It "looks" like Disney is loosening the rules on its characters, but they’re actually doing the opposite.
When content was made by people, Disney could approve every use one by one. AI breaks that model. There are just too many possibilities. So instead of controlling every outcome, Disney is building the rules into the system itself.
That means character values, emotional boundaries, and storytelling logic are baked in before anything is created. Some ideas are instantly fine. Some are possible, but only with the right context. And some just don’t work unless there’s a much bigger story behind them.
Disney is doing this because in an AI world, you can’t just protect characters after the fact. You have to decide how they’re allowed to exist before they’re created.