>While it's important that we respect and include those people, it's also true that had a human animator produced the same work, we should see the same response.

I don't think so. I think part of his point is that having humans do the animation means that the creators have empathy for the less fortunate and thus won't use them as cheap creepiness the way a neural network might if it was just solving for certain constraints.

Miyazaki's movies are often about the conflict between the human spirit and technology, and as far as high-tech goes he's not really a booster. High tech in his films is frequently cold and inhuman in creepy ways, and seeing a demo like this is probably confirmation of this theme.