In a new 18.5-minute short starring their “synthetic self,” animator Fabian Mosele offers a unique take on the question of artificial intelligence in the arts and entertainment industries. Titled Democratizing Synthiola, the film is described as “A synthetic love story in the era of generative AI” where “humanizing generative models dehumanizes humans,” and tackles the topics of authenticity and consent in the GenAI media era.
Mosele has been exploring the intersection between generative machine learning and storytelling for the past several years, developing “Synthiola” as their AI alter ego. Synthiola then became an element of the short’s story, as did TetraspaceWest’s “Shoggoth” meme, which highlights the similarities between H.P. Lovecraft’s shape-shifting, amorphous monsters and Large Language Models.
Democratizing Synthiola centers on a fluffy pink character call Prot, who creates a synthetic clone of their crush in order to work up to asking her out … but begins to develop feelings for her simulacrum instead.
The film combines frame-by-frame 2D animation, live acting and generative visuals created with Stable Diffusion, AnimateDiff and Gen-3 Alpha. Mosele is putting together a comprehensive making-of, but has already made available both “No AI” and “Only AI” versions of the film to give more insight into the process. The filmmaker shared with Animation Magazine that they are fully in support of the Animation Guild negotiations around AI protections, and hopes to “shed light on an appropriate use of the technology.”
Helping bring Democratizing Synthiola to life are voice-over artists Jiezl V. Chua (Iola), Nina Nikolic (Prot) and Reeko Brooks (Sam). The music was created by Mosele, Lafayette Vanderkin-Jus and kazu*2.
Learn more about Mosele’s projects, including Democratizing Synthiola, at fabianmosele.com. Click through to watch the No AI and Only AI film versions.
