Culture
Netflix Used AI on 300 Films and Wants You to Know It Really Values the Human Touch
By Bruno Von Falken, . BSN Network. Satire.
BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA: Netflix, the company that once promised to democratize storytelling, spent part of this week's Busan International Film Festival explaining that it has used artificial intelligence in one form or another on approximately 300 of its titles, before immediately adding that a human touch is absolutely essential, presumably to the one person still being paid to provide it.
Lee Sung-gyun, Netflix's senior director of APAC production, delivered the figure to an audience composed largely of the kinds of humans whose touch is, according to Netflix, absolutely essential. He did not specify which 300 titles. Observers noted that the number is larger than the complete filmographies of most directors in the room combined, which created what one attendee described as "a very specific kind of silence."
Also on the panel, "The Outlaws" director Kang Yoon-sung, whose 2017 film about a gang of criminals outmaneuvering a corrupt system has not yet been updated with a sequel about a streaming platform, told the audience that AI workflows could shave 30 to 40 percent off a feature film's production budget. He then said that a human touch is absolutely essential. He said both of these things. In the same room. Into the same microphone.
"AI is a very powerful tool," Kang told the panel, "and the director's sensibility, creative decisions, and human touch are absolutely essential to the process." When asked which part of the process, specifically, still requires a human, Kang said the creative part. When asked which part of the creative part, the panel moved on to questions from the audience.
Netflix declined to name which 300 titles involved AI, a discretion that has led to a minor parlor game among subscribers who are now rewatching their favorite Korean dramas looking for the exact frame where the background crowd stops blinking.
Inside the streamer, the preferred framing is that AI handles the tedious parts, freeing human artists to focus on the essential parts, a division of labor that sounds reasonable until you realize that the tedious parts are what the below-the-line crew was being paid for, and that the 40 percent budget reduction is not coming out of the director's fee.
Industry analysts contacted for comment pointed out that 40 percent of a large production budget is a number with several zeroes in it, every single one of which used to belong to an editor, a colorist, a compositor, or a visual effects artist who also considered their touch to be, on balance, fairly human.
Netflix's statement on the matter reads in full: "We believe AI, used responsibly, can enhance the creative process while preserving the irreplaceable value of human artistry." The statement was 27 words long and, according to three separate AI detection tools, was not written by a person.
The festival continues through the weekend. Attendance is expected to be excellent.
The story we are making fun of: https://variety.com/2026/tv/festivals/netflix-ai-300-titles-kang-yoon-sung-40-percent-budget-busan-1236907359/