AI Film 'The Middle World' Creator Kown Han-seul: 'AI is Human Creation, Cannot Dominate'

Humanity stands at the precipice of a monumental shift brought about by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Amidst the excitement for the potential prosperity AI may bring and concerns about exacerbated polarization, the question arises: will humans control AI, or will they be consumed by its capabilities?

Challenging the times is Kown Han-seul, an AI creator and CEO of an AI startup. With a background in film studies, Kown has garnered international acclaim, winning both the Grand Prize and the Audience Award at the Dubai International AI Film Festival for his AI-generated short films.

Kown firmly believes that in an era where AI evolves daily, it would become an unnecessary existence without the unique, exceptional abilities of humans. He asserts that only humans with keen senses can bring forth truly masterpieces.

"Ultimately, AI creates new creations within the culture created by humans. It references, uses human creative methods to make new works. No matter how good the technology becomes, a perfect creation cannot emerge without precise human selection and decision-making," Kown stated.

In this regard, the film 'The Middle World' offers a glimpse of hope, showcasing the potential of AI technology and the role of humans. The scene where the King of Hell transforms and attacks humans is particularly spectacular. While such scenes typically incur immense post-production costs, the use of AI drastically reduced the budget. The net production cost, including actor salaries, was a mere 600 million KRW.

Kown explained, "AI is not a cheap technology. However, in the context of a new experiment, there was an aspect of sacrifice through very low labor costs. If given the same time and budget as CG, a much higher quality work could have been born." He further elaborated, "We extracted only the good parts from thousands of videos to create the visuals. The original renders might show oddities like severed limbs, but we selected only the best parts."

Technology is advancing at an unprecedented pace, with seismic shifts occurring every six months. The gap between producing 'Na-ya, Moon-hee' and 'The Middle World' is like night and day. Even within the six months between starting 'The Middle World' and its promotion, immense changes have occurred, according to Kown.

"Compared to 'Na-ya, Moon-hee,' the amount of effort has drastically decreased, while the quality has significantly improved. The movement is different. This technology is bound to become a new breakthrough. However, there's no need to be overly fearful. AI can touch the realm of creation but cannot dominate it. Think of it as a very useful tool. Ultimately, emotions are conveyed by humans," he concluded.

Netizens have reacted with amazement and anticipation, commenting, 'AI technology is developing so fast. The film quality looks so real!', 'The idea that human emotion surpasses AI resonates. I look forward to the future.', and 'Producing this quality with 600 million KRW is astonishing. The director is the best!' They are cheering for the synergy between AI and human creators.