Disney Lays Off 8% of Staff Including Marvel Artists, Using Their Work to Train AI
Disney reportedly laid off 8% of staff including Marvel artists whose creative work is being used to train AI systems to replace them. Actress Evangeline Lilly publicly denounced the company for discarding the artists who shaped Marvel's success.
What happened
Disney announced a large-scale layoff affecting 8% of its workforce, with core creative teams including Marvel artists also being terminated.
Visual design artist Andy Park, who designed the original Wasp costume and is described as a founding architect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was among those laid off.
According to actress Evangeline Lilly, Disney is feeding decades of human creative work and data from laid-off artists into AI systems to produce content at lower cost.
Reported impact
Evangeline Lilly, who portrayed the Wasp in the Ant-Man film series, publicly condemned Disney in a video statement, saying the company was replacing artists who shaped Marvel's soul with AI.
Lilly called on fans to support the laid-off artists and told them: 'Regardless of how technology develops in the future, you are the magicians who create miracles.'
Index analysis
The incident raises concerns about the use of workers' creative output to train AI systems without consent or compensation, and the displacement of skilled artists by automation.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.