Darren Aronofsky Debuts AI-Generated Series on the American Revolution

Acclaimed director Darren Aronofsky has raised eyebrows by releasing a series of AI-generated short films called ‘On This Day… 1776’ that mark the semiquincentennial anniversary of the American Revolution.

Still 50 years out from the invention of photography, the historic events of 1776 have been imagined using AI technology. A press release says the series is “animated by artists using a variety of generative AI tools, voiced by SAG actors, with an original score; and edited, mixed, and color graded by our post-production team.”

Aronofsky, known for movies like Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream, has taken many by surprise by founding an AI studio called Primordial Soup and partnering with Google DeepMind and Salesforce. The series is being published on Time Magazine’s YouTube channel every week through the end of the year. Each episode is dropping on the 250th anniversary of its occurrence.

The first two episodes have already been aired: The Flag, depicting the moment George Washington raised the Grand Union Flag over Prospect Hill; and Common Sense, following the pamphlet Thomas Paine wrote for people in the Thirteen Colonies advocating independence from Great Britain.

Both videos have been swamped with negative comments, insulting the work while asking why Time, a publication known for being a historical resource throughout the 20th century, and Aronofsky would publish “AI slop.”

While the characters are generally well-rendered, there is a HDR gloss present on almost all of the shots and some of the text on the Common Sense pamphlet is illegible. Perhaps the most noticeable aspect is how short every clip is. The continuous cuts are jarring and the short run time of AI-generated material is another problem to overcome for the insatiable, billion-dollar AI industry.

“On This Day… 1776 exemplifies how TIME Studios is evolving as a distribution home for visionary creators—bringing Primordial Soup together with TIME’s platforms to deliver ambitious, historically grounded storytelling at global scale,” says Ben Bitonti, President of TIME Studios. “This project is a glimpse at what thoughtful, creative, artist-led use of AI can look like—not replacing craft, but expanding what’s possible and allowing storytellers to go places they simply couldn’t before”.

In September, a history professor at the University of Zurich and a computer expert built a historically accurate AI image generator.