AI was involved in this, and not in a good way. It's not just a matter of the clipping issues and places where the AI fails to do what it is supposed to do. This isn't a project that is setting out to make AI a tool for animators to help speed up the process; instead, it is a tool for replacing animators because the company sees their artistic value in question. The only thing that matters, after all, is the higher positions of director, script writer, and producer, right? There is no artistic integrity to being an animator, right?
At the end of the day, the story? The characters? They were interesting, cute, but then you start thinking about how paired back they had even to make the story be to make it work. There are only two character models, and the story is concluded in this short because it's all about making the process as cheap as possible. Had they added more characters and a more complex story line, they would have needed more time and money with just the limited staff they had, which would also defeat the process, yet that same staff member didn't catch all of what they needed to. Was that intentional, to show what the AI was capable of doing? Probably not, given that they consider the animator to be a throwaway part of the art, that they're not integral even for cleaning up what the AI makes.
I mean, had it been, they'd have released two versions, one where the AI does it's thing, and another where the animator was allowed to go in and clean things up, thus showcasing the current capabilities while showing how an animator was still needed.
Because honestly, I do get giving Animators tools to speed up the process and make it so they're not working less, but AI by itself for any media is soulless. There are certain things that the human eye can read that the AI struggles with, that it may never overcome because reading things like line and shape as a human does is - even the best coding out there is unlikely to solve this problem, the only solution being true AI. And if one knows about AI theory here, one knows what I'm talking about, how true AI is at this point is highly unlikely and entirely in the realm of sci-fi at this point, or at the very least a long way off.
Note - To clarify, the episode director and animation producer has openly said that animators can now leave the animation process to the AI and thus open themselves to directing positions, but this is someone who has no other credits including no animation credits such as key animator to their name.
