Hi there! My name is Janko Roettgers, and this is Lowpass. This week: AI in animation, and Supernatural’s future.

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When Amazon announced last week that it had partnered with three filmmakers to use AI for a batch of new Prime Video shows as part of its new GenAI Creators Fund, the backlash was swift – and at least in one case, overwhelming: Jorge Gutierrez, best known for directing The Book of Life, had been tapped by Amazon to make an animated show called Punky Duck. 

A daya after the announcement, Gutierrez felt the need to warn on social media that he’d report people threatening  his wife and son, writing: “Come at me all you want and need, just leave my family alone.” 

The following day, Gutierrez dropped out of the program. “My intent was to show artists, both new and seasoned, both inside and outside the studios, driving this new tech,” Gutierrez wrote on social media. “My sincerest apology to those I upset. I promise to do better going forward.”

Not every animation artist is ready to give up on generative AI that quickly. Case in point: This coming weekend, two Pixar alums will premiere their animated short Dear Upstairs Neighbors at the Tribeca Film Festival. The short film was brought to life by Google’s DeepMind AI research lab, using AI in a very unique and novel way that hints at the possibility of this technology not replacing, but aiding animators.

“It was very much not a prompt-based approach,” Google DeepMind’s head of production Márcia Mayer tells me.