Pink Floyd slated after AI-created video wins Dark Side Of The Moon animation competition: “A spit in the face of actual artists”
“Groups like Pink Floyd legitimizing people who steal art from others should be ashamed and shamed”
Image: Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon turns 50 this year, and to celebrate the milestone the band held a competition to create new videos for each of the record’s tracks. However, the rock legends are now on the end of a backlash from fans and creatives across the globe because one of the winning videos was created using ‘AI’-created art.
Damián Gaume’s video for Any Colour You Like features all the telltale weirdness of Large Language Model-created art, including the over-saturated colouration and shaky, non-linear animation. Given that the issue of AI’s use as a creative tool – and the morality of using tools that are trained on human-created art without compensating said humans – is a hot-button issue right now, it’s no surprise that many fans were unhappy with the band’s decision.
“A spit in the face of actual artists who poured their heart and soul into each frame of work they made and submitted for this competition,” one fan commented on the YouTube page for the video. “I’m absolutely disgusted.”
“Given the band’s history of working with artists and animators… disappointing,” another notes. Countless commenters are disappointed; “A band with almost 60 years of history creating art and it all comes down to this? Fucking over actual artists and rewarding this slop?”
Gaume, for his part, is upfront about the fact that he used AI to create the video. In a ‘behind the scenes’ video also published on Pink Floyd’s YouTube channel, the 3D artist claims he used the Stable Diffusion LLM that he trained using his own locally-hosted models, rather than scraping the internet, but for many fans it seems that’s not really the point.
Journalist Carolyn Hinds summed up the mood of many, saying (as transcribed by Bleeding Cool), “The promotion and use of AI in creative spaces spells the end of the entertainment industry. It’s capitalism, exploitation, and theft dressed up as convenient art. It’s a sham. Groups like Pink Floyd legitimizing people who steal art from others should be ashamed and shamed.”
Elsewhere, guitar YouTuber Andy ‘Guitar Geek’ Farris summed up the general mood by commenting on Threads, “How did they choose this AI weirdness over literally anything else?”
Critics of the judging panel – which included Gerald Scarfe, who created the iconic hand-drawn The Wall animations – will be glad to know the AI creation did not receive a cash prize. Dabrundashvili and Nikitina’s Brain Damage video took home the grand prize of £100,000, while runner up David Horne with Time won £50,000, and third place winner Monica Fibbi’s Eclipse won £25,000.