Shark Week 2026 and AI Slop
I am very displeased with Discovery's Shark Week using what appears to be AI for many graphics in the new shows. Specifically, I was watching Jurasic Sharks and while I understand that depicting extinct sharks is difficult, I feel like using AI is a lazy and cheap slap in the face to those that actually illustrate what these sharks may have looked like. The most glaring oversight that I saw was that one of the sharks had drool coming off its teeth, which is such a weird thing to leave in? There were other janky things, but that was the most egregious that I saw before I turned it off. The image below does not fully capture it's AI-ness as it was in the show.
Jaws Vs. Orca also seemed to use AI generated video, although it might have just been poor computer generated graphics, but probably not. Having seen the commercials, some of them seemed a little uncanny AI-like, but I had been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This is the first year I have noticed this and it really makes me not want to watch as all the science and research (that is now kind of watered down if I'm being honest) keeps being interrupted by stupid and poorly animated AI. I know that I shouldn't be surprised at a corporation for putting money first, but having been an avid lover of Shark Week for nearly my whole life it still stings.
