Did Will Smith Upload an AI-Enhanced Video - and Is This Just the Beginning? (hollywoodreporter.com) 28
After Will Smith uploaded a video of an adoring crowd, blogger Andy Baio "conducted a detailed analysis that suggests Will Smith's team might have used AI to turn photos from his recent concerts into videos," writes BGR. But there's more to the story:
Google recently ran an experiment for YouTube Shorts in which it used AI (machine learning) to improve the quality of Shorts without asking the creator for permission. People complained the videos looked like they were AI generated. It seems that Will Smith's YouTube Shorts clip that attracted criticism from fans this week might have been a victim of this experiment... The signs are real. The man who claimed Will Smith's song helped him cure cancer was there. The woman in front of him was holding the sign with him. The "Lov U" sign appeared in photos the singer posted on his social media channels before the clip was shared.
"Will Smith has not denied the use of AI in these promotional clips," the article adds.
But the Hollywood Reporter also calls it "just the beginning of AI chaos," noting that "influencers and spinmeisters have been using AI upscaling for years, if quietly, the way you might round up your current salary in a job interview." It's only going to grow more popular as the tools get better. (And they will — you just need some tweaks to the model and increases in compute to erase these hallucinations.) In fact, when the chapter on the early AI Age is written, the line about this moment is less likely to be, "Remember when Will Smith did something cringily AI?" and more, "Remember when AI was still seen as so cringe that we made fun of Will Smith for it?" Experts differ on the timeline, but everyone agrees it's just years if not months before we'll stop being able to spot an AI video. [Will Smith's video] had the particular misfortune of coming out at this interregnum moment: good enough for someone to use but not so good we can't spot it.
That moment will be over soon enough, and, I suspect, so will our pearl-clutching. The main effect of this new age of the synthetic is that video will stop being a meaningful measure of truth. We have long stopped believing everything we read, and AI image-generators have killed what photoshop wounded. But video until now has been the last bastion of objectivity — incontrovertible evidence that an event took place the way it seemed to....
But there is an upside. (Really.) Without a format that can telegraph objectivity, we'll need to (if we care to) turn to other ways to assure ourselves of the facts: the source of the video. That could mean the human-led content creator will matter more. After years of seeing news brands take a beating in the trust department, they'll soon become the only hope we have of knowing whether something happened. We no longer will be able to trust the medium. But we may newly believe the media.
"Will Smith has not denied the use of AI in these promotional clips," the article adds.
But the Hollywood Reporter also calls it "just the beginning of AI chaos," noting that "influencers and spinmeisters have been using AI upscaling for years, if quietly, the way you might round up your current salary in a job interview." It's only going to grow more popular as the tools get better. (And they will — you just need some tweaks to the model and increases in compute to erase these hallucinations.) In fact, when the chapter on the early AI Age is written, the line about this moment is less likely to be, "Remember when Will Smith did something cringily AI?" and more, "Remember when AI was still seen as so cringe that we made fun of Will Smith for it?" Experts differ on the timeline, but everyone agrees it's just years if not months before we'll stop being able to spot an AI video. [Will Smith's video] had the particular misfortune of coming out at this interregnum moment: good enough for someone to use but not so good we can't spot it.
That moment will be over soon enough, and, I suspect, so will our pearl-clutching. The main effect of this new age of the synthetic is that video will stop being a meaningful measure of truth. We have long stopped believing everything we read, and AI image-generators have killed what photoshop wounded. But video until now has been the last bastion of objectivity — incontrovertible evidence that an event took place the way it seemed to....
But there is an upside. (Really.) Without a format that can telegraph objectivity, we'll need to (if we care to) turn to other ways to assure ourselves of the facts: the source of the video. That could mean the human-led content creator will matter more. After years of seeing news brands take a beating in the trust department, they'll soon become the only hope we have of knowing whether something happened. We no longer will be able to trust the medium. But we may newly believe the media.
Rich get richer! (Score:1)
They no longer have to pay for actors to pretend to be fans, they can AI-generate them to try and convince you they're still beloved.
Re: (Score:1)
The Real Terminator (Score:5, Funny)
You don't own your name, image, and likeness in Am (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Which country do you own all this? Please be *specific* and site the relevant laws, or STFU.
Re: (Score:1)
He didn't claim anyone in any other country owned any of it.
What the fuck are you on? Calm down.
Re: You don't own your name, image, and likeness i (Score:2)
France has article 226-1,2 in its penal code, amongst other things.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]Ã_l'image_des_personnes_en_France
The Wikipedia article on right to own image is French only, sorry. Fortunately the French governement website has some English version that explain some of the law.
https://www.service-public.fr/... [service-public.fr]
In the US, almost anything visible *from* a public vantage point is considered fair. So if you mown your private front yard in your shorts, in public view, someone else is free
It was better when he just ate spaghetti (Score:2)
Those were fun times
I don't get why this matters (Score:3, Interesting)
why does this matter?
Re:I don't get why this matters (Score:5, Funny)
why does this matter?
Parents just don't understand!
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't inherently have any value, but I think it's of interest to the Slashdot crowd if you've been following the birth of the virtual celebrity. Having read William Gibson, it's fascinating to go back to novels like "Idoru" which pioneer a lot of these concepts. I think of this as a minor "nodal point," one small step toward the future where entertainment is entirely artificial and we are just plugged into entertaining hallucinations of increasing dopaminergic severity.
Stick to eating spaghetti (Score:2)
A I (Score:1)
Robot???
Shocking! (Score:2)
You mean music videos aren't real?
Does this mean Christopher Walken can't actually fly? This is destroying my whole worldview.
Nothing excuses propaganda (Score:2)
The dishonesty of AI video does not negate the shitty propaganda of Fox News and CNN. One does not pretend there is a "lesser evil". One fights systemic propaganda or one accepts failure.
So what? (Score:1)
I can't understand why possible reasonable objection that rationale, sane people would have.
That said, I'm sure people will come up with a bunch of stupid shit, because you know, AI!!! It's evil! So fucking evil!! Oh no!!
The AI video Will Smith needs is (Score:2)
Youtube shorts are trash (Score:2)
AI = low quality slop (Score:2)
But otherwise it just looks you can't afford to pay for quality content
Personalised AI video would be good.. (Score:2)
I would like my browser to take note of my preferences and alter any video of celebrities to portray them to me in a way that would horrify them ( If I dislike Taylor Swift it would alter any video so she had a comically fat arse, if I dislike Kim Kardashian it would alter any video so she did not have a comically fat arse).
Maybe I just miss Spitting Image.
Who cares? (Score:2)
Is he a renowned classical film-maker?
Sounds a bit like, 'The Mayor used one of these new-fangled automobiles to drive to the election, instead of a horse-drawn gig, like everybody else.'
We need - Spaghetti - the Movie (Score:2)
Bring on more spaghetti eating Wills.
AI enhanced audio? (Score:1)
"But we may newly believe the media." (Score:2)
No, see, people already believe the media. You know, the media that tells them things like "don't trust the mainstream media", "don't trust experts", "don't trust scientists", "don't trust liberals". And once AI-generated images and videos are indistinguishable from real ones, this same media can label any inconvenient (but real) picture or video as fake (perhaps even believing their own claims), and their hold over much of the population will be even stronger.
Some on the left will also try this sort of t