology scale well, we need fast and parallel simulation.’