[HN Gopher] Imagineers defend new Walt Disney robot
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Imagineers defend new Walt Disney robot
Author : rmason
Score : 45 points
Date : 2025-05-05 19:36 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.yahoo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.yahoo.com)
| schlauerfox wrote:
| in the 80s AVG built a robotic Andy Warhol but he was enthused
| about it. Abraham lincoln is an American icon. Not sure someone
| who still has family in living memory is the same category
| despite being a sort of icon for a big corporation and a big
| emerging ethical concern of the 21st century seems to be bodily
| autonomy and consent. I see a lot of AI generated 'animated'
| photos, of the living and the dead. I tend to see a lot of people
| ignore someone's consent like they ignore media piracy, with a
| disinterested immoral hand-wave.
| givinguflac wrote:
| I'm seriously blown away that you equated a person's consent
| for their own autonomy and legacy to media piracy. What?
| schlauerfox wrote:
| I live in America so 'moral rights' aren't a thing, but in
| europe it appears to give artist/creators rights over how
| their work is portrayed. How our legacy is carried forward of
| our own likeness or our work is a moral question, and
| cultural, and defines our values.
| ronsor wrote:
| In America, the implementation of "moral rights" would
| unquestionably be a First Amendment violation.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Walt Disney is unquestionably an American icon.
| bombcar wrote:
| There's some fuzzy line somewhere - building an animatronic
| person just after they passed against (what would have been)
| their will or that of close relatives seems wrong.
|
| But at some point personalities and people themselves fade
| into history, and it becomes a historical figure (such as
| Lincoln).
| Isamu wrote:
| >Yet soon a social media missive critical of the attraction from
| Walt's granddaughter would go viral. It raised anew ethical
| questions that often surround any project attempting to capture
| the dead via technology, be it holographic representations of
| performers or digitally re-created cinematic animations, namely
| debates surrounding the wishes of the deceased and whether such
| creations are exploitative.
|
| Exactly the same reaction happened when Disney developed the
| first Abraham Lincoln animatronic for the New York World's Fair
| in the 1960's.
| tough wrote:
| Funny how history likes to rhyme eh
| ryanhecht wrote:
| Great exploration of this in Defunctland's latest piece:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjNca1L6CUk (There's a "part 2"
| on Disney's "Living Characters" coming this year!)
| wongarsu wrote:
| There is a time component to it. I don't think anybody would
| give a second thought to a Blackbeard animatronic. In the 60s
| Lincoln would have been dead about 100 years. His great-
| grandchildren were still alive. Today, Walt Disney has been
| dead 58 years. His daughter died a decade ago, his
| grandchildren are still alive
| dehrmann wrote:
| It also hints at what his reaction would be. It seems unfair
| for the family to criticize them doing to Walt what he did to
| Lincoln.
| Retric wrote:
| Dead for 10 years vs dead for 100 is a meaningful difference
| to me.
|
| Namely how many people alive actually knew the person.
| jelled wrote:
| I agree that the number of years matter, but Walt Disney
| died in 1966.
| Retric wrote:
| I was bringing up the existence of a meaningful
| transition point not where it specifically lies.
|
| There's more creepy versions of the same kind of thing
| using recently dead performers for example.
| havblue wrote:
| So I guess the standard is: dead for 100 years is
| acceptable. Dead for 60 years is "too soon".
| wongarsu wrote:
| Was 100 years acceptable at the time? 160 years seems
| fine since I doubt anyone would complain about a Lincoln
| animatronic today
| Isamu wrote:
| I think what would be unfair is putting words in the mouth of
| the animatronic, making Walt say something that he wouldn't
| have agreed with. Same with any historical figure.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Exactly the same reaction happened when Disney developed the
| first Abraham Lincoln animatronic for the New York World's Fair
| in the 1960's.
|
| Is there some story that you've read and might share?
| lawlessone wrote:
| It's cute now, but will people like it so much when it adopts
| Walt's uh... views on things...?
| tetris11 wrote:
| he had other facets of his personality which they will try to
| capture, and lessen the others. I do agree that you can't pick
| and choose parts of a person, and claim it's still them, but
| here we are
| krunck wrote:
| Can't help thinking about the Kier Eagan animatronic statue in
| Severance.
| nharada wrote:
| Yeah the quote "the goal .. is to capture what it would have
| been like to be in Walt's presence" sounds like it could be
| straight out of that show.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I have seen this one before. The robot ends up trying to to eat
| Elian Gonzalez.
| amiga386 wrote:
| So Robot Chicken wasn't lying to me!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LymbI4Dxj4c
| aetherson wrote:
| Surely if there is one person in history who we would be pretty
| sure would be thrilled to have a posthumous animatronic version
| of himself, it is Walt Disney.
| havblue wrote:
| The problem I see with this is just the lack of originality.
| Disneyland originally focused on subjects like early America, the
| frontier or the future. This robot is about the guy who built a
| company that focused on that. It's very self referential.
| Couldn't they do something new like a Louis Armstrong robot that
| plays trumpet?
| gopher_space wrote:
| I feel like any discussion of where the idea came from or how
| it developed would trigger disparagement clauses. I bet
| everyone's notebooks are full of better ideas.
| Electricniko wrote:
| Most of Disney's works are protected by IP law, but Disney
| himself is public domain.
| n3storm wrote:
| Wait what? yahoo.com exists? XD
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