The speed and extremity at which Artificial Intelligence is transforming our lives is an undisputed truth. From the mundane to the sublime, humanity’s rhythms are being reattuned every day to the capacities of the digital universe. There is a prolific debate over AI’s net benefits to human and animal existence, particularly the ethics of reworking traditional labour structures and expunging authentic creativity.

I’ve long been a keen follower of Michael Sandel’s (The Public Philosopher), where each episode picks apart some of the ethical-political facing contemporary society. He recently questioned ‘The Ethics of AI’ at Wales’ Hay Festival, prompting a fascinating discussion about whether the use of AI in film jeopardises creativity, trust, and the authenticity of time. With all the focus on human realness, I was struck that no one brought up the moral trajectory of the animation of animals in entertainment. TV and film have seen a monumental shift towards the use of AI to create and edit animal characters, and this poses the question of whether or not – in light of modern technology – animal ‘acting’ should be entirely eradicated in the future.

Firstly, an overview of the maltreatment of domesticated and wild animals is necessary to understand the crux of this debate.

A history of abuse

‘The Golden Age’ of Hollywood saw viewers captivated by animal actors, from household names such as Lassie to the brawny steeds of Westerns. However, the animal stars’ treatment behind the camera was contentious. The popular Western film Jess James (1939) sparked a particular backlash from animal activists, the controversial scene showing a horse led off a seventy-foot cliff to its death as it crashed into the lake below. The evidential animal rights abuses prompted the entrance the following year of the American Human Association (AHA) into the film industry, marking the advent of the customary declaration: “No Animals Were Harmed”®.

Gladly, the AHA’s influence grew within the entertainment industry, monitoring the welfare of animals in Hollywood through enforced ‘Guidelines for the Safe Use of Animals in Filmed Media’. Today, it claims to monitor 70% of screen productions in the United States*. Other organisations across the world serving guidelines for animal protection in entertainment include the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), PETA, and Movie Animals Protected (MAP).

The reality is that such organisations can only do so much; the global animal entertainment industry is extensive, and illegal activity is often hard to monitor throughout marine parks, circuses, roadside zoos and racing events, as well as TV and film. Animals are often ripped from their mothers at a young age to off-set training compounds, whipped and malnourished, and forced to do inimical tricks for meagre rewards.

In 2020, PETA released gruelling footage recorded by Mexican state authorities of the conditions of the supplier A to Z Film Animals. Dogs stuffed into and stacked in columns of cages, wolves and raccoons confined in tiny, barren pens, and the death of an illegally imported mountain lion cub was just three of the shocking facts revealed in the raid. The worst part? The company was involved in providing animals for popular shows, including Netflix’s Better Call Saul and Disney’s Stargirl.

Throughout the years and across the globe, animals have been stripped of their ‘families, their freedom, and everything else that's natural and important to them’. It is evident rights abuses continue to this day. Up to twenty-seven animals perished on the set of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012); a Bengal tiger almost drowned in the filming, and Crazy Alien (2019) came under fire as footage was released of a dog being spun in a hanging crate and dropped into a pool of water.

CGI: the alternative

Especially with the advancement of CGI and animatronics, PETA argues that filmmakers have ‘the responsibility never to use wild animals in their productions’. This seems like an obvious statement. Why should we continually profit from animal manipulation at all, particularly in an era when AI can produce visually compelling and marvellously realistic animated creatures, as seen in blockbusters such as The Jungle Book (2016), Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024), and Dolittle (2020)?

There are myriad responses to this question, and many movie buffs not only predict that animals will never truly be phased out but don’t think they should. Such sentiment is tied up with complex responses to CGI’s portrayal of authentic animal behaviour, viewer connection, and the issue of project funding.

An economic reality

Perhaps most evident is that quality CGI is not cheap. Lower-budget film projects cannot produce the incredible visual effects as larger ones and opt for real animals. Additionally, AHA doesn’t want to refuse to work with projects involving wild animals filming would go ahead but at the same time ‘le[aving] [the animals] without an advocate or a voice’. As such, the industry continues, as does the support of non-domesticated animals.

Animal authenticity

Reading into the debate opened my eyes to a new dimension of animal ethics that I hadn’t delved into before.

Alice Oven, an animal welfare advocate, discusses the dangers of the ‘Disneyfication’ animals on screen and in media. Disney’s timeless classic, The Lion King (1994), captured the hearts of children and adults across the world as they sang along to the coming-of-age and heroic journey of Simba the Lion in the Pride Lands of Africa. But it was through the humanisation of the wild animals, manipulating their toothy grins, emotive behaviours and voices to resonate with human audiences, that resulted in a massive misrepresentation of the animal kingdom.

Such misrepresentation is multiply problematic through sentimentalisation and strategic dramatisation. It both forges unnatural connections or antipathy between humans and animals, reorganising our understanding of animal behaviour and relationships. Similar complications can arise even with the most realistic CGI or when it is hybridised with real animal footage, such as the orating beasts in Babe (1995). We have to ask questions about how films are jeopardising legitimate representations of animals, which is itself an ethical violation. When we’re shown a very tailored and humanised side of animals, it can have massive knock-on effects on the ways society treats them. While some animals, such as rabbits and dogs, are romanticised, hyenas and rats become stereotyped villains in pop culture.

What really matters?

Along a similar vein, critics question whether an actor talking to a stand-in puppet or someone in a green body suit can foster the same intimacy as with a live creature. Is an actor staring into the eyes of a man in a onesie going to get the same authentic reaction as into the eyes of a tiger?

In short, the answer is no, but I also think that it’s highly irrelevant. I dispute anyone who believes that CGI is proactively lessening the authenticity of animal presence in film. This is not because I think that AI can ever capture their true behaviour, but because film and TV employ the imagination of the viewer as well as the creators. What does matter is the responsible portrayal of animals by filmmakers who set strict boundaries around the kind of realism they are striving to produce.

For documentaries, while animals are not animated, filmmakers often lure them into unnatural situations with fake prey, dramatise their behaviour, and cut together feigned sequences to capitalise on ‘nature porn’. These techniques ultimately produce a gross misrepresentation of the animal kingdom, which deceives viewers of a claimed reality and strips animals of their autonomy.

For film, however, there is not the same claim to truth. The audience is asked to enter a fantasy world and to bring their own creative tools and judgement with them. This is a wonderful use of AI. I do think filmmakers need to tread carefully around problematic humanisation, which is a more complex issue. While CGI is a better alternative to using wild animals, it’s important not to totally stereotype and distort human understandings of different creatures but instead educate us about their natures.

The issue of domesticated animals

The final strand of this debate questions whether domesticated animals such as cats, dogs, rabbits, and horses should too be phased out by CGI. The argument here is that they are readily available, easier to tame, have different needs, and we are so used to seeing them, so would we really believe their AI counterparts? It’s important to remember that household pets still face extensive maltreatment in entertainment. However, it is for these reasons that it would be much more difficult to prohibit their usage and, thus, more important to openly monitor their treatment. Many claim that the bond between man and his ‘best friend’ cannot be replicated through technology; nothing beats the doting nuzzle of a real hound.

What do you think? It’s a tricky question, but it’s worth asking yourself: would you want your pup or kitten to be in a movie? And how would you go about making sure they were well looked after?