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Comment by lairv | Hacker News Reader

https://youtu.be/7EvnKYOuvWo?si=KjIPP5LtZvab_Ls5

Well he didn't seem very fond of it even before it was created

I loved this clip when I first saw it, and it's even more pertinent now to me, as it reinforces my own sentiments to what I'm seeing with AI generative imagery. Those guys at the end that are the ones clearly involved in making whatever that was, and are now just like WTF do we say now? You could just see them trying to pivot right then and there after that feedback. "It's something we'd never show in public" Then why are you showing it in this presentation? "what is your end goal" "We'd like a machine to paint like a human" And that animation was an example of that goal?

That's disturbingly brutal for a professional interaction. I wouldn't want to work in an office where that's a thing that happens–whether it happens to me or watching it happen to someone else.

("Then you would never get to work for a genius like the great Miyazaki, haha!" Sure, I understand that. That isn't a novel observation: he's far from the only celebrity genius in the world who gets away with abusing their underlings, who's so great and amazing that people are willing to turn a blind eye to their personality issues. They say "never meet your heroes").

Respectfully, I've sat in meetings with 100s of VCs and most of them were far more "disturbingly brutal" than this.

There are serious people and unserious people.

You need first to understand a perspective before you judge it. That's what cultural difference is and a lot of it is at play here. Good or bad, this is a different style of life. Not to mention that it is not unusual for executives or board members to have their personal priorities, especially in the art industry.

But, even in that context, they did a horrible presentation. At least from this clip they appear like full-blown nerds with low EQ who didn't consider what kind of person their senior they will present this to is like. Any fan could have told them HM wouldn't like the animation and it would not reveal what DL can do.

They show him a 3D rendered animation of a deformed humanoid struggling to move on the floor. Looks like something out of a zombie horror PC game.

They say it has no sense of pain, and that it's a horror beyond human imagination.

Miyazaki says whoever made it gives no thought to pain, and it's very unpleasant.

That just seems like he was repeating back pretty much what they said to him?

Also, I'm not familiar with Miyazaki's entire oeuvre, but he doesn't seem to be into zombie horror, or 3D? So kinda understandable that he wouldn't be interested in adopting a product where their number 1 demo was zombie horror.

I watched the video and the only brutality I saw was the animation.

That's where all the value is, though. Miyazaki told you who he is, where he's going in life and how he plans to run his business in three minutes.

I'd prefer a moment of brutal harshness, packed with rich information like that. Over mealy-mouthed, information-less, repetitive nonsense, any day of the week.

They cut out the more brutal parts of his response

I just realized that very few at global context had gone through the "insult to life" and crying Kawango meme moment before GenAI came out. That was a giant spoiler in hindsight, and tells how long forward Miyazaki just is in animation(and how horrible he is as an individual)

His comments seem to be more about the subject matter than the technique they used.

The "insult to life itself" indeed refers to the particular demo that they showed this day, but they also mention multiple times they want to make "computers that paint like humans" and HM doesn't show much more enthusiasm

Except it's also telling that this is the subject matter they thought worth relating to him. "Look, isn't it amazing what we made the computer do?" To which Miyazaki's reply is to (correctly) probe the content for meaning, not materiality. He's not objecting to horror or disgusting things per se, but pointing out there's no point without the humanist part as well. Their project is ultimately artless, regardless of topic, and they pick this to show him because they're too dumb to see that in the first place. It's a blatant transposition of solutionism into the realm of aesthetics - they are enamored with their magic box but have nothing to actually say.

He appears to take on face-value the idea that computers can AND will do, every technique he does on paper.

Software, in fact, does not.

I wonder his response if he knew it.

Wow, thanks for sharing. Last line of that clip hits hard :(

I find it amusing given that in Princess Mononoke one of the villians loses an arm - does he sees that a punishment? Does he think that a bad person deserves that? Wasn't it also "disrescpectful" to his disabled friend? IMO that is just people making-up emotional arguments to trash the younger generation to keep them in control.

What a profound misreading of both his comments on the animation and Princess Mononoke.

> does he sees that a punishment?

No, that's what happens in nature when two different worlds collide. And you accept it, like Lady Eboshi does.

>that is just people making-up emotional arguments to trash the younger generation to keep them in control.

I think Miyazaki's just an old conservative emotional man. He probably doesn't think very hard or rationally about his taste.

Villain? Watch it again.

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