August 11th, 2024
Generative AI does amazing things with text, but it shines most brightly with images, both 2D and in video. Sometimes it’s short videos that showcase what AI is capable of. There have also been some very funny videos posted that poke fun at AI and its uncertain progress, amidst great hype.
I want to share a few videos that startled or amazed me, or just got me laughing. A WordPress blog is suboptimal as a video platform, but here goes (you’ll need to click “back” with the first two videos). I’ll start with some recent videos, and head backwards.
1. Otter on a Plane using Wi-Fi: Ethan Mollick posted a video today on his blog to “illustrate how far AI has come since… just before the launch of ChatGPT in November, 2022.” The realistic detail is stunning.
Compare this little video to the still images Ethan includes with his post, images that he created less than 2 years ago.
2. AI Madness: A hilarious example of free-form AI-generated video. It’s not clear if the person behind the Threads post also generated the video. As one commenter notes “AI dreaming so much resembles human dreams it’s scary.” Here’s the original on Threads. (I learned about it first via Benedict Evans’ newsletter.) (August 12: The poster replied: “Repost of a repost of a repost. Unknown source.”)
3. Eggs Boiled in Oil. This is held out as one of the (many) apocryphal examples of what happens if we let AI create original content, in this case instructions for how to boil 7 eggs in hot oil. Adding pepper “makes them so much tastier.” There’s a lovely article on The Guardian, “‘One of the most disgusting meals I’ve ever eaten’: AI recipes tested,” in which a brave journalist actually tackles a few AI-generated recipes.
4. Nothing University by 5 Star. Here’s a fun video prepared by an ad agency for broadcast on television in India. It looks at what happens when AI takes all the jobs, and we become skilled at (and paid for) doing nothing.
5. Everything is Amazing & Nobody is Happy: Louis CK remains enmeshed in controversy, but this 15-year-old video points to something we should keep in mind in the era of AI: we’re taking for granted something “that existed for the first time only 10 seconds ago.” He talks about the hot new thing, Wi-Fi on airplanes, something they’re still debugging 15 years later. (After 04:10 Louis moves onto a different topic, so best to pause the video.)
For all of the justified criticism that AI attracts, it’s still, hmm, kind of amazing!
6. (Added September 12, 2024). Unanswered Oddities – Episode 1: Humans.… they “supposedly ate potatoes and enjoyed sleep.” The video called upon a range of AI tools.
7. (Added September 12, 2024). La Baye Aréa (The [San Francisco] Bay Area), French TV Series — Opening credits. This was built using Midjourney 6, Runway Gen-3 and Udio.
And here’s a plug for my new book: The AI Revolution in Book Publishing: A Concise Guide to Navigating Artificial Intelligence for Writers and Publishers, available on Leanpub, on Amazon, and everywhere else.