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Despite how hard every company in the world seems to be pushing it on us, we’ve yet to see a great use of AI in the creative industry. Now Lucasfilm has hopped on board the AI train by releasing a terrible two-minute video of what it would look like if they sent a probe down to a planet in the Star Wars universe. Turns out, animals in the Star Wars universe look almost exactly like animals in our world, which is remarkably disappointing.

Senior vice president of creative innovation at Lucasfilm Rob Bredow recently released a TED talk to explain how AI is definitely the future of the creative industry. To highlight that fact, he showed a two-minute AI-generated video that Industrial Light and Magic artists created in two weeks. Billing it as Star Wars: Field Guide, Bredow said it would “explore what it would feel like if you sent a probe droid out to a brand new Star Wars planet.”

What he then showed was… well, really boring. Mostly static shots of a sloth with some shells in its fur. A chimpanzee with zebra stripes. A peacock with a snail shell. Just mashups of creatures we have in our world. There wasn’t a shred of the wonder or magic of the Star Wars universe in it because a computer just regurgitated something based on an algorithm. It's an alien planet - why does it look so familiar? 

Here's the thing; if this is the most creative work an AI can come up with (and we suspect it may be, because AI can’t be creative), then it only highlights why we don’t want it anywhere near any creative industry. The Star Wars universe is full of weird stuff – droids with multiple arms and Jawas leaving your speeder on cinderblocks and giant slug monsters like Jabba the Hutt. Star Wars is little green hermits doing backflips and that weird dude who flew co-pilot in the Millennium Falcon when Lando blew up the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. Heck, the cantina scene in A New Hope had more imagination than this clip and it didn’t require a billion watts of energy and all the water in California to make it. 

It is disappointing because Industrial Light and Magic and Lucasfilm have always been on the cutting edge of creativity and innovation in the film industry. Seeing them dip into the AI trend is frustrating, but it did prove one thing to us; if you want to make something creative, a human has to be at the heart of it.

Get to know, understand, and love the Star Wars franchise more with our Star Wars watch order, guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies & TV shows, and all the Star Wars movies and Star Wars TV shows ranked.