Travis Knight Rejects AI in Animation: 'A Computer Has Never Felt Anything'

Travis Knight spent 16 years making "Wildwood" — and he says no AI could have shortened that timeline without destroying the film. "That very notion fills me with rage," the director told Variety on Wednesday night at AFI Fest's opening night U.S. premiere of the stop-motion fantasy.

Knight, who also leads the animation studio Laika, drew a hard line on generative AI. "I'm not embracing it at all," he said. "I see technology as a tool, and we use technology at Laika. A pencil is technology, a paintbrush is technology, a 3D printer is a computer is technology."

Where does Knight draw the line on AI?

For Knight, the distinction is simple. Technology serves artists; it must not replace them.

"Technology is not useful when it takes the place of the artist, and that's the concern with generative AI," he said. "It's an amazing piece of technology, but the concern is that when it supplants the artist, then we have an issue because the computer cannot speak about humanity at all. It doesn't know what it feels like."

He framed the industry's AI push as a one-directional drift toward automation. "Everything is going to be simpler," Knight said. "Everything is going to be automated; everything is going to be easier. What I would say to that is that there is something special about the human touch."

Why stop motion matters in the AI debate

Knight positioned stop motion as the counterargument to automated filmmaking. "Stop-motion represents humanity at its finest — creativity, emotion, care, devotion, time," he said.

His reasoning rests on lived experience, not processing power. "A computer has never felt anything," Knight said. "It's never felt loss or love or pain, and that's something that people can feel and that's something you feel in something that was made by people."

The takeaway in plain words: for Knight, machine-generated images cannot carry human emotion because machines have never had any.

What is "Wildwood" and why did it take 16 years?

The film is a stop-motion fantasy about a young girl, played by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, who enters a forbidden forest after a murder of crows kidnaps her baby brother.

Sixteen years is roughly twice the span of a typical studio animation production, and Knight joked about the duration. "As I've said before, this film is old enough to have driven me to the premiere tonight," he said.

He said spectacle alone could not sustain such a long process. "At the heart of it, it has to be something that means something to you," Knight said. "Underneath it all, it is something that is really heartfelt, it's beautiful, it's emotional and that's the thing I hope audiences take away from this."

Who appears in the film?

The voice cast spans generations and genres:

• Jacob Tremblay
• Angela Bassett
• Jake Johnson
• Carey Mulligan
• Maya Erskine
• Mahershala Ali
• Awkwafina
• Amandla Stenberg
• Tantoo Cardinal

Bassett recorded her role during the COVID pandemic and welcomed the escape. "I wanted to get out of the house, get creative again," she said. "It was just right on time."

"Wildwood" opened AFI Fest as Hollywood's argument over generative AI intensifies, and Knight's premiere-night comments give the anti-automation camp one of its most quotable voices.