Suddenly, a character says out of nowhere: “What the fuck is going on?"
December 11, 2024 2:27 PM Subscribe
Butlerian. Jihad. Now.
posted by lalochezia at 2:42 PM on December 11, 2024 [52 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 2:42 PM on December 11, 2024 [52 favorites]
Kill me now
posted by latkes at 2:56 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by latkes at 2:56 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
I’ve said it before: our only hope, since lawmakers are unlikely to act, is containment. And what we need for that is for tastemakers and everyone who has a voice to be unanimous—AI is tacky. It’s cheap and stupid crap made for and by cheap and stupid people. It won’t go away, but if people treat it with enough contempt, it won’t conquer everything either.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:56 PM on December 11, 2024 [57 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 2:56 PM on December 11, 2024 [57 favorites]
(It might also help if someone created AI films of key Republicans and alt-right types in gay porn. Maybe then they’d demand some kind of laws—at least slugs at the bottom, like in campaign ads, or watermarks.)
posted by Countess Elena at 2:58 PM on December 11, 2024 [23 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 2:58 PM on December 11, 2024 [23 favorites]
I... kind of liked "The Slug?"
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:02 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:02 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
I'm in the process of ditching Adobe photo software because of the way they're pushing AI hard and framing it as a way to get rid of those expensive photographers.
https://amateurphotographer.com/latest/photo-news/opinion-photographers-its-time-to-boycott-adobe/
posted by kokaku at 3:11 PM on December 11, 2024 [17 favorites]
https://amateurphotographer.com/latest/photo-news/opinion-photographers-its-time-to-boycott-adobe/
posted by kokaku at 3:11 PM on December 11, 2024 [17 favorites]
"The Audition" has to be a mix of real actors and AI, because the actors all look very real and the AI looks like garbage.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:13 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:13 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
Things I want from a TV: to display video content.
Things I do not want from a TV: to have a PRC state-owned enterprise dump literal garbage content onto the screen.
posted by 1adam12 at 3:14 PM on December 11, 2024 [27 favorites]
Things I do not want from a TV: to have a PRC state-owned enterprise dump literal garbage content onto the screen.
posted by 1adam12 at 3:14 PM on December 11, 2024 [27 favorites]
The ending of "Sun Day" missed an opportunity by not having the mom pop into frame after the girl says "I did it, mom!" to tell her she Sure Did, because she is 100% dead.
Anyway, people outraged by this AI-generated trash have probably not been watching Kids YouTube for the past few years, which is 10000 times worse.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:18 PM on December 11, 2024 [8 favorites]
Anyway, people outraged by this AI-generated trash have probably not been watching Kids YouTube for the past few years, which is 10000 times worse.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:18 PM on December 11, 2024 [8 favorites]
So "Sun Day" essentially is a rip-off of Ray Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day" except turned into a bad "action" movie. Got it.
As a thought experiment, I ... well, OK, I still hate it but there's something interesting about it in the abstract. Claiming this is the future of movie-making ... well, no, not at all. There is such a soullessness about this.
This is content-generation at its worst. The idea it doesn't matter what the content is as long as exists is exhausting to me. Yes, it does matter.
I have watched more than 300 movies this year (which is a lot to most people but I know several people who have seen more). Some were good. Some were great. Some were instantly forgettable. Some I really disliked (mostly Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Argylle, but to be fair, I did not expect to like either one). There were a lot of other littler movies that failed in some way or another for me but I was willing to give them some grace because I could sense these movies meant something to the people making them. And to me, that means they matter.
These AI movies? They don't mean anything. They don't matter.
I'm all for making movie making more accessible and easier. AI isn't going to do that. It's just going to make things worse.
posted by edencosmic at 3:18 PM on December 11, 2024 [21 favorites]
As a thought experiment, I ... well, OK, I still hate it but there's something interesting about it in the abstract. Claiming this is the future of movie-making ... well, no, not at all. There is such a soullessness about this.
This is content-generation at its worst. The idea it doesn't matter what the content is as long as exists is exhausting to me. Yes, it does matter.
I have watched more than 300 movies this year (which is a lot to most people but I know several people who have seen more). Some were good. Some were great. Some were instantly forgettable. Some I really disliked (mostly Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Argylle, but to be fair, I did not expect to like either one). There were a lot of other littler movies that failed in some way or another for me but I was willing to give them some grace because I could sense these movies meant something to the people making them. And to me, that means they matter.
These AI movies? They don't mean anything. They don't matter.
I'm all for making movie making more accessible and easier. AI isn't going to do that. It's just going to make things worse.
posted by edencosmic at 3:18 PM on December 11, 2024 [21 favorites]
The Second AI Winter is Coming. Didn't quite arrive in time for this year, but it will by next.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:28 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:28 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
I... kind of liked "The Slug?"
The concept isn't totally terrible! Except it's also basically just Kafka's Metamorphosis, isn't it?
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:29 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
The concept isn't totally terrible! Except it's also basically just Kafka's Metamorphosis, isn't it?
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:29 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
I remember watching an adaptation of "All Summer in a Day" when I was a kid (which seems to have been the PBS adaptation mentioned on the short story's Wikipedia page), and it made me cry back then. These AI generated shorts also make me want to cry, but for entirely different reasons.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:37 PM on December 11, 2024 [16 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:37 PM on December 11, 2024 [16 favorites]
Anyway, people outraged by this AI-generated trash have probably not been watching Kids YouTube for the past few years, which is 10000 times worse.
Kids YouTube is good training for AI consumers. These are being made for the iPad babies and people who watch everything on their phones. I don't know if it's the future of filmmaking or not, but eventually there will be a creative prompter who gets something worth watching out of the AI.
(My film pitch, throwing it out into the world for anyone or AI to make: 1920s Metafilter, everyone is wearing straw boaters and sending telegrams WHY DO WE NEED TALKIES STOP WE CALL IT THE PICTURES FOR A REASON STOP MUSIC ON FILM IS SOULLESS COMPARED TO ORCHESTRA STOP HOLLYWOOD NEEDS TO STOP STOP)
posted by betweenthebars at 3:43 PM on December 11, 2024 [13 favorites]
Kids YouTube is good training for AI consumers. These are being made for the iPad babies and people who watch everything on their phones. I don't know if it's the future of filmmaking or not, but eventually there will be a creative prompter who gets something worth watching out of the AI.
(My film pitch, throwing it out into the world for anyone or AI to make: 1920s Metafilter, everyone is wearing straw boaters and sending telegrams WHY DO WE NEED TALKIES STOP WE CALL IT THE PICTURES FOR A REASON STOP MUSIC ON FILM IS SOULLESS COMPARED TO ORCHESTRA STOP HOLLYWOOD NEEDS TO STOP STOP)
posted by betweenthebars at 3:43 PM on December 11, 2024 [13 favorites]
I also enjoyed The Slug.
posted by GiantSlug at 3:48 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by GiantSlug at 3:48 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
directed 2011’s Atlas Shrugged: Part I
That tells you all you need to know.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 4:07 PM on December 11, 2024 [12 favorites]
That tells you all you need to know.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 4:07 PM on December 11, 2024 [12 favorites]
it's also basically just Kafka's Metamorphosis, isn't it?
The happy version, it would seem.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:18 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
The happy version, it would seem.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:18 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
DOGME '25 Manifesto now
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:20 PM on December 11, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:20 PM on December 11, 2024 [6 favorites]
I don't think it's in a person's rational self-interest to watch films from the director of Atlas Shrugged, Part I.
Although give that film this much credit: it's apparently far better than Parts II and III, which, I am given to understand, really need scare quotes around the word "movie."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:20 PM on December 11, 2024 [12 favorites]
Although give that film this much credit: it's apparently far better than Parts II and III, which, I am given to understand, really need scare quotes around the word "movie."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:20 PM on December 11, 2024 [12 favorites]
I’ve said it before: our only hope, since lawmakers are unlikely to act, is containment. And what we need for that is for tastemakers and everyone who has a voice to be unanimous—AI is tacky. It’s cheap and stupid crap made for and by cheap and stupid people. It won’t go away, but if people treat it with enough contempt, it won’t conquer everything either.
We all thought that way about reality TV back in the '00s. We all know how that turned out.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 4:29 PM on December 11, 2024 [14 favorites]
We all thought that way about reality TV back in the '00s. We all know how that turned out.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 4:29 PM on December 11, 2024 [14 favorites]
I am of the opinion that if you expect anything of substance from TV, videos or movies you have possibly already made a mistake...
posted by jim in austin at 4:47 PM on December 11, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 4:47 PM on December 11, 2024 [5 favorites]
These AI movies? They don't mean anything. They don't matter.
There's a larger point to be made here as well about artistic intention and art criticism, because there's no intention behind these things, and without that there's nothing to criticize, nothing to interrogate beyond the profit motive.
posted by mhoye at 4:50 PM on December 11, 2024 [6 favorites]
There's a larger point to be made here as well about artistic intention and art criticism, because there's no intention behind these things, and without that there's nothing to criticize, nothing to interrogate beyond the profit motive.
posted by mhoye at 4:50 PM on December 11, 2024 [6 favorites]
“Shine and rise, Sara!” “I wasn’t sleeping, Dad, just thinking.” “It’s okay, Sara, I do too.”
posted by rory at 5:04 PM on December 11, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by rory at 5:04 PM on December 11, 2024 [6 favorites]
directed 2011’s Atlas Shrugged: Part I
In all seriousness, if I told you this was generated by AI, would you find it implausible?
posted by Lemkin at 5:12 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
In all seriousness, if I told you this was generated by AI, would you find it implausible?
posted by Lemkin at 5:12 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
“I am of the opinion that if you expect anything of substance from TV, videos or movies you have possibly already made a mistake...”
When a book gets adapted, do you feel it always loses something that made it substantive, or do you feel that only bad books get turned into movies and shows?
posted by Selena777 at 5:26 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
When a book gets adapted, do you feel it always loses something that made it substantive, or do you feel that only bad books get turned into movies and shows?
posted by Selena777 at 5:26 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
Whatever else you think about this, let's keep in mind that as a result of this whole process someone asked a computer to show him a slug smiling. That's got to be worth something.
posted by phooky at 5:31 PM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by phooky at 5:31 PM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]
I was surprised that it says the scripts were written by humans—they're really bad.
I'm especially offended at the way "Sun Day" cribs off of Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day," but without any of the heart or inventiveness of the original.
posted by signal at 5:35 PM on December 11, 2024 [6 favorites]
I'm especially offended at the way "Sun Day" cribs off of Bradbury's "All Summer in a Day," but without any of the heart or inventiveness of the original.
posted by signal at 5:35 PM on December 11, 2024 [6 favorites]
I am not worried about AI movies taking over conventional movies, because essentially they don't look very good. They look like an AI movie, and for most people that will take them right out of the story you want them to get into, or at the least compartmentalize them in their head as "ok that was fine, but it's not a real movie."
Of course, in a few years that might be different, and AI can really, truly make a 90-minute feature indistinguishable from the real thing, but frankly that's a long way off. The uncanny valley is a real thing that people recoil from.
posted by zardoz at 5:35 PM on December 11, 2024
Of course, in a few years that might be different, and AI can really, truly make a 90-minute feature indistinguishable from the real thing, but frankly that's a long way off. The uncanny valley is a real thing that people recoil from.
posted by zardoz at 5:35 PM on December 11, 2024
Plainly, “generative AI” that can do bits and pieces of VFX is actually starting to be a thing now, AI that can make a whole movie that makes sense clearly is not, these people are trying to cobble together something anyway as a cheap cash-in gimmick - really their every stated intention is bad - and deserve about as much consideration or respect as that would suggest. Is there much more to say about it?
posted by atoxyl at 5:49 PM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 5:49 PM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]
The thing is, line with writing, is the common denominator of “good enough” is depressingly low.
posted by gottabefunky at 6:07 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by gottabefunky at 6:07 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
I find it hard to believe these were human actors - the post-processing has stripped any semblance of humanity from them. I assume this is because they don't want to present actual human actors, but are playing along for now to avoid industrial action by using them to create raw material - maybe it's cheaper for now to use actors to create that raw material than to use AI to create it from whole cloth? The lack of synchronisation of audio is very annoying, albeit no worse than an overdubbed video.
These really are terrible, but what's worse is that they will dramatically and quickly improve. I do wonder how much this differs from the early days of CGI, when everyone was complaining about technology being 'fake' and putting people out of work. Technology continues to 'improve' in every aspect of life but I remain unconvinced that AI can actually create the magic of movies that is creating something we can perceive as real regardless of how far-fetched it may seem. That connection with human actors is going to be hard to replace and I hope they never figure it out.
I do feel that people are far less critical of media quality than they used to be and fear that complacency will lead to this becoming the new normal.
posted by dg at 6:42 PM on December 11, 2024
These really are terrible, but what's worse is that they will dramatically and quickly improve. I do wonder how much this differs from the early days of CGI, when everyone was complaining about technology being 'fake' and putting people out of work. Technology continues to 'improve' in every aspect of life but I remain unconvinced that AI can actually create the magic of movies that is creating something we can perceive as real regardless of how far-fetched it may seem. That connection with human actors is going to be hard to replace and I hope they never figure it out.
I do feel that people are far less critical of media quality than they used to be and fear that complacency will lead to this becoming the new normal.
posted by dg at 6:42 PM on December 11, 2024
It's so awful.
Every shot is exactly the same: the camera zooming slightly in or out, a static emotion hyper exaggerated on a face (if there is a face), the optical illusion of movement without any actual movement. From one shot to the next there is no continuity, the sense of space is broken because the objects are all in different places. It's like the Austin Powers gag about a henchman getting run over by a truck for a very long time, or that Scooby-Doo trope where you know there's a trapdoor because it's drawn differently.
And frankly, I find the faces indistinguishable from the morphing they did in the Black Hole Sun video in 1994.
posted by Horkus at 6:43 PM on December 11, 2024 [8 favorites]
Every shot is exactly the same: the camera zooming slightly in or out, a static emotion hyper exaggerated on a face (if there is a face), the optical illusion of movement without any actual movement. From one shot to the next there is no continuity, the sense of space is broken because the objects are all in different places. It's like the Austin Powers gag about a henchman getting run over by a truck for a very long time, or that Scooby-Doo trope where you know there's a trapdoor because it's drawn differently.
And frankly, I find the faces indistinguishable from the morphing they did in the Black Hole Sun video in 1994.
posted by Horkus at 6:43 PM on December 11, 2024 [8 favorites]
We're blowing past climate goals for a worse visual than what I got after smoking some weird shit in college (it was """salvia""" but for about five seconds the TV waterfalled into the floor like the victory animation in solitaire so...).
posted by Slackermagee at 6:48 PM on December 11, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by Slackermagee at 6:48 PM on December 11, 2024 [7 favorites]
WHY DO WE NEED TALKIES STOP WE CALL IT THE PICTURES FOR A REASON STOP MUSIC ON FILM IS SOULLESS COMPARED TO ORCHESTRA STOP HOLLYWOOD NEEDS TO STOP STOP
This, but unironically.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:15 PM on December 11, 2024 [10 favorites]
This, but unironically.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:15 PM on December 11, 2024 [10 favorites]
it was """salvia""" but for about five seconds the TV waterfalled into the floor like the victory animation in solitaire so
Is that not in line with what you’d expect from smoking salvia because it’s in line with what I’d expect (though okay it’s more like “my seat of consciousness waterfalls onto the floor and also is rotating somehow”)
posted by atoxyl at 7:16 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
Is that not in line with what you’d expect from smoking salvia because it’s in line with what I’d expect (though okay it’s more like “my seat of consciousness waterfalls onto the floor and also is rotating somehow”)
posted by atoxyl at 7:16 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
“I realize that it's not there to the level that everyone might want to hold it up in terms of perfection”
”AI became an entry point for us to do more cost-effective experimentation on how to do original content when we don’t have a huge budget”
“[W]e were able to get around some of the current limitations, but it also helped us in ways I think we would have never thought of”
Love to see Hollywood bullshit-buzzword-salad meet techbro bullshit-buzzword-salad
posted by gottabefunky at 7:32 PM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]
”AI became an entry point for us to do more cost-effective experimentation on how to do original content when we don’t have a huge budget”
“[W]e were able to get around some of the current limitations, but it also helped us in ways I think we would have never thought of”
Love to see Hollywood bullshit-buzzword-salad meet techbro bullshit-buzzword-salad
posted by gottabefunky at 7:32 PM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]
A lot of these discussions around AI video's (or art, or text, or whatever) tend to come to conclusion that it won't be that damaging because "look at all the flaws." Granted, it's very easy to spot generative AI in the wild right now. But there will be a definitive time where it's not. Even if it's not the present, now is the time we need to adjust for the coming storm.
posted by iamck at 8:04 PM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by iamck at 8:04 PM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]
WHY DO WE NEED TALKIES STOP
I guess if we started out with products like The Birth of a Nation, maybe several decades from now we might luck out and get the AI equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Assuming running these AIs doesn't further hasten climate change to the point that anyone human is still around to watch.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:30 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
I guess if we started out with products like The Birth of a Nation, maybe several decades from now we might luck out and get the AI equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Assuming running these AIs doesn't further hasten climate change to the point that anyone human is still around to watch.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 8:30 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]
Fran Blanche was commenting about YouTube's absurd ai algorithm that suggest how to respond to comments. It makes me wonder when Youtube will start generating ai videos that engage ai bots to generate more ai videos, and when ai will start monetizing ai content to other ai video machines to create more content for actual nobodies. Maybe it would be good if people get cut out of that process and the machine media evolves its own fork of what constitutes content compelling enough to its own alternate universe(s).
posted by 2N2222 at 8:48 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by 2N2222 at 8:48 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
A lot of these discussions around AI video's (or art, or text, or whatever) tend to come to conclusion that it won't be that damaging because "look at all the flaws." Granted, it's very easy to spot generative AI in the wild right now. But there will be a definitive time where it's not. Even if it's not the present, now is the time we need to adjust for the coming storm.
Then we need to poison the well by dismissing everything that sucks, regardless of its origins, as "obviously AI; can't you tell?"
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:48 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
Then we need to poison the well by dismissing everything that sucks, regardless of its origins, as "obviously AI; can't you tell?"
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:48 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
I was more entertained by this terrible AI short that's made the rounds on FB and reddit.
posted by fings at 9:41 PM on December 11, 2024 [8 favorites]
posted by fings at 9:41 PM on December 11, 2024 [8 favorites]
I am of the opinion that if you expect anything of substance from TV, videos or movies you have possibly already made a mistake...
“I abhor television. Notice how i said ‘television’ and not ‘TV’ because TV is a nickname and nicknames are for friends and television is no friend of mine.”
posted by haileris23 at 10:13 PM on December 11, 2024 [5 favorites]
“I abhor television. Notice how i said ‘television’ and not ‘TV’ because TV is a nickname and nicknames are for friends and television is no friend of mine.”
posted by haileris23 at 10:13 PM on December 11, 2024 [5 favorites]
I was surprised that it says the scripts were written by humans—they're really bad.
They were? Ye gods, I quoted those lines from Sun Day above because they seemed to capture the awfulness of generative AI... I suppose instead they capture the awfulness of everyone involved in this sordid enterprise.
(I should have known that Spicy Auto-Complete would never predict the phrase "shine and rise", which has surely never occurred in the wild and therefore in AI training data.)
posted by rory at 11:53 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
They were? Ye gods, I quoted those lines from Sun Day above because they seemed to capture the awfulness of generative AI... I suppose instead they capture the awfulness of everyone involved in this sordid enterprise.
(I should have known that Spicy Auto-Complete would never predict the phrase "shine and rise", which has surely never occurred in the wild and therefore in AI training data.)
posted by rory at 11:53 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]
here's a Sora generated video of gymnastics
Stand down, humanity, the Singularity is here.
posted by rory at 11:58 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
Stand down, humanity, the Singularity is here.
posted by rory at 11:58 PM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]
So everything I had to say on this has been said above (especially the plagiarism of Bradbury), but I do wish to note that while Atlas Shrugged part 1 is not the worst movie in the world (the two sequels are worse) it could not be salvaged by being incredibly high on some very well sourced marijuana my roommate in New York had sourced. The other two could not either. The Start Wars Holiday Special can, if barely and with fast forwarding a bit.
It's kind of a schadenfreude moment given that Rand was a script doctor before she started her cult.
posted by Hactar at 1:37 AM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
It's kind of a schadenfreude moment given that Rand was a script doctor before she started her cult.
posted by Hactar at 1:37 AM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
There’s always been this fascinating layer of sub-Hollywood, the sort of “supermarket dvd action movie”, that exists to pump out unwatchable content and give people who live in Hollywood jobs. How is AI going to affect these guys? The needle on the quality meter is barely going to move, but I guess other parts of their operation will change to AI.
And we should absolutely call out AI as tacky and bad. It’s a sign that the people making the content do not care about their audience, they only care about getting the content to eyeballs as cheaply as possible.
posted by The River Ivel at 1:54 AM on December 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
And we should absolutely call out AI as tacky and bad. It’s a sign that the people making the content do not care about their audience, they only care about getting the content to eyeballs as cheaply as possible.
posted by The River Ivel at 1:54 AM on December 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
Critics say your favourite AI-generated movie sucks but it doesn’t matter, because its creator doesn’t know what a movie review is, because it doesn’t *know* anything.
posted by Lesser Spotted Potoroo at 5:15 AM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Lesser Spotted Potoroo at 5:15 AM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
Will calling out AI generated movies as tacky and bad have about the same impact as calling out Republicans as weird?
posted by ginger.beef at 5:19 AM on December 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 5:19 AM on December 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
So the AI Chat software gobbles up VAST AMOUNTS OF electricity how much does AI image / moving image generation consume?
All for this offensive slop
posted by Faintdreams at 5:25 AM on December 12, 2024 [3 favorites]
All for this offensive slop
posted by Faintdreams at 5:25 AM on December 12, 2024 [3 favorites]
A lot of people seem to really like smooth, pretty, seamless visuals and stories with no point of view at all. This is not a judgement of them, I don't think a person's worth can be judged based on their taste, it's just something I've observed.
Many people love that instant hit of "this is not something I could have made but I made it, look! " offered by so many image generating apps and filters.
They love the candy-fresh images of cats and toddlers riding rainbow balloons made of champagne.
The images and stories fall out of their attention in moments but that's OK because a moment's hit of dopamine is all that's needed.
Most of us here need more sustenance, but we're not the target audience, and I suspect we're outnumbered.
Again - no value judgement intended.
posted by Zumbador at 6:02 AM on December 12, 2024 [5 favorites]
Many people love that instant hit of "this is not something I could have made but I made it, look! " offered by so many image generating apps and filters.
They love the candy-fresh images of cats and toddlers riding rainbow balloons made of champagne.
The images and stories fall out of their attention in moments but that's OK because a moment's hit of dopamine is all that's needed.
Most of us here need more sustenance, but we're not the target audience, and I suspect we're outnumbered.
Again - no value judgement intended.
posted by Zumbador at 6:02 AM on December 12, 2024 [5 favorites]
Even bad art is art. I can watch a terrible direct-to-video action movie and still feel on some level the humanity that's behind it: the dreams (and hubris) of the writers and director, the greed of the producers, the earnest effort of the actors who are trying and failing to deliver ridiculous lines with gravitas.
I might resent having wasted my time if I feel like the overriding goal of everyone involved was to deliver the most bare minimum product that can still make a profit, though.
AI feels like the end point of that. It removes everything but the profit motive. There's no art, just product - just "content." There's no room for anyone else's humanity to slip in because humans aren't making it. The whole thing is dystopian and I have absolutely no faith whatsoever that we can stop it by calling it "tacky" or whatever; the comparison to reality shows is apt.
But, hey, after reality shows killed cable people still made good tv shows, so maybe there's hope. People watched the reality shows but they also made shows like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones (for all its flaws) massive phenomena, so. Maybe art can survive.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:06 AM on December 12, 2024 [8 favorites]
I might resent having wasted my time if I feel like the overriding goal of everyone involved was to deliver the most bare minimum product that can still make a profit, though.
AI feels like the end point of that. It removes everything but the profit motive. There's no art, just product - just "content." There's no room for anyone else's humanity to slip in because humans aren't making it. The whole thing is dystopian and I have absolutely no faith whatsoever that we can stop it by calling it "tacky" or whatever; the comparison to reality shows is apt.
But, hey, after reality shows killed cable people still made good tv shows, so maybe there's hope. People watched the reality shows but they also made shows like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones (for all its flaws) massive phenomena, so. Maybe art can survive.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:06 AM on December 12, 2024 [8 favorites]
I think the difference between AI filmmaking and bloated cynical schlock like The Star Wars Holiday Special is that a bad movie might consist of stupid, bewildering ideas, and those ideas may be executed haphazardly or inconsistently. AI content is doomed to have no ideas (because that's why the creators resorted to AI) and to be executed apathetically. Novelty is sometimes synonomous with the lowest appeal of entertainment, but after you've seen a few of these things, you can't even experience that.
posted by jy4m at 6:25 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by jy4m at 6:25 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
Now that I think of it, “shine and rise” is actually pretty clever because it evokes a society that’s so utterly obsessed with sunshine that they’ll take a common saying and warp it into an absolute stinker of a phrase just to put the sunshine first.
posted by moonmilk at 6:28 AM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by moonmilk at 6:28 AM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
We all thought that way about reality TV back in the '00s. We all know how that turned out.
LOL I got dogpiled here about a year ago for saying I didn't understand why in the world anyone would watch "reality" TV. Something about some show about a restaurant where the main couple broke up. So, stop stop stop.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:32 AM on December 12, 2024
LOL I got dogpiled here about a year ago for saying I didn't understand why in the world anyone would watch "reality" TV. Something about some show about a restaurant where the main couple broke up. So, stop stop stop.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:32 AM on December 12, 2024
In the future, all girls and women will be Denise Richards.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:20 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:20 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
To quote the father in Sun Day "Welcome to the sewers."
posted by zerobyproxy at 7:46 AM on December 12, 2024
posted by zerobyproxy at 7:46 AM on December 12, 2024
Is there actually a market for movies where you can't trust anything that moves, because it shimmers and becomes something else, always? There's a thrilling hallucinatory quality to it that's been around since the DeepDream days--one that, properly used, I find aesthetically interesting and sort of absorbing--but it doesn't work for literally anything else, any other feeling. The other day we had a video here where they were talking about AI avatars and how would you know if you were talking to one, and the answer was simply, "Can you turn around so I can see the back of your head?"
We won't get good AI movies--we won't even get AI movies in the sense of a continuous sequence of moving images that tell a coherent story--for the same reason we don't have AI novels (or really anything longer than AI anecdotes and jokes).
If, as people say, in a few years we'll have AI that is able to replicate objects (or people, animals, other agents) that are stable over time, then we'll have much bigger problems on our hands, because that's intelligence.
posted by mittens at 8:12 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
We won't get good AI movies--we won't even get AI movies in the sense of a continuous sequence of moving images that tell a coherent story--for the same reason we don't have AI novels (or really anything longer than AI anecdotes and jokes).
If, as people say, in a few years we'll have AI that is able to replicate objects (or people, animals, other agents) that are stable over time, then we'll have much bigger problems on our hands, because that's intelligence.
posted by mittens at 8:12 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
AI is just a tool by which the oligarchs march on to their end goal of stealing everything and then controlling everything. This tool is not intended to help humanity in its efforts - that's just the half heartedly propagandized cover story, pathetic that it is - anyone see any pimping for AI beyond: its going to revolutionize medicine (it wont, unless revolutionize means things like UnitedHealth Care taking even the minimal amount of human participation mitigating in the slightest way possible the wrecking havoc/ruining patients lives) or improve business in some unnamed nebulous way, e.g. Idris Elba pimping AI for a harried office drone.
The entire point is to remove us workers/proles/plebs, ie future serfs, from any meaningful, impactful role in humanity's future.
Thats why these fuckers are ramping up the destruction of the planet, and forcing this horrendously bad technology into EVERYTHING. My goddamn bank, US Bank - puke, is pimping AI as something that will "help streamline banking" woo hoo, and somehow "'prevent fraud'. As if making those things worse via the miracle of AI isn't anything but a justification for firing (ie improving quarterly profit) boatloads of their work force.
All this is just to take humanity out of the workforce, rendering our only real power void.
All this is probably obvious, but Ive never been so sure of anything in my entire life.
posted by WatTylerJr at 8:13 AM on December 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
The entire point is to remove us workers/proles/plebs, ie future serfs, from any meaningful, impactful role in humanity's future.
Thats why these fuckers are ramping up the destruction of the planet, and forcing this horrendously bad technology into EVERYTHING. My goddamn bank, US Bank - puke, is pimping AI as something that will "help streamline banking" woo hoo, and somehow "'prevent fraud'. As if making those things worse via the miracle of AI isn't anything but a justification for firing (ie improving quarterly profit) boatloads of their work force.
All this is just to take humanity out of the workforce, rendering our only real power void.
All this is probably obvious, but Ive never been so sure of anything in my entire life.
posted by WatTylerJr at 8:13 AM on December 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
it's going to revolutionize medicine
I've been vaguely thinking about an FPP around a recent survey of medical offices which said that 41% of the offices expected to be able to use AI to diagnose patients. An astonishing 8% of physicians admitted to using AI for diagnostic help.
So, we'll probably all die from being diagnosed with scabies or something before we get a good AI movie.
posted by mittens at 8:26 AM on December 12, 2024 [4 favorites]
I've been vaguely thinking about an FPP around a recent survey of medical offices which said that 41% of the offices expected to be able to use AI to diagnose patients. An astonishing 8% of physicians admitted to using AI for diagnostic help.
So, we'll probably all die from being diagnosed with scabies or something before we get a good AI movie.
posted by mittens at 8:26 AM on December 12, 2024 [4 favorites]
I don't know, I'm kind of not on board with this knee-jerk revulsion that AI-generated content is morally repugnant because it's tacky and soulless or whatever. Are these short films tacky and soulless? For sure. But most short films I've seen have been tacky and soulless, just in a different way. Because there are a *lot* of mediocre filmmakers out there. The AI-generated slop is just going to join the mass of human-generated slop.
What people are put off by, I think, is that there's a total mismatch between the style (sleek, emotionless, yet disjointed) and the content, which keeps trying to reproduce traditional-style storytelling while pretending the former is no different than traditional filmmaking.
I think sooner or later a talented person is going to understand the emerging possibilities of this medium and merge style and content to produce something that is truly good art, and will probably say something profound and a little dark about the current zeitgeist. I feel like that absolutely unhinged AI-generated video of Gordon Ramsay in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares is starting to get at this. Clearly, that video made a lot of people feel something, including myself.
There's a lot to be said about how generative AI (and the companies behind them) is most definitely going to accelerate our hyper-capitalist technocratic labor-exploiting hellscape, but this snobbish catastrophizing about the decline of good, tasteful art just comes off as petulant and reactionary.
posted by adso at 8:41 AM on December 12, 2024 [8 favorites]
What people are put off by, I think, is that there's a total mismatch between the style (sleek, emotionless, yet disjointed) and the content, which keeps trying to reproduce traditional-style storytelling while pretending the former is no different than traditional filmmaking.
I think sooner or later a talented person is going to understand the emerging possibilities of this medium and merge style and content to produce something that is truly good art, and will probably say something profound and a little dark about the current zeitgeist. I feel like that absolutely unhinged AI-generated video of Gordon Ramsay in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares is starting to get at this. Clearly, that video made a lot of people feel something, including myself.
There's a lot to be said about how generative AI (and the companies behind them) is most definitely going to accelerate our hyper-capitalist technocratic labor-exploiting hellscape, but this snobbish catastrophizing about the decline of good, tasteful art just comes off as petulant and reactionary.
posted by adso at 8:41 AM on December 12, 2024 [8 favorites]
What if we just don't care what a computer program "thinks." About anything, really, but especially about human life and experiences. I just. don't. care.
Here's an anecdote: I had already seen the notorious AI coca-cola commercial a couple times before finding out it was AI. I am a goddamn sucker for previous years' holiday commercials (from a lot of different companies -- I remember one that appeared on MeFi even). Coca cola is historically very good at creating a holiday ad that will make me a little bit teary. This one I was just like, what? OK, so there's trucks and bears and a dog? What the fuck is this even, it's like Christmas clip art from MS Word. Later I found out it was AI generated and was like oh, well, that's why it was hot garbage.
Because AI doesn't know and doesn't give a flying fuck about what Christmas means or what family is or what winter is like, and therefore has nothing whatsoever to say about those things. The humans who used to make those ads did have thoughts and feelings about all those things! They had something to say about it. Ad people are cynical as fuck but they're still people, who can have ideas. AI can just put brand names on shapes.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:51 AM on December 12, 2024 [8 favorites]
Here's an anecdote: I had already seen the notorious AI coca-cola commercial a couple times before finding out it was AI. I am a goddamn sucker for previous years' holiday commercials (from a lot of different companies -- I remember one that appeared on MeFi even). Coca cola is historically very good at creating a holiday ad that will make me a little bit teary. This one I was just like, what? OK, so there's trucks and bears and a dog? What the fuck is this even, it's like Christmas clip art from MS Word. Later I found out it was AI generated and was like oh, well, that's why it was hot garbage.
Because AI doesn't know and doesn't give a flying fuck about what Christmas means or what family is or what winter is like, and therefore has nothing whatsoever to say about those things. The humans who used to make those ads did have thoughts and feelings about all those things! They had something to say about it. Ad people are cynical as fuck but they're still people, who can have ideas. AI can just put brand names on shapes.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:51 AM on December 12, 2024 [8 favorites]
… but this snobbish catastrophizing about the decline of good, tasteful art just comes off as petulant and reactionary.
Yeah, I know. Where laws and gatekeepers won’t step in, classism will have to do. It sucks, but it’s what’s at hand, and it’s the only reason we still do have certain art forms—theater, painting—when they were technically superseded.
Of course there’s still reality TV; of course there’s a market for poor product. And there is a way to use AI to create bizarre, thought-provoking art. That’s stuff that humans do. Getting humans paid and involved is the important thing. We can’t turn back the clock, but we still have choices.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:53 AM on December 12, 2024 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I know. Where laws and gatekeepers won’t step in, classism will have to do. It sucks, but it’s what’s at hand, and it’s the only reason we still do have certain art forms—theater, painting—when they were technically superseded.
Of course there’s still reality TV; of course there’s a market for poor product. And there is a way to use AI to create bizarre, thought-provoking art. That’s stuff that humans do. Getting humans paid and involved is the important thing. We can’t turn back the clock, but we still have choices.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:53 AM on December 12, 2024 [3 favorites]
its going to revolutionize medicine
It already has.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:10 AM on December 12, 2024
It already has.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:10 AM on December 12, 2024
"but this snobbish catastrophizing about the decline of good, tasteful art just comes off as petulant and reactionary"
um, no offense intended, but what would you call this crap fest of a movie, and the crap fest of replacing virtual artists, and writing ? *
IMO it's hardly reactionary or petulant to be concerned about the replacement of such vital contributors to human culture by fucking awful chatbots?
* https://www.allaboutai.com/ai-news/writers-criticize-startups-plan-to-release-8000-ai-generated-books/
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:27 AM on December 12, 2024
um, no offense intended, but what would you call this crap fest of a movie, and the crap fest of replacing virtual artists, and writing ? *
IMO it's hardly reactionary or petulant to be concerned about the replacement of such vital contributors to human culture by fucking awful chatbots?
* https://www.allaboutai.com/ai-news/writers-criticize-startups-plan-to-release-8000-ai-generated-books/
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:27 AM on December 12, 2024
Will calling out AI generated movies as tacky and bad have about the same impact as calling out Republicans as weird?
Right? If anything it will only lend it “populist” cachet for the terminally resentful.
posted by non canadian guy at 9:36 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
Right? If anything it will only lend it “populist” cachet for the terminally resentful.
posted by non canadian guy at 9:36 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
um, no offense intended, but what would you call this crap fest of a movie, and the crap fest of replacing virtual artists, and writing ? *
Did you read my comment? I said quite directly that I think these films are crap and that generative AI is going to accelerate labor exploitation.
My point is that reviling AI-generated content on matters of "good taste" is stupid and reactionary. Firstly, because there are actually ways to produce really good art with generative AI and because bad art has always been super abundant and not going to destroy society despite what classist snobs think. The world is not going to end because a normie who loves Thomas Kinkade paintings now loves AI-generated paintings trained on Thomas Kinkade paintings.
And secondly, most importantly, making this about "good taste" (as so many have done in this thread) is completely missing the point, which is about the aforementioned accelerated labor exploitation and rising monopoly of AI tech companies.
posted by adso at 10:02 AM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
Did you read my comment? I said quite directly that I think these films are crap and that generative AI is going to accelerate labor exploitation.
My point is that reviling AI-generated content on matters of "good taste" is stupid and reactionary. Firstly, because there are actually ways to produce really good art with generative AI and because bad art has always been super abundant and not going to destroy society despite what classist snobs think. The world is not going to end because a normie who loves Thomas Kinkade paintings now loves AI-generated paintings trained on Thomas Kinkade paintings.
And secondly, most importantly, making this about "good taste" (as so many have done in this thread) is completely missing the point, which is about the aforementioned accelerated labor exploitation and rising monopoly of AI tech companies.
posted by adso at 10:02 AM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
grumpy bear69, always enjoy your comments, so no offense intended. And this is a derail from the point of this post, but about that piece you cited:
A corporate written glorified press release puff piece from Pfizer about their miracle break thru, cause those ‘articles’ are totally legit and puffery never happens with a pharma…
They claimed to have saved 30 days (which I’d look at very credulously). 30 days, the only benefit there is, at best, if it translates through 30 more days of patent exclusivity, Pfizers primary (only) goal here.
Upper management guy with giant paycheck says miracle product he is responsible for is a miracle product which will result in huge improvements in…. drug development?
Not to minimize data collection in assessing clinical trial data, it's really hard. But it’s a chatbot that makes lots and lots of mistakes. I wouldn’t trust it to act without error here. Besides, this thing only ‘remedies’ collection codes, not reviewing/acting on the data itself (the actual hard thing), although I’m sure that will be the next pharma claim.
“Developing such technology normally would take a long time, but in six weeks they solved it and produced a viable tool”,… - cause rushing through a supposedly perfect performing tool for solving highly complex problems always results in perfect performance.
And how does said ‘viable tool’ perform against human expertise? That information is, um, lacking in this piece.
For their next upcoming break throughs, the cite “labelling”. Labelling is, like most everything in drug development and licensure, very difficult to perform with excellence and reliability (well, except for marketing garbage, that’s not difficult to perform). Very smart competent QA and regulatory experts do that, sometimes with a lifetime of experience. But yea, we should rely on some corporate jumble piece from Pfizer saying this next exiting miracle breakthrough will be miraculous. Says highly paid corporate executive with responsibly for ‘developing’ miracle (and justifying said paycheck).
“It’s really improving our efficiency so we can use our colleagues’ talents to concentrate on what matters to patients and healthcare professionals,” says Shimon Yoshida, Executive Director, Head of International Labeling Group at Pfizer, based in the U.K. Cause labelling screw ups, rare but happen, resulting in harm aren’t what matters…. so let's make more in order to fire some people....
And, “ it really improves our efficiency “– current tense juxtaposed with “upcoming challenge” future promise. Hmmmm.
And oh, “improving efficiency so current experts” can do the more important buzzword areas means firing current experts. One of the points of my original comment.
And that’s as far as I got with this Pfizer marketing piece. If I went farther I’d spot more garbage.
I work in the sector and have for 30 years. If I had a nickel for how many times Ive heard propagandists predict how machine learning will revolutionize medicine, well I’d be able to stop working.
IMO (and I'll drop this derail now). Hope all the commenters have a good holidays...
posted by WatTylerJr at 10:12 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
A corporate written glorified press release puff piece from Pfizer about their miracle break thru, cause those ‘articles’ are totally legit and puffery never happens with a pharma…
They claimed to have saved 30 days (which I’d look at very credulously). 30 days, the only benefit there is, at best, if it translates through 30 more days of patent exclusivity, Pfizers primary (only) goal here.
Upper management guy with giant paycheck says miracle product he is responsible for is a miracle product which will result in huge improvements in…. drug development?
Not to minimize data collection in assessing clinical trial data, it's really hard. But it’s a chatbot that makes lots and lots of mistakes. I wouldn’t trust it to act without error here. Besides, this thing only ‘remedies’ collection codes, not reviewing/acting on the data itself (the actual hard thing), although I’m sure that will be the next pharma claim.
“Developing such technology normally would take a long time, but in six weeks they solved it and produced a viable tool”,… - cause rushing through a supposedly perfect performing tool for solving highly complex problems always results in perfect performance.
And how does said ‘viable tool’ perform against human expertise? That information is, um, lacking in this piece.
For their next upcoming break throughs, the cite “labelling”. Labelling is, like most everything in drug development and licensure, very difficult to perform with excellence and reliability (well, except for marketing garbage, that’s not difficult to perform). Very smart competent QA and regulatory experts do that, sometimes with a lifetime of experience. But yea, we should rely on some corporate jumble piece from Pfizer saying this next exiting miracle breakthrough will be miraculous. Says highly paid corporate executive with responsibly for ‘developing’ miracle (and justifying said paycheck).
“It’s really improving our efficiency so we can use our colleagues’ talents to concentrate on what matters to patients and healthcare professionals,” says Shimon Yoshida, Executive Director, Head of International Labeling Group at Pfizer, based in the U.K. Cause labelling screw ups, rare but happen, resulting in harm aren’t what matters…. so let's make more in order to fire some people....
And, “ it really improves our efficiency “– current tense juxtaposed with “upcoming challenge” future promise. Hmmmm.
And oh, “improving efficiency so current experts” can do the more important buzzword areas means firing current experts. One of the points of my original comment.
And that’s as far as I got with this Pfizer marketing piece. If I went farther I’d spot more garbage.
I work in the sector and have for 30 years. If I had a nickel for how many times Ive heard propagandists predict how machine learning will revolutionize medicine, well I’d be able to stop working.
IMO (and I'll drop this derail now). Hope all the commenters have a good holidays...
posted by WatTylerJr at 10:12 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
Well anyway this thread gave me the schpilkes enough that this morning, when my boss offered me the management of our company's first foray into AI glurge, I told her absolutely not, and why, and that she should feel perfectly comfortable promoting our team's resident AI enthusiast ahead of me.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:30 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:30 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
Burn it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:47 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:47 AM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
They sucked his brains out!: maybe several decades from now we might luck out and get the AI equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Did I miss the FPpreviously about the "Star Trek: Unification" short putting a non-Shather actor behind Jim Kirk's face, using OTOY technology and OTOY boss for the Kirk part? This is a lot of hands-on set creation, but also amped-up 'digital prosthetics'.
posted by k3ninho at 11:20 AM on December 12, 2024
Did I miss the FPpreviously about the "Star Trek: Unification" short putting a non-Shather actor behind Jim Kirk's face, using OTOY technology and OTOY boss for the Kirk part? This is a lot of hands-on set creation, but also amped-up 'digital prosthetics'.
posted by k3ninho at 11:20 AM on December 12, 2024
Do these movies remind anyone else of the "movies" that are created for theme park rides?
I've always been secretly captivated by the films (for lack of a better term) that are part of the functions of theme park rides. Some star-wars-ish face appearing on a screen to warn you that your spaceship is gonna explode if you fly too close to that asteroid. Dumbledore shouting at you in the Harry Potter castle of magical peril, or whatever.
All of these little CGI'd projects that are extremely short, accessible little artifacts of something else.
They're terrible, of course, but they're also bound by circumstance to be terrible.
My children are 3, 6, and 8. As a millennial, "I do solemnly swear that my poor children receive far too much screen time and I humbly repent of my failure to take away their shitty fire tablets and replace them with acorns and coloring books."
And, yes, they consume a *lot* of nonsense that was clearly cooked up in a lab. CocoMelon becomes cocomelon lane becomes... bebefinne? I don't know, the 3 year old is granular. The bigs want to see "streams and shows."
They have access to a small, curated library of content creators and we (cruel, evil, horrible parents) force them to divide their time between youtubers (who they don't know are youtubers bc the roku packages everything up as channels and youtube is absolutely banished) and Bluey/Wild Kratts/Disney movies.
But they have tastes. This stuff will always ultimately fail because people develop taste. My mom haaaaated that I watched Cowboy Bebop and FLCL and "stupid cartoons." My parents banned cartoons. Animation equals The Simpsons equals Beaver and Buttface and so animation was bad and for other people's simple children. Today, I know that animation is a universe.
My kids will develop taste. They read a lot of books. They have strong feelings. AI will churn out content at a tremendous rate - and I know that because my kids are clever humans they will sift through it for something that connects with them. I'll watch it, too, and I know I'll loathe it because "what the fuck is the AI slop, who watches this garbage," but art still requires an audience and audiences will always have taste.
I'm not as fearful as I was six months ago. The Slug movie looked like a halfway decent grad student dissertation. The Sun Shine thing looked like a mash up of cutscenes from a AAA video game that I'll never play. I think this is "okay" and it isn't really novel or scary.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:07 PM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
I've always been secretly captivated by the films (for lack of a better term) that are part of the functions of theme park rides. Some star-wars-ish face appearing on a screen to warn you that your spaceship is gonna explode if you fly too close to that asteroid. Dumbledore shouting at you in the Harry Potter castle of magical peril, or whatever.
All of these little CGI'd projects that are extremely short, accessible little artifacts of something else.
They're terrible, of course, but they're also bound by circumstance to be terrible.
My children are 3, 6, and 8. As a millennial, "I do solemnly swear that my poor children receive far too much screen time and I humbly repent of my failure to take away their shitty fire tablets and replace them with acorns and coloring books."
And, yes, they consume a *lot* of nonsense that was clearly cooked up in a lab. CocoMelon becomes cocomelon lane becomes... bebefinne? I don't know, the 3 year old is granular. The bigs want to see "streams and shows."
They have access to a small, curated library of content creators and we (cruel, evil, horrible parents) force them to divide their time between youtubers (who they don't know are youtubers bc the roku packages everything up as channels and youtube is absolutely banished) and Bluey/Wild Kratts/Disney movies.
But they have tastes. This stuff will always ultimately fail because people develop taste. My mom haaaaated that I watched Cowboy Bebop and FLCL and "stupid cartoons." My parents banned cartoons. Animation equals The Simpsons equals Beaver and Buttface and so animation was bad and for other people's simple children. Today, I know that animation is a universe.
My kids will develop taste. They read a lot of books. They have strong feelings. AI will churn out content at a tremendous rate - and I know that because my kids are clever humans they will sift through it for something that connects with them. I'll watch it, too, and I know I'll loathe it because "what the fuck is the AI slop, who watches this garbage," but art still requires an audience and audiences will always have taste.
I'm not as fearful as I was six months ago. The Slug movie looked like a halfway decent grad student dissertation. The Sun Shine thing looked like a mash up of cutscenes from a AAA video game that I'll never play. I think this is "okay" and it isn't really novel or scary.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:07 PM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
also: I take a looooot of psychedelics because of reasons, and why do AI films always have that shimmery movement-thing that reminds me so strongly of the last hour of a psilocybin trip? I thought this is what the nerds meant when they talked about the llm "hallucinating" but I was wrong. Everything...moves a little bit. Why is this? Can't the software hold the pixels still?
I thought we mastered this with video compression software in the 90s. If a pixel doesn't need to move, can't it just hold still?
This was absolutely unnerving with the Audition movie. When it switched between real person and AI-version person, his skin moves, his features creep around. Everything ...slithers.
I like it when I'm on shrooms but it gives me the howling fantods on screen.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:13 PM on December 12, 2024 [4 favorites]
I thought we mastered this with video compression software in the 90s. If a pixel doesn't need to move, can't it just hold still?
This was absolutely unnerving with the Audition movie. When it switched between real person and AI-version person, his skin moves, his features creep around. Everything ...slithers.
I like it when I'm on shrooms but it gives me the howling fantods on screen.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:13 PM on December 12, 2024 [4 favorites]
“here's a Sora generated video of gymnastics“
Damned good thing I don’t use LSD anymore or I’d be sitting there laughing at that for the better part of a day…
posted by cybrcamper at 12:20 PM on December 12, 2024
Damned good thing I don’t use LSD anymore or I’d be sitting there laughing at that for the better part of a day…
posted by cybrcamper at 12:20 PM on December 12, 2024
And why does every AI midwestern mom look like an oompa-loompa?
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:24 PM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 12:24 PM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
Not to minimize data collection in assessing clinical trial data, it's really hard. But it’s a chatbot that makes lots and lots of mistakes. I wouldn’t trust it to act without error here. Besides, this thing only ‘remedies’ collection codes, not reviewing/acting on the data itself (the actual hard thing), although I’m sure that will be the next pharma claim.
FWIW, it wasn't a chatbot, it was a specific application of machine learning. And stuff like that - discerning patterns in data at scale - is precisely what machine learning is very, very good at. Here's a more in-depth explanation of what they did.
That's the thing about AI, it isn't just one application - an LLM, or a chatbot, or a generic music generator. It's more of a concept of problem solving through computation in extremely complex and non-intuitive ways. There are lots of stupid ways to use it (bad movies, replacing customer service jobs, writing unreadable books) and also good ways (protein folding, improving time to market for medications, reading the dead sea scrolls without damaging them). Most of us are exposed to the stupid ways, and most businesses want to remove people from the equation because people are expensive, so that's where they see value in AI. So I can understand why you and others hate it and see no value there.
One of the reasons I like The Slug is because the body horror component of it is freaky in a way that I've only ever seen generated by AI. I follow a bunch of Instagram accounts that do Backrooms type stuff, and many of them are AI-generated shorts. But they are amazing - creepy, compelling and sometimes downright horrifying. And that's mostly because the subject matter is childhood fear and nightmares, and AI seems to be really good at making stuff that reminds us of our dreams. Accounts like marco1d_liminal, vaporama_vision, synthetic_pink. TBH it is hard to tell with some of them what is Midjourney and what is Blender, or if they're mixing and matching. But all in all it feels like there are some very good applications of AI to produce imagery or special effects that just otherwise wouldn't be made. To replace actors and sets and dialogue? No. But to make someone's face turn into bubbling, runny flesh eggs? That's where I think it really shines!
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:40 PM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
FWIW, it wasn't a chatbot, it was a specific application of machine learning. And stuff like that - discerning patterns in data at scale - is precisely what machine learning is very, very good at. Here's a more in-depth explanation of what they did.
That's the thing about AI, it isn't just one application - an LLM, or a chatbot, or a generic music generator. It's more of a concept of problem solving through computation in extremely complex and non-intuitive ways. There are lots of stupid ways to use it (bad movies, replacing customer service jobs, writing unreadable books) and also good ways (protein folding, improving time to market for medications, reading the dead sea scrolls without damaging them). Most of us are exposed to the stupid ways, and most businesses want to remove people from the equation because people are expensive, so that's where they see value in AI. So I can understand why you and others hate it and see no value there.
One of the reasons I like The Slug is because the body horror component of it is freaky in a way that I've only ever seen generated by AI. I follow a bunch of Instagram accounts that do Backrooms type stuff, and many of them are AI-generated shorts. But they are amazing - creepy, compelling and sometimes downright horrifying. And that's mostly because the subject matter is childhood fear and nightmares, and AI seems to be really good at making stuff that reminds us of our dreams. Accounts like marco1d_liminal, vaporama_vision, synthetic_pink. TBH it is hard to tell with some of them what is Midjourney and what is Blender, or if they're mixing and matching. But all in all it feels like there are some very good applications of AI to produce imagery or special effects that just otherwise wouldn't be made. To replace actors and sets and dialogue? No. But to make someone's face turn into bubbling, runny flesh eggs? That's where I think it really shines!
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:40 PM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
Getting old just gets weirder and weirder.
Speaking of old, my 89-year old father in-law lives with us part time. I'd say he spends 8-16 hours a day watching TV. Sometimes he stays up until 5-6am watching TV, but his whole day consists of zoning in and out of sleep. All day, in and out of sleep. He can stay up and be sharp for a few hours if family comes over, so it's not dementia, he just has no schedule, refuses to keep a schedule and likes watching TV and movies.
Even he changes the channel! I have seen him do it quite a bit. He's fairly picky about what he watches and he knows when certain shows will be on (local TV news, Jimmy Kimmel, etc) and knows how to navigate to those things. There's certain stuff he hates (reality TV, horror, kids programming for instance) and although he gets flummoxed by selecting specific streaming services, he has a pretty good handle on how to change the channel. Which he does.
Who are these people not ever changing the channel?
posted by SoberHighland at 1:12 PM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
Speaking of old, my 89-year old father in-law lives with us part time. I'd say he spends 8-16 hours a day watching TV. Sometimes he stays up until 5-6am watching TV, but his whole day consists of zoning in and out of sleep. All day, in and out of sleep. He can stay up and be sharp for a few hours if family comes over, so it's not dementia, he just has no schedule, refuses to keep a schedule and likes watching TV and movies.
Even he changes the channel! I have seen him do it quite a bit. He's fairly picky about what he watches and he knows when certain shows will be on (local TV news, Jimmy Kimmel, etc) and knows how to navigate to those things. There's certain stuff he hates (reality TV, horror, kids programming for instance) and although he gets flummoxed by selecting specific streaming services, he has a pretty good handle on how to change the channel. Which he does.
Who are these people not ever changing the channel?
posted by SoberHighland at 1:12 PM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
Everything...moves a little bit. Why is this? Can't the software hold the pixels still?
I thought we mastered this with video compression software in the 90s. If a pixel doesn't need to move, can't it just hold still?
Like I’ve been saying for the past year and a half, probably longer: neither diffusion models (used for images and video) nor LLMs have anything like the capacity to generate abstract mental models. They may occasionally contain something close (Othello bot), for more simple problems or ones where the inner “logic” of the system is baked right into the language itself… but in general? For any sort of novel or zero shot problem? Not even close.
So Sora doesn’t actually “know” what legs are or how they work in anything but purely relative terms. Nor what gravity is. Nor the kinematics of locomotion that lead to legs as a solution within gravity. But it has seen a *lot* of video with gravity and legs doing their thing, so it usually gets it kinda right by hewing close to the training materials… but there’s no conceptual guardrails there to stop it - and whatever subject it is rendering - from flying off into NeverNever Land.
Similarly: interpreting the motion of these things with subpixel precision requires some understanding of what those pixels represent. Not even concrete conceptual objects like “leg” or “lamp” or “lamp shaped like a leg” - those and their relationship and synthesis can all be inferred from training. But “legs that are walking in Earth gravity” or “a herd of Elephants walking and not floating off into the sky” are both right out.
posted by Ryvar at 1:23 PM on December 12, 2024 [5 favorites]
I thought we mastered this with video compression software in the 90s. If a pixel doesn't need to move, can't it just hold still?
Like I’ve been saying for the past year and a half, probably longer: neither diffusion models (used for images and video) nor LLMs have anything like the capacity to generate abstract mental models. They may occasionally contain something close (Othello bot), for more simple problems or ones where the inner “logic” of the system is baked right into the language itself… but in general? For any sort of novel or zero shot problem? Not even close.
So Sora doesn’t actually “know” what legs are or how they work in anything but purely relative terms. Nor what gravity is. Nor the kinematics of locomotion that lead to legs as a solution within gravity. But it has seen a *lot* of video with gravity and legs doing their thing, so it usually gets it kinda right by hewing close to the training materials… but there’s no conceptual guardrails there to stop it - and whatever subject it is rendering - from flying off into NeverNever Land.
Similarly: interpreting the motion of these things with subpixel precision requires some understanding of what those pixels represent. Not even concrete conceptual objects like “leg” or “lamp” or “lamp shaped like a leg” - those and their relationship and synthesis can all be inferred from training. But “legs that are walking in Earth gravity” or “a herd of Elephants walking and not floating off into the sky” are both right out.
posted by Ryvar at 1:23 PM on December 12, 2024 [5 favorites]
OK I watched a few of these. The Slug had some good (gross) parts! Mostly pretty bad, but I agree that soon enough, an actual artist will make use of these tools and create something extremely cool. I'm not sure why the impulse is to use this technology to make 100% of everything, or even 80% of everything? Why not use the tech to facilitate difficult things, tricky things, expensive things versus trying to create everything from the ground up?
With the tech as it stands today, I find there's a sort of hyper-real lighting on all renderings of humans. Like every face, body and body part is "painted" with rim-light, or elaborate bounce-lighting that wouldn't exist in the locations where these scenes are supposed to be taking place. I'm not sure of the term, but it has a photo-illustration style that was popular 20 years ago (The 40 Year Old Virgin movie poster popularized this look and suddenly it was overused everywhere). I'm sure this will be corrected as the technology moves on, but it immediately stands out to me.
I still try to refrain from using the term "AI" because it is neither artificial nor intelligent. It's a marketing buzzword that has caught on like fire and I wish people would stop using it.
(the kitten/lady/fire/firefighter video linked above made me laugh out loud several times)
posted by SoberHighland at 1:47 PM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
With the tech as it stands today, I find there's a sort of hyper-real lighting on all renderings of humans. Like every face, body and body part is "painted" with rim-light, or elaborate bounce-lighting that wouldn't exist in the locations where these scenes are supposed to be taking place. I'm not sure of the term, but it has a photo-illustration style that was popular 20 years ago (The 40 Year Old Virgin movie poster popularized this look and suddenly it was overused everywhere). I'm sure this will be corrected as the technology moves on, but it immediately stands out to me.
I still try to refrain from using the term "AI" because it is neither artificial nor intelligent. It's a marketing buzzword that has caught on like fire and I wish people would stop using it.
(the kitten/lady/fire/firefighter video linked above made me laugh out loud several times)
posted by SoberHighland at 1:47 PM on December 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
> Anyway, people outraged by this AI-generated trash have probably not been watching Kids YouTube for the past few years, which is 10000 times worse.
My five-year-old will sometimes watch machine learning slop on YouTube, particularly a series of videos on a theme like "Inside Out 2 characters and their favorite drinks." Then the "AI" voice reveals that Joy's favorite is lemonade (with an AI image of lemonade)! And Sadness's favorite is Pepsi Blue! In each case, it's just some product with a color palette similar to the character. It's all so lazy and stupid.
Recently there has been a new category of videos popping up: Humans "reacting" to the machine learning dreck, like "OH MY GOSH MARIO LIKES DORITOS!?" Make it stop.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 2:05 PM on December 12, 2024 [3 favorites]
My five-year-old will sometimes watch machine learning slop on YouTube, particularly a series of videos on a theme like "Inside Out 2 characters and their favorite drinks." Then the "AI" voice reveals that Joy's favorite is lemonade (with an AI image of lemonade)! And Sadness's favorite is Pepsi Blue! In each case, it's just some product with a color palette similar to the character. It's all so lazy and stupid.
Recently there has been a new category of videos popping up: Humans "reacting" to the machine learning dreck, like "OH MY GOSH MARIO LIKES DORITOS!?" Make it stop.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 2:05 PM on December 12, 2024 [3 favorites]
Why did I go down that rabbit hole, Hot Pastrami! Make it stop, indeed. It is truly puzzling why videos where PERSON YELLS ABOUT SOMETHING get 1.4M views.
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:28 PM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69 at 2:28 PM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
ow, my balls
posted by flabdablet at 2:50 PM on December 12, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 2:50 PM on December 12, 2024 [3 favorites]
Like every face, body and body part is "painted" with rim-light, or elaborate bounce-lighting that wouldn't exist in the locations where these scenes are supposed to be taking place. I'm not sure of the term, but it has a photo-illustration style that was popular 20 years ago
Funny story, but back in my actual field, my yearly “Skill Building Time” this year (so: next week) is being spent on an attempt to duplicate the look of Arcane in realtime within Unreal, and then take the existing known techniques for this and continue extending them as part of a personal tech art study/exercise.
And a big part of the signature Arcane look is that lighting does not update, or rather only partially/sporadically updates. Shadows and Highlights remain mostly static baked through each shot, and they simply animate right along with the UV distortion of the rigged skelmesh unless a significant tracking shot or very large amount of keyframed animation is in play. Even then, there appears to be some crossfading between baked, runtime and hand-crafted feature contouring via manipulated surface normals, similar to Guilty Gear Xrd.
It’s a deliberate stylization technique reminiscent of the classic Thief 1 and 2 cutscene illustrative look, that happens to more or less map to what the diffusion model is outputting here, poorly, and by accident. Sorry, I know that’s a bit of a tangent but it’s nice when my decades-past abandoned field briefly brushes by my actual current food-on-table field.
posted by Ryvar at 3:48 PM on December 12, 2024 [5 favorites]
Funny story, but back in my actual field, my yearly “Skill Building Time” this year (so: next week) is being spent on an attempt to duplicate the look of Arcane in realtime within Unreal, and then take the existing known techniques for this and continue extending them as part of a personal tech art study/exercise.
And a big part of the signature Arcane look is that lighting does not update, or rather only partially/sporadically updates. Shadows and Highlights remain mostly static baked through each shot, and they simply animate right along with the UV distortion of the rigged skelmesh unless a significant tracking shot or very large amount of keyframed animation is in play. Even then, there appears to be some crossfading between baked, runtime and hand-crafted feature contouring via manipulated surface normals, similar to Guilty Gear Xrd.
It’s a deliberate stylization technique reminiscent of the classic Thief 1 and 2 cutscene illustrative look, that happens to more or less map to what the diffusion model is outputting here, poorly, and by accident. Sorry, I know that’s a bit of a tangent but it’s nice when my decades-past abandoned field briefly brushes by my actual current food-on-table field.
posted by Ryvar at 3:48 PM on December 12, 2024 [5 favorites]
I opened one of the links and watched it for about 10 seconds thinking "whoa, this actually looks pretty convincing!" then I realised it was a YouTube ad playing before the movie.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 11:59 PM on December 12, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 11:59 PM on December 12, 2024 [7 favorites]
Every "Bad Art Is Still Art" statement always reminds me of this infamous statement about Kenny G that Pat Metheney had up on his web site about a quarter-century ago.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:14 AM on December 13, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:14 AM on December 13, 2024 [4 favorites]
I am of the opinion that if you expect anything of substance from TV, videos or movies you have possibly already made a mistake...
This AI stuff is trash but that's quite the hot take.
I am of the opinion that it's very sad to have apparently never experienced the artistry made possible by these media. If anyone truly believes that the film arts have nothing of substance to offer, well, that's too bad I guess. But it's a pretty ridiculous response to this particular pile of trash.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:51 PM on December 13, 2024 [3 favorites]
This AI stuff is trash but that's quite the hot take.
I am of the opinion that it's very sad to have apparently never experienced the artistry made possible by these media. If anyone truly believes that the film arts have nothing of substance to offer, well, that's too bad I guess. But it's a pretty ridiculous response to this particular pile of trash.
posted by aspersioncast at 2:51 PM on December 13, 2024 [3 favorites]
At least some movies turn out being pretty great, and movies can do "slow burn" nicely, but even "good" television always winds up bloated by pointless filler material, so maybe a perfect fit for AI generated video.
There is pretty funny music that human written but AI performed though:
There I Ruined It remains peak AI performed music:
- Snoop Frogg (Kermit) sings "Gin & Juice"
- The Beach Boys sing "99 Problems" by Jay-Z
- Hallelujah (but it's Baby Got Back)
- John Denver sings "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath
And their banned Johnny Cash x Barbie Girl mashup got played in Congress.
Obscurest Vinyl has some bangers & hits too, like The Secrets Your Asshole Keeps, It's Time To Take a Sh*t on the Company’s Dime, and I Glued My Balls To My Butthole Again.
Almost Intellectual Records has some cute ones, like I Think I'm a Furry and Crimson Flow. And Forgotten Vinyl might've something okay too. See r/ObscurestVinyl
posted by jeffburdges at 6:44 AM on December 22
There is pretty funny music that human written but AI performed though:
There I Ruined It remains peak AI performed music:
- Snoop Frogg (Kermit) sings "Gin & Juice"
- The Beach Boys sing "99 Problems" by Jay-Z
- Hallelujah (but it's Baby Got Back)
- John Denver sings "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath
And their banned Johnny Cash x Barbie Girl mashup got played in Congress.
Obscurest Vinyl has some bangers & hits too, like The Secrets Your Asshole Keeps, It's Time To Take a Sh*t on the Company’s Dime, and I Glued My Balls To My Butthole Again.
Almost Intellectual Records has some cute ones, like I Think I'm a Furry and Crimson Flow. And Forgotten Vinyl might've something okay too. See r/ObscurestVinyl
posted by jeffburdges at 6:44 AM on December 22
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[laughing through nose sound]
Links to three of the shorts:
The Slug
Sun Day
The Audition
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:29 PM on December 11, 2024 [10 favorites]