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The problem is, the world is already drowning in content. AI is going to pump out enormous quantities of everything. There are not enough bored, human eyeballs in the world to possibly watch it all. Each film that is created will be a needle in a haystack the size of Mount Everest.

I’ve noticed a huge correlation between AI bros and guys who have never had a creative thought in their life. That Venn diagram is one circle.

Studio executive attempting to replace everyone with A.I. but ends up just replacing themselves also sounds like a great premise for a Twilight Zone or Black Mirror episode.

When I first saw that AI "film" I immediately knew why they used that balloon head character. The AI can't consistently generate the same main character scene by scene.

I love how Airhead feels like watching a bunch of unrelated stock footage featuring the same model. Really makes you feel your limited time on this earth slip away pointlessly.

That one scene in The Incredibles of syndrome explaining how he will sell his inventions to people so they can all be super is how I feel about AI content. "And when everyone's super no one will be."

All the ethics aside. This stuff will probably result in an onslaught of so much new content that audiences will become overwhelmed and nearly impossible to impress.

All I can think of is what Francis Ford Coppola said when the first Avatar came out - technology can surely enhance the experience but the only thing that will change cinema or push the medium forward is storytelling that is new, original and true to each generation.

Just a few years ago the anime Carol and Tuesday portrayed a future where all music is written by AI, and then this duo comes along and write their own songs and everyone is like "WHAAAAAA???" It seemed silly at the time, but I guess they knew where the wind was blowing.

I don’t believe that people who argue for, like and make ai “movies” are even interested in making movies in the first place. At the end of the day people who make movies make them because they like making it, a ai movie takes all the pure love of the craft out of it

I find it funny how people will praise these fully-AI "movie" on Twitter, then complain about modern blockbusters being written by AI when they don't like them.

There was one AI short '''''film''''' that I saw where one of its scenes was blatantly just copying that one Leonardo DiCaprio fireworks scene in The Great Gatsby. Every action, every gesture, even the framing was the exact same. I think that tells me a lot about these AI '''''films'''''.

It’s also so fitting that an AI might see a human head as a balloon with nothing in it

Painters and illustratiors have been on the forefront of this dillema for over a year now. There is a number of people who dont understand what "soul" is, or what it means for a project to have passion or love put into it. These people will continue to press on with advancing text to image, text to music and text to video until one day, they will wonder why no movies, games or stories effect them like they used to. Why everything feels so derivative and shallow. The process of creating something imbunes the product with something from its creator. Its the mistakes or unique choices that often make things enjoyable to experience. Without that touch, the work becomes empty at the core with no soul, and leaves you feeling nothing after " consuming" it

Was listening to this while eating lunch. 8:00 hit pretty hard lol. Yeah, generative AI is a product of a consumption based media landscape. It will absolutely worsen the situation: but we already live in a consumption based society, and art still lives. It still fights, and people care about it. And it will, and they will, for as long as humans have a desire to hear stories, to empathize, to imagine. At the same time, I was hoping this trend of shallow and boring media would end, or at least decrease. At this point, it's clear to me that we're stuck now, there's no going back. As long as slop is easy and cheap to make, it will be made. Until eventually we all live in a junk-food dystopia.

I‘m happy as long as AI movies are bad. I‘m getting worried when AI “art“ is starting to get good. As an artist myself a future where AI has taken over the entertainment industry is one of the most terrifying dystopias I can imagine

For me it’s like having symptoms of the flu vs actually having the flu. The AI has symptoms of being a film, it is literally a moving image with sound - but is not actually a film, no creative decisions inspire any part of its makeup.

AI has convinced me that there is such a thing as a soul. Because by God we are witnessing so much "art" that's devoid of it entirely.

Great overview. As someone who spends 200+ hours/ video researching, writing and manually painting digital artwork with a stylus, the distinction between intentional art and algorithm is the thing I want people to appreciate. 3D printers can make far more realistic statues than Michelangelo’s David, and I’m utterly uninterested in all of them.

I think the most concerning thing is that in a survey with the software engineers that make the AIs, 1/3 of them said they don't care about any misuse of AI because that is the "users" fault. It would be like Oppenheimer saying he does not care about the bomb because he is not directly using them, just utterly terrifying Edit: survey not interview

Rewatching this in 10 years will be so fulfilling.

Automation is great for doing the jobs that people don’t enjoy/get fulfillment out of doing. When people praise AI’s replication of art, it communicates to me that they see the process of creating art as pointless and inconsequential

Thank you for talking about this. I've tried to push this conversation with fellow filmmakers, it's just not talked about enough. I showed my professor when "airhead" came out, and she feared for her job. I fear for my future, just trying to stay hopeful.

Not only the person who mistakenly relies on Al for expression will find themselves devoid of creative fulfillment, but also whoever watches it will as well. At the very least, half of the pleasure of experiencing something that produces an emotional response in us - be it something happening in the moment like a live performance or sports, or something already concluded, like a painting, book, sculpture, architecture, recorded music, photography or a film - is the subconscious awareness that a person, or a group of people, have, through time and dedication, achieved an ability to manipulate a specific medium in order to produce results that rival wizardry. I don't think I am romanticizing anything here; It's a testament to human resilience, dedication and ability. Much has already been said about what this will bring into our industry and I vehemently stand by everything you say on this video, but since we are emotionally invested in it, let's look at an example outside of audiovisual creativity: soccer. Using easy to recognize examples, what makes Ronaldo or Messi the galactic masters they are, what draws hordes of people to the stadiums they play in, is how they've developed themselves to be able to run, kick, jump and control the ball however and whenever they want, according to their understanding of the pitch and game strategy. If we deploy players with exoskeletons that enable them to outperform Ronaldo or Messi from the get-go in every front, what are we watching, exactly? What are we cheering for? Is there anything left to cheer for, actually? Is it morally acceptable that these exoskeleton-powered players play against those not wearing exoskeletons? Is every player going to be forced to use an exoskeleton due to the "democratization" of soccer playing in order to even be in the conversation? Am I a neo-luddite? I don't think I am. This not a technology that does something that people did but in a much more streamlined, effective way. This is a complete paradigm shift the likes of which we've never experienced before. In art, the process of creation is an integral part of the result. We cannot outsource or bypass this and cling onto the result as self-expression. Craft and skill cannot and will not be replaced and all those salivating over what Al will allow them to “create" without having put in the time to develop craft will amount to nothing. The solution here is legislation that deems anything created with Al uncopyrightable, therefore no one can capitalize on it, while still making it possible for it to be freely used in science, where it will undoubtedly usher in a much welcomed new age of miracles.

Wasn’t there a court case that said all AI art was public domain (or that it couldn’t be copyrighted)? If that’s the case, then I wouldn’t worry. No studio would risk a new IP being public domain immediately after release. Plus, it wouldn’t be that hard to guess the keywords used to make the short film, so no one would hire an AI “artist”.

What's really sad is that Shy Kids, the creators of that stupid balloon video, made a video for their song Rockets where they built lots of assets and characters completely out of photoscans of candy and animated them. It was really cool, and a ton of work to do, but I appreciated that they made something. I've enjoyed their music for years, but they jumped on the AI bandwagon a couple years ago and their work hasnt come back to form since (fwiw Shy Kids is a VFX studio who have done work for HBO and Alvvays in addition to being a band, it's very weird and used to be cool)

One thing is I hate how fast this is coming- where did the bad funny AI generated pictured go??

thanks for this btw, since that stupid music video and the ai art in late night with the devil , i've been scared about what we're doing to ourselves and our art lol

While I don't think AI will be going any time soon (maybe ever if we're being honest), I don't think it will trascend as much as those who cheer for it do. Like any form or tool, it has limitations: as Advanced as CGI has gotten we still have more Ant Man Quantumanias than Avatar the Way of Water. Whats more is that AI is inherently at a disadvantage if not used properly as a tool: for as much as the media who lobby for this stuff to be used in art champion it, media cannot rewire the human brain itself, attention span reduction and that kind of stuff aside. Art without purpose or intention is still going to be Bad, no matter how advanced the technology is. There's a reason why so many movies coming out recently have been criticized as having "a script written by ChatGPT". People can be stupid but people also like to enjoy things, AI is not only boring and doing what already is most critized within culture (lack of originality), it is also deeply uncanny. The brain is a complex machine and it is always picking up on stuff we're not aware off. AI could be a weapon, not in a terminator way, but instead as a weapon against human creativity and soul. That's what I think we're really up against, as dramatic as it sounds. Still it has a long way to go until it actually starts replacing real art.

i feel like every youtube video i’ve seen recently ends with “guy things are about 2 get bad”

Glad to see you doing more different kind of videos like this again.

seeing AI generated anything always gives me the ick

I don't think it will be bad, people won't relate with movies that have no heart and they won't find success. I do think the VFX industry is going to get wrecked though

Thank you, just thank you for putting into words exactly how I -and a lot of people- feel about this specific topic. It makes me angry, depressed and scares the shit out of me at the same time.

This kind of reminds me of something that I saw in December. Here in Lyon they have a yearly "festival" called the Fête des Lumières where all around the city people are presented with beautiful pieces of art using lights and the architecture of the city. However, there was one that used AI "art" generating a lot classics of filmmaking made by Louis and Auguste Lumière like using "L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat" and putting it in different time periods. The spectacle ultimately ended with something along the lines of "Who will be the big next innovator in filmmaking in this new era of AI?" As someone who is studying film here in France, this really bothered me. Comparing innovators of filmmaking to generated AI "art" gave me a bleak perspective into the future. Also seeing the crowd of people here "oooh", "aaah", and clap at the end of the presentation made me realize how disruptive AI can be to the general consumers of movies.

I don't think its clear that ai can not come up with new things, i highly suspect it can. but you are right in that it has not experienced anything related to being human, and probably can only do shallow imitations of things related to that. we might get some unique ai perspectives at some points though, that will be cool in itself

it's always gonna be less black and white than "I think AI is good" or "I think AI is bad" (and lots of conversations I've had with people, they seem to just say one or the other) What you said at 3:07 hits the nail on the head imo. Like you said, it's about if it's a tool to help you make something vs. it making something for you.

Honestly I don't think many people will feel satisfied with ai art. With this ai stuff I think of radiant quests in Bethesda and Ubisoft games. They made a system that can randomly generate an infinite amount of quests with unique goals, locations, and rewards. But despite that players still tend to skip quests like that in favor of human made quests. While it's not a one to one comparison I think it shows how even consumers who like lots of content and playing their favorite games as much as they can still prefer it when what they're playing has been thought out and created by a person

at sundance i watched a film called Little Death. Almost every scene that wasnt a normal shot was made with AI. it was terrible

Great video!! What prompt did you use to generate this?

Don’t call me out about eating lunch when I watch this Karsten.

my thought on ai generated anything (art, film, writing, etc.) is why should I be bothered to care about something nobody could have been bothered to make?

10:16 omg I love inside llewyn davis

So basically... I can finally make my season 7 and 8 rewrite of GOT a reality?

8:46 u did not have to call me out like that

the craving will be for something old. when people used to build sets and got to locations and set up cameras lol

Man this is a really hard conversation to have because it requires people to look forward 5-10 years and see where this is all headed, and a lot of people keep applying this current tech with the current economy and come to the conclusion that it's dystopian because it would be. The truth though is the best case scenario none of this will matter because you will be able to for the first time in human history not have to hustle your art to survive. You can wake up, decide how you want to spend it, and then work on whatever you want, with whoever you want, to display wherever you want. Even if there were flying cars outside, you could be inside doing something more personal that you care about. The best example for my case, is that I get the same satisfaction from screening my shorts and animations at local festivals for 200 people in a bar than I would from posting on UKposts. The only reason I have social media is because the potential to make money. Otherwise I wouldn't have half the accounts I do now.

Who up Kartsen they Runquist?

Amen to this video.

8:44 - Bro how are you going to call me out like that mid-sandwich?

Agree this AI thing gotta GO

The main problem is that ai is being used as a crutch when the whole point is to have an endless pointer but the byproduct of making it so easy to use and easy to get ahold of is that people just borderline abuse it

You should look into the Golden Demon from this year. It's a huge, decades old miniature painting competition, and this year, one of the entries won gold in its category with an AI generated background image behind the miniature. It's not clear if the judges were aware that the background was AI, but the takeover's already starting. Unfortunately, AI entries into competitions are not at all out of the question, and in fact can win 1st place. Yay.

Yes! AMEN

A good majority of people, especially tech engineers, think this technology is garbage. It feels like it's "providing a solution" to a "problem" that never existed in the first place. It's mostly driven by hype, and dishonest marketing, and the tech CEOs know this. The people who say, "this tech is inevitable" or "the genie is out of the bottle", are the exact same people who pushed for NFTs and cryptocurrency (and look how they turned out). Now they're shifting their focus to I.A. (imitative algorithms), and expect us to fall for it in a similar fashion. And even if it does "get better", it will never do anything that a regular artist cannot replicate (other than being "faster"), because its data is _entirely_ driven by human-made art. It's honestly kind of pointless the more you think about it, and it becomes less of a "tool", and more of a "leach". And calling oneself an "artist" for using I.A., is like calling oneself a "track runner" for riding a motorcycle. "A.I." bros, and tech CEOs, don't want to hear this, but here's the truth: regulation is inevitable, and there's no such thing as "unregulated tech". They can say to themselves, "A.I. will outpace government oversight", but it's going to happen whether they like it or not. The E.U. and U.N. have already passed laws regulating this stuff, so it's only a matter of time before similar legislation is drafted in other countries. When I look at art, I think of it as psychology made flesh: it's about sharing perspectives, and points of view, through their own effort and skill. It's not just the "end product" that matters, but the sense of appreciation knowing what it took to making it in the first place. The real questions one should ask the artist are, "Is it coming from YOU as an individual?", "Is it honest?", "Is it providing some sort of fulfillment?", and "Can you describe the process?". TL;DR: It's art theft at worst, and a crutch at best: and that's me putting it kindly.

Damn doggin on my mans robbie’s painting

My dream is to become a music producer, I have studied sound design and music production and plan on continuing down that path. But recently I've just been having a hard time figuring out if it's the best way to go. Although I don't think that "AI *music*" will ever reach the same level of personality and love as real music does, it feels like not enough people care for that to matter. If record labels ever get paid to release AI crap in the future, there would be no reason for them to sign artists when they can just make them from scratch. And all this that has been going around my head just makes me feel like my dream isn't possible anymore. I will 100% keep going, but all of this AI stuff is keeping a sour taste in my mouth.

great words, man

1:25 try this scent it'll make you smell like a hotel in Chicago

watched this while eating fries and wings, i agree karsten.

I highly recommend that everyone go watch the video essay about Star Wars rogue ones use of deep fake on the channel “so uncivilized”. Very interesting on how we need to approach art. Even more interesting is that it was uploaded before the writers strikes.

Im sorry but the slow pan to show Balloon head is a cinematic masterpiece

What do you think about Late night with the devil? (not specifically because of AI use, but because i think it is a rare unique low budget horror)

I lovr angsty Karsten

Imagine a script entirely written by a single person, their passion project and life’s work, where every shot and line is the product of one person’s mind. I fail to see how that person using AI video and/or audio generation tools to realize their vision is in any way lacking in the rich texture that constitutes a person’s life and experiences. If anything, the argument could be made that these tools may enable the artist to more closely realize the vision they have in their mind. But scripts and direction, I think would feel soulless if an AI did them.

My dad was looking at my phone to check something when he saw this notification and now he’s been banging on about how it should technically be called ‘machine learning’ rather than AI I don’t understand why but I know feel obligated to leave this comment 😅

Pls watch once were warriors, it’s a good watch but harrowing and I think everyone needs to see it

Wanted to check back and say that the team behind this were interviewed and pretty much all of the footage generated by the ai had to be edited or manipulated in some way, a lot of human work hours still had to go into this so I guess there is still some hope, hopefully the technology stays this unreliable for long enough, at least until people put in the right protections for artists' work

Feeling called out by the lunch bit but I do care I promise

Something I must want to bring up that I don’t see many people saying is, media made by people is still successful and s we all know money talks so I don’t think Ai will outright replace people if anything it’ll become a tool since there are already laws being worked on that protect jobs like that from Ai.

Mostly likely film companies will purchase the concept rights and make them into bigger projects

i was in fact eating lunch while watching this video

Fluch der Karibik 2 ist der beste. Ich bleibe dabei

It sucks because the fact that scientists out their figured out how to do all of this is super cool, like computers were only running pong fifty years ago, and then of course humans go and instantly ruin it by using it to be lazy and steal art.

Madame Web compared to AI. Oooh, we're getting into conflict territory.

so, i wonder where we should stand on AI getting used to do, like, complete rough cuts. i have an idea, limited resources (perhaps limited experience) but I take the time to put something together, shot by shot, by v specific ai generated shots that i can get to reflect my human vision to a high degree. so it's still got that human perspective in there, and it'll be a long time before it can be something good, but it could be something you send to arts councils to get funding for real projects? this feels less icky to me as a use

Funny you make an example out of Madame Web, which is most likely written with the help of AI. I just can’t see it any other way.

2:45‬‏ ‼️‏‼️JAMES LEE ANIMATION MENTIONED

Ai is currently producing more content (written content) per three days than the amount of content humans have produced since we first wrote things down

lol. my buddy works for these guys and refused to take part in this

8:46 haha nice try, I am eating dinner rn

Have you heard about the AI and Late Night with the Devil controversy? Bc I feel like it's not necessarily a misuse of AI and it makes sense why they did it but the backlash is a little too much

AFTERSUN MENTIONEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

As a visual artist, yeah, it really sucks how much the people using IA to make art are COMPLETELY oblivious to the fact that we do, in fact, enjoy the process

I miss when people actually put thought and care into what they were creating 😔

ACU = AI Connected Universe

In my opinion I think in future AI will play a big role, but maybe it can be compared to other big changes in art. In 2024 people still go to a theater and watch people play, despite watching movies. Some people still like to craft furniture on their own, although we could go to ikea and buy it. People like to create and play an active part in the process of creating to have this connection with the final product. Maybe in future there are people who create new things because of visionary prompting AI. But yes, we will have a lot of garbage around and it will take some time to form a new understanding of what art is

tbh i kinda like the idea of democratizing the film making process. But at the same time, you’re right - we’ll be seeing a lot more slop than ever before.

what is your letterboxd ?

Not touching on Late Night with the Devil Here was a missed opportunity

Recently Dakota Johnson came out admitting that madame web was dog shit. She also talked about AI and filmmaking and she said something interesting, humans have the ability to sense bullshit, if what is being presented to them feels scandalous, they will not put up with it or let it continue, and that makes sense.

I appreciate you ending the video optimistically. As an English major, I've had a very doomer mindset about AI since chatgpt came out. But hopefully you are right, and once people get tired of "ai art" it will eventually peter out.

You should check out/review "Our T2 Remake" a feature length AI Parody of Terminator 2, looks ass......

@KarstenRunquist Thank you for taking the time to rant. Many more rants will be needed to mitigate the soul-less regurgitation that is AI content generation. Or perhaps enough of it will be produced that there aren't enough servers and enough power to house or distribute it. X is the only fitting distributor of such tripe, along with all the other pollution that collects there.

5:52 fin.

I saw some of these in a circletoonslive video

8:35 finally someone said it. I'm tired of other videos being all philosophical and maudlin about humanity and inspiration, when it's just not true. the bar is so low that AI is already above it.

we're cooked

As an artist frightened by losing my audience to lifeless content, this video struck a chord with me.