Riot calls out 'disrespectful' AI-extended Arcane art on Netflix: 'This image was a mistake'

Another day, another spot of generative AI drama, this one involving a promo image for the League of Legends-based anime Arcane. The image, which showed up as a thumbnail in the streaming app, was taken down by Netflix after fans called out some hinkiness that pretty clearly pointed the finger at work done by a machine.

A screenshot was initially shared on X by eggbertith, who noticed some strangeness in Jinx's hand in a banner image. Suspicions of AI-generated content arose immediately and were effectively confirmed by Riot, which apparently wasn't any happier about it than the fans.

"Appreciate you bringing this to our attention," Riot brand manager Alex Shahmiri wrote on X (via GamesRadar). "We have a strict stance of no AI for anything relating to Arcane cause it's disrespectful to the incredible artists who worked on the show. This image was a mistake and has since been removed. TY again for calling it out."

By all appearances, this isn't Riot's whiff: It looks like someone at Netflix took an existing piece of Arcane art and extended it using Photoshop's "generative fill" tool (or something like it) to make it suitable for a banner.

This is the original image, which is still online:

And this is what came out of the machine—the resolution is lower, but the hand is very clearly mangled.

It's not really "AI-generated art," which I think mitigates the situation somewhat, but it is incredibly half-assed, and that's a problem in itself: Media companies who should know better seem to put so much faith into the magic of AI that nobody bothers to pay attention to the results to ensure it's not hacked-up garbage, which leaves us with—you guessed it—hacked up garbage. Either that, or there's a widely-held assumption that mass-media consumers won't notice or won't care that stuff like a promotional thumbnail for the most expensive animated series ever produced is made with the same attention to quality you'd expect from a 99-cent burger. Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse.

In fine "so you hate waffles" fashion, a handful of people pressed Shahmiri about his specific reference to Arcane, as though it somehow implied that Riot is fine with the use of generative AI in everything else it does. "I can only speak to what I work on," he replied to one such inquiry. "From a purely personal level, I'm not a fan of AI because what makes art so special is the human connection and feeling. Be it through art, music, or any creative medium—it's something I never want to see replaced by AI."