Stephanie Iketuonye Michaels, founder and CEO of The Stephanie Michaels Software Company and creator of The Univah Film Engine, has released a video and accompanying article questioning whether generative AI is moving the film industry backward.
In the piece titled "The Advantage of Univah Film Engine: Is AI Taking Us Backwards?" Michaels argues that AI beautification pipelines reintroduce a troubling separation between the creative process and the final output. She states, "We cannot go backwards and call it progress. We cannot continue to go backwards and call it innovation. Adding low fidelity proxies to a 3D scene then going to Comfy UI or Seedance hoping it will beautify it — is not so different from a Maya to Vray workflow."
Michaels draws a parallel between current AI-based workflows and older rendering pipelines, suggesting that relying on AI to polish rough assets undermines the direct connection creators should have with their final product. The Univah Film Engine, by contrast, aims to preserve that connection by offering a more integrated creation-to-output process.