Netflix is drawing criticism for the way it’s allegedly using AI to improve the image quality of the beloved ’80s sitcom, A Different World. The spinoff of The Cosby Show was added to the Netflix catalog in February, which is when eagle-eyed subscribers started noticing weird upscaling taking place. Since A Different World was originally shot in either 480p or 360p resolution, it means the show doesn’t have the high-definition quality that viewers nowadays are accustomed to. Remastering A Different World to 4K using AI has resulted in what can only be dubbed “nightmare fuel,” a collection of distorted faces, incoherent text, and cobbled-together backgrounds.
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Developer Scott Hanselman was one of the more notable people to document Netflix’s AI upgrades to A Different World in a video on TikTok. Hanselman begins his video by showing an example of A Different World on VHS, where watching it on a CRT television set wasn’t a big deal back in the day. Examples of the AI shenanigans at play include posters in the background with what appears to be AI upscaling, and text in the background of scenes being unreadable and turned into pixels.
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“Absolutely iconic show, and you can upscale it, you can make one blurry pixel into four pixels or four pixels into 16 pixels,” Hanselman said. “But you gotta have that information come from somewhere,” Hanselman explained. While there are different kinds of upscaling, “there still isn’t enough information here to make Dwayne and Whitley look correct.”
As Hanselman explains, the reason the AI upgrade isn’t up to par is “because the AI can’t read.” He also adds, “Rather than guessing the phrase or guessing the words, [the AI] just upscales that. It looks like hieroglyphics.”
A Different World isn’t the first piece of content to incorporate AI into the creative process. For example, Call of Duty recently confirmed that it uses generative AI to create in-game items, Elon Musk uses AI for its Grok chatbot, and even Marvel Studios has been accused of using AI for trailers and posters. There were accusations that the first poster for Thunderbolts* miscounted the fingers for Lewis Pullman’s “Bob” character.
Marvel responded to accusations of AI use when it came to the poster for The Fantastic Four: First Steps. A spokesperson for Marvel said, “AI was not used in the creation of these posters.” The new Fantastic Four poster shows a crowd of people waving flags, brandishing signs, and flashing cameras for “Marvel’s First Family.” In just a moment of scrutiny, it’s clear this picture wasn’t taken with a full crowd, but likely cut together with creative editing. However, some of the inconsistencies stood out to fans as possible evidence of AI — multiple people with the same face, arms held out at awkward angles, and most importantly, hands that seem to have the wrong number of fingers.
What are your thoughts on the claims of AI use by Netflix for A Different World? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
