GenAI video finally gets super weird: The Week in Review
And to be clear, weird is a good thing here.
It starts with someone picking up their motorcycle and Mario-jumping into a cloud of smoke before an elderly woman grabs a pink moped and does a wheelie off nearby debris. She seems to turn into blue light just as a different elderly woman pops out of nowhere. Then an explosion shakes the background and the original motorcyclist bursts through the cinders and raises one fist in the air triumphantly before gently hovering down and heading right into another hurricane of flame.
That's just the first 18 seconds of a 41-second compilation clip that also features a fighter jet making a very sharp turn down an alleyway, pursued by what looks like a trio of tourists casually sitting atop of prop plane, before running into a sudden avalanche where the only person that makes it out is a bicyclist that conveniently transforms into Iron Man at the last minute.
This video—which you should absolutely see for yourself—has become something of an obsession for us this past week, and not just because we’ve struggled to find the original source. (We’ve instead found variations of this original clip, including one featuring morphing animals.) No, we love the video because it’s unapologetically generative AI and it makes no attempt to hide any of the flaws or telltale signs inherent in these early gen-video tools. If anything, it embraces them as a nod to the medium, much in the way a watercolorist embraces happy accidents when the brushstrokes blur and merge in unexpected ways.
It's GenAI shitposting, weird as hell and proud of its absurdity. It’s the perfect encapsulation of technology syncing up with a moment in time where our over-connected culture seems to revel in surrealism. But where I think it truly shines is in understanding that creative AI is best when it’s really, really fucking strange.
Since the advent of computer animation, there’s been plenty of discussion around the uncanny valley—the point at which artificial visuals are close to reality but off just enough to create an unnerving effect (think: Tom Hanks in The Polar Express). AI has plenty of its own uncanny symptoms that have been called out ad nauseam at this point, from the disjointed fingers to the plastic sheen on generated skin, all of which will go away over time as the technology improves. That, then, gets into the territory of trust—what happens when generated media becomes so realistic that it makes people doubt everything they see?
That’s what makes GenAI shitposting like this so good—it doesn’t care about deceiving the reader or creating something uncanny. And that’s just as much the choice of the artist as it is the tools they use. Samsung’s new AI-powered “sketch to image” tool is a rather apt example. Adding a bee to your photo of flowers? Disconcerting and misleading. Adding a giant green gummy bear coming out of the river? Refreshingly silly enough to put our collective guards down and enjoy a dumb idea someone put together and shared on the internet. To give another example, deepfaking a politician is a scary and potentially dangerous path to disinformation… but deepfaking a politician onto the faces of Michael Jackson’s “Black and White” music video? Pretty damn funny.
In one of our first MBH4H columns, we talked about a music video that used generative AI to tell an otherwise fairly grounded love story. It didn’t try to hide the fact that it was AI—if anything it was a marketing tool—but it also didn’t do anything novel with the technology. What resulted was something that felt icky and unnerving, and worst of all, boring.
And that's just it. If the audience is allowed to know unequivocally that it's AI—if it makes no attempt to hide its canvas or its brushstrokes—then it opens up the boundaries to get very weird. The good kind of weird, in this case: absurd, surreal, silly, and transformative.
What we’ve read
Meta Is Offering Hollywood Stars Millions for AI Voice Projects (Bloomberg)
According the very well-connected Lucas Shaw, Meta is gearing up to spend millions for the right to record and use celebrity voices for AI projects, with Awkwafina, Keegan-Michael Key, and Dame Judi Dench all in talks. How their voices will be used is unclear, though the Bloomberg article notes their voices (or voice likeness, as it were) may be used as a digital assistant à la Siri or Her. (It's here that I can't help but remember the craze of getting celebrity voices to read GPS directions back when "standalone GPS devices" were a thing.) What's really interesting here is that SAG-AFTRA, who last year went on strike over several issues including concerns around AI, has reportedly reached an agreement with Meta on the terms of this project, which makes this a very real test of the new agreement. If anything comes of this, expect it to be part of Meta Connect 2024 in September. —Ross
Highly relevant, as reported by BBC (and many others): "Actors from the world of gaming went on strike last week, in a row about the use of artificial intelligence and the threat it poses to their livelihoods. It has reignited the debate about how the entertainment industry is adapting to new technology."
AI is mining the sum of human knowledge from Wikipedia. What does that mean for its future? (Sherwood)
This interview with Lane Becker, Senior Director of Earned Revenue for Wikimedia Enterprise and Chris Albon, Director of Machine Learning by Rani Molla (a Vox Media alum) struck a chord because it suggests a potential negative consequence of AI that I’d never thought of before: The threat to non-profit/volunteer sector is not necessarily that AI will take jobs, but, in the case of Wikipedia, its use could demotivate people to volunteer to do the work at all. If AI is doing it, and you’re not getting paid anyway, why bother? Lane Becker from the article:
“Our main concern is about the potential impact that these AI tools could have on the human motivation to continue creating and sharing knowledge. When people visit Wikipedia directly, they are more likely to become volunteer contributors themselves. If there is a disconnect between where knowledge is generated (e.g. Wikipedia) and where it is consumed (e.g. ChatGPT or Google AI Overview), we run the risk of losing a generation of volunteers and all the knowledge they help contribute.”
The other fact from this article that hit me right between the eyes is that Wikipedia’s page views are between 15 to 18 BILLION per month, an extraordinary number! —James
CNN’s Media Chronicler Strikes Out on His Own (The New York Times)
A few years ago, Jermane Spradley, the former publisher of SB Nation, told me that the fundamental difference between the older and younger audiences for sports was that, to generalize and paraphrase his argument, young people no longer follow teams; they follow players. I’ve since come to realize that this trend is not just confined to sports; it also applies to media in general. A number of my former colleagues left Vox Media editorial brands to strike out on their own: Casey Newton of The Verge started Platformer; Cleo Abram launched her own YouTube channel, as did Joss Fong from Vox and Brian David Gilbert from Polygon. Hell, Ross and I are both ex-Verge and Polygon and are getting in on the act with MBH4H! With all this in mind, it's interesting that Oliver Darcy, who took over Reliable Sources on team CNN from Brian Stelter, this week announced that he is launching his own subscription media brand and becoming a player in his own right. Darcy’s media coverage is a must-read, so, of course, I subscribed immediately. —James
My weeks of reading hornily: steamy book sales have doubled – and I soon found out why (The Guardian)
Romance and erotica are nothing new, even if some of the themes shift over time. (When and where I grew up, it was almost exclusively sexy vampires, but more Anne Rice than Twilight.) What I love the most about Zoe Williams' article here is that it tracks how the themes and content have shifted by generation, as has the distribution and promotion model. This is steamy fiction made popular by way of TikTok trends. A special shout-out to Leah Koch who's quoted here substantially and who runs the kickass romance-focused bookstore Ripped Bodice. (If you're ever in LA or NY, check it out.) She's got a wealth of great observations here. My favorite: "Millennial and gen Z readers worry way less about whether they can relate to the characters... I see that much more in boomer and gen X readers: they can’t relate to a character because they’re gay, or they’re black. But it doesn’t seem to matter if they’re a werewolf.” —Ross
Three reasons we’re in an AI bubble (and four reasons we’re not) (Platformer)
Speaking of Platformer, Casey Newton this week wrote a perfect follow to our piece last week about AI’s investment problem and why the math ain’t mathing. Casey makes a very interesting point that the reason that it’s the big three of Microsoft, Google and Amazon taking the biggest slices of the AI pie is because they’re the only companies that have the money to fund the bottomless pit of investment needed. Personally, I am still on Team Bubble here but Casey makes a compelling argument that this may just work out for one of these companies at least. Time will tell. —James
What we’ve watched
Sexy Beast
“Do the job, do the job, do the job.” “no no no no no!!” It’s been years since I’ve seen this film (it was released in the UK in 2000) and I’d forgotten just how powerfully threatening Ben Kingsley is as Don Logan, a London gangster who visits retired thief Gal (Ray Winstone) at his home in Spain to persuade him to go back to London for one more safecracking job. Kingsley’s performance is a tour de force but much credit is also due to Winstone, who plays Gal as quietly and softly as Kingsley is loud and violet. Incredible movie directed by Jonathan Glazer. Only thing is, I still don’t get the rabbit bit. —James
The Saturday Night movie trailer
I. Love. Movie Trailers. The best ones manage to create a full experience all on their own while also building excitement for the bigger feature—and must do so without giving away too much. This trailer for Jason Reitman's Saturday Night checks all the boxes. The concept: 90 minutes before the first-ever live telecast of the so-called Not Ready for Prime Time Players—a rather dramatic structure for a show outwardly defined by irreverence. The casting is spot-on, chief among them Nicholas Braun playing both Jim Henson (best scene from the trailer) and Andy Kaufman. I don't know how the movie will ultimately fare—I've read Live From New York far too many times to be a neutral party—but this trailer? 10/10 no notes. —Ross
What we’ve played
Armored Core
I am still deep in my third playthrough of Sekiro I was struggling with the Guardian Ape & Brown Ape boss fight) and decided to ditch the swordplay and return to Armored Core for a change of pace. It was a shock. I had forgotten how manic it is to play; it’s so fast and frenetic that it’s like playing 4x speed, especially after months of Elden Ring. Switching to Armored Core has been pure sensory overload and one that’s proving to be intoxicating. And even though I know FromSoftware began with the Armored Core series, I still find it hard to believe that it’s the same studio that went on to create the Souls games and an entirely new genre of video game. —James
Arranger
I don't want to add the choir of voices who say they forgot Netflix has games lately, but um... I did forget for a minute that Netflix has a pretty robust collection of mobile games. I've been running through several this week, but the one that's kept my attention the best has been Arranger. It's a very clever puzzle/adventure game that works uniquely well with a mobile interface, where vertical and horizontal swipes move entire rows like they're conveyor belts that defies physics. I'll admit it took a bit for the game to "click," but now that it has, I'm really invested. And by the way, if you're also just now realizing that Netflix has games, I strongly recommend The Case of the Golden Idol, my favorite murder mystery game in a long time. —Ross
What we’ve listened to
In A Landscape - Max Richter
Max Richter has a new album out (his 9th) on September 6. I am a big fan of the German-born British composer and pianist, who has composed music for Ad Astra, The Leftovers, and Invasion, and whose hauntingly beautiful piece “On the Nature of Daylight” from his 2004 album The Blue Notebooks was used in both Arrival and in the incredible third episode of The Last of Us. Even though the album doesn’t drop for a month, I have been listening repeatedly to the six tracks that are currently available on Apple Music and they are very good. Of course, the album will be available on vinyl, too. —James
The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess - Chappell Roan
I was pretty late to this album and pretty much all things Chappell Roan. Honestly, it wasn't until a couple of months ago, when I was catching up on her NPR Tiny Desk concert, that I finally understood what all the excitement was about. Now I've got her vinyl on repeat for the mornings. —Ross
Opus - Ryuichi Sakamoto
Opus dropped today. Recorded when he was terminally ill with cancer (he died in March 2023), this album bears witness to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final performance and accompanies the documentary film of the same name. This album, like the movie, features many of Sakamoto’s best-known pieces like “Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence,” “Andata” and “The Last Emperor.” But also includes a new version of his piece Tong Poo which he originally recorded as an electronic piece with Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. The contrast between the original YMO “Tong Poo” (which, at times, sounds like music from a video game) and the new, minimalistic, acoustic piano version on Opus couldn’t be a more poignant or more fitting tribute to the breadth of Sakamoto’s extraordinary career. —James
American Idiot - Green Day
Green Day this week made an announcement about the 20th anniversary release of arguably the band’s biggest album, which included huge hits like “Jesus of Suburbia,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” karaoke fav “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” and the title track “American Idiot”—which though written about George Bush became positively prescient for Donald Trump; the band famously inserted a line referring to “MAGA” during a New Year’s Eve live performance in January garnering predictable outrage from the right. —James
What else we’ve loved: LEGO! Again!
LEGO Bonsai Tree
The moment I finished my LEGO Plum Blossom (it was surprising quick to build) I immediately ordered the Chrysanthemum which will sit next to it on the shelf, and the LEGO Bonsai Tree which comes with both “leaves” and “blossom” meaning I will be able to watch it flower each spring. I’m so excited —James
