These responses from López are admittedly a little vague and confusing; for viewers who hate the idea of AI being used in TV or film, we’d be more than happy to listen to the full story of how the poster was made, no matter how long it would take. We still don’t know if the poster was actually made with AI, or if it was handmade with the intention of appearing like it was made with AI. The most likely explanation is that it was a little bit of both: The artwork looks like something AI would make, but because AI image generators generally don’t produce actual text, it seems likely the words on the poster were added on by actual humans. The idea that the writers were out to criticize AI makes sense, because some of these typos (like “2st” instead of “1st”) are mistakes an AI likely wouldn’t even make.
Another point in the show’s favor, countering the idea that this new season isn’t as detail-focused as it was under the previous showrunner, is how the heads in the poster all sort of blur together. Combined with the icy background, it seems to really echo the disturbing corpsicle of frozen, thawing humans that make up this season’s main mystery. If nothing else, the poster subtly reinforces the stakes of Navarro’s visit to Chuck, the owner of the poster. Throughout his tense conversation with Navarro, looming behind him is the quiet reminder of the horrors that visited the research scientists, and that might even visit our main characters someday soon.