I think big studios that are still clinging on to the blockbuster mentality, like Disney and Sony, will absolutely use AI to its fullest and completely ignore the audience. However I also think AI will become very common place in indie films and passionate films by well known directors. I think this will be the case because of fantasy stories that include maybe a hard to render dragon or background and ultimately AI is easier to use than paying a large crew to do it. I don't want AI to be the reason people lose jobs but I also have the perspective that it could be a very good tool for the artist to get the look right, although AI needs some massive improvement before it can make something like interstellar.
It may not produce cinema (or art of any kind) but it can churn out prolefeed and that's all the corporations and the vast bulk of the consumers want. Until we create a society that raises our expectations to something better than shallow lowest-common-denominator garbage, we deserve no better than what we're given.
Thank you for a great and thought-provoking video. It brought me peace. You have become one of my favorite creators and I perceive your every new video as a treat. I think that art is-and always will be-driven by the desire or need to create something from within the artist's soul, heart, or mind that demands to be made manifest. It is sometimes said that, during the process of creation, the person enters "the zone" or the present moment. It can also be perceived that the work is being created through the artist, rather than by the artist, although that is also undoubtedly true. Of course, the creator is not in that free-flow state 100% of the time. Writing, for example, often means a stubborn contest with an empty page. If there is an AI tool that makes people feel this creative spark (be it in the design of the prompt or through some other step in the tool's usage), then there might be a glimpse of true creation in the finished product. But in the vast majority of cases, this spark will not be there, because it is just too easy and mundane to use these tools. At the end of the day, a person feeling the burning desire to partake in a creative process will do all they can to bring something that doesn't yet exist into the world, consciously shaping and refining it. For example, knowledge of languages will soon become redundant because we will have real-time translation in the speaker's own voice (think The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Only someone with love and awe for languages will learn them for the sake of the knowledge and the feeling itself-because they need to. The impulse to learn will no longer come from external circumstances but from an inner drive. In my opinion, art will always find a way, regardless of the tools available. However, it will exist side-by-side with non-art products and will likely be in the crushing minority. You said it perfectly: da Vinci's destination wasn't simply the resulting pretty picture. If it were, he might be forgotten now. Perhaps he would have been briefly lauded in his time, like a mainstream piece of music fed to a consuming audience ad absurdum. But it would definitely be no The Dark Side of the Moon.
I think the premise of the video comes from flawed assumptions about generative AI art, especially the bit about 'artistic intent'. I only work with generated images, but more than just a text prompt goes into it. For instance you can use start images that seed the generation in a particular way, and I often draw these myself, or cut and paste some existing images in photoshop etc to get the distribution of colours and form I am looking for in the final image. And even in prompt writing, it's a whole artform. Each model reacts differently to prompts, and you have to work with it for awhile before you develop intuition on how to bend it to your will. It's arcane and almost incantational, and you gradually learn which unexpected words can lead to more desired results. Some models even retain some residual influence from previous generations (much as will an LLM) and I don't understand how that even works...it's bizarre. For video, the tech is still super rough. There's a lot of limitations on it currently, particularly with shot length. I think the next logical tool to be built is something to keyframe a string of prompts together, or to generate visuals using sound and dialogue as prompts (much in the way most humans can visualise the content of an audiobook). Tools like that are not technically impossible but could prove a bit challenging. Will AI replace cinema? I doubt it. But I do think it will be used as a tool within it. There's some creators here on UA-cam putting together some really interesting stuff. A lot of it has a very surreal vibe, which kind of comes with the territory with AI (especially if a creator wants to escape the default 'glossy' look of gen AI slop). But I can definitely see it opening up new types of visual storytelling, and allow more people to become filmmakers. But it won't fully replace anything, just complement it. Sort of like how techno didn't obliterate the music industry.
Yet we keep buying them. In fact, greeting cards are stupid; we all just recycle or throw them away anyway after reading them. Sometimes we don't even read them, especially if there's money in them.
@thisisfyne For a while, Hallmark had e-cards, often with animation and sound, which makes much more sense and eliminates paper waste. But like so many companies in their "infinite wisdom", they discontinued them.
3:01 I would argue that the production of the image is, at best, a THIRD of the process. Whether we're talking about making movies, videogames, and I'm sure other forms of media, I'd say that pre-production and post-production play a huge part in what we see as a final product. If anything, I think our biggest loss will be the pre-production part; the thinking part in which a human being intends to infuse his artistic expression into the world.
The pragmatist in me knows that it will annihilate low level, introductory jobs (because it did) and with how much companies are shoving this down our throats: they're expecting people to just submit to it. To say that I'm marginally bitter about that would be a mild understatement. I don't feel it will create anything of value and anyone who says otherwise is appeased by tricks you can use on infants. The motion isn't there. The heart isn't there. The intention, the purpose, the physicality. No matter how much the technology improves: it won't capture the fundamental human failings that make Art, ART. It's the product of charlatans and grifters.
The problem isn’t that AI will make a film as well as humans do. The problem is that it will make it mediocre or even poorly, but still good enough to sell. We're heading into dark ages, filled with shitty productions.
@@robertdouble559 very true. there's a lot of "slop" being created and passed off as cinema today (marvel for example or any nostalgiabait that disney churns out) and people eat it up and pay for the cinema experience of seeing the same thing over and over and over.
@@robertdouble55920 years? News flash... crap has always existed. As time goes by we cherish the best of the generation and ignore the rest. Watch not thec best movies of the 70's. Watch EVERY movie of the 70's. The long forgotten bulk was crap. I would say this is the best era of television by shear volume of great shows in my 55 years of tv obsession but doesn't mean there isn't even more crap being pumped out as always.
It doesn't matter how much AI bros talk looms or cameras or whatever other past technological revolutions. From early humanity to right now, the truth of art has always been "you get out what you put in". People that don't care about their craft produce things that aren't worth caring about. GIGO.
2:42 My immediate reaction to this idea of "making" photos without *taking* photos was: "where's the fun in that?" And I think that sums it up. Here's the point: I'm a musician. If I want to, I can create a piano piece from scratch in my DAW, even adding dynamics and subtle pedal events etc., tweaking it until it sounds pretty good. But that piece would still have to be in a fairly simple style, because I can do things on a piano that I could never even begin to program using a piano roll because they are ten times more subtle and complicated than that. (I know AI isn't a MIDI track, but bear with me.) The decades of training and experience I have behind me, playing piano as a child, playing keyboards in bands - all of that is inside me, and the best way, the very BEST way for me to feel good about that is to play the damn piano myself. There's nothing quite like sitting down after a hard day and improvising on my piano, feeling the frustrations and sorrows melt away, and knowing that I paid a significant price of time and effort to be able to do that. I'm not going to get that by making piano parts in MIDI - and neither am I going to get it by using a machine learning tool to try to do the same thing. My point is that the human experience, not just of producing, but LEARNING to produce art, music, sculpture, film, books... this is a precious thing. It rewards us with self-respect. How are text prompts and AI-generated images, music and movies going to give us that? Once you take away money and the profit motive, you're left with an empty shell. AI is a mirage that uses pretty lights to distract us from genuinely rewarding effort.
I think it's in the same vein as autotune and quantising. Yes, you can generate music that is perfectly in tune and perfectly in time. But that's boring. Art needs that human element, those beautiful mistakes and stylistic playing that makes your art unique. People like Glenn Fricker have repeatedly pointed out that metal music is stagnating because every producer is using the same guitar / bass / drum plugins, then quantising everything: so it all sounds the same. It's the same with pop music - Everyone is using the same gear, or even people to make their music. So it all just become this melange of beige. And that's how you can always spot an AI image - it's too clean, too perfect. There's no dirt, no scratches, no funny little quirks. Nothing that makes it personal.
That was the goal of the video to be a warm comfort blanket... but it's not reality. It will be a tool that is used or ignored by creative types. "Blank is going to destroy blank " is a choice. I just watched Nosferatu. Not sure how much is CGI, not sure if it was film or digital... but it was disturbing and beautiful adaptation. If Eggers decides on using practical effects or cgi it's just a tool. A skilled artist trying to convey their vision is all that matters in the end. Use it, don't use it.
The comments are full of people who still don't understand what storytelling is or how storytelling works and how it impacts us. As humans, emotionally and intellectually. They only think that the technology will get better, meaning that the visuals will get better, but that the storytelling will not improve. And storytelling, I don't mean necessarily dialogue and plot and all that, I mean the individual movement on the frame, the intention behind the imagery, the placement and composition of the figures in the image. AI won't be able to express that because it doesn't have expression or personal experience. It has statistical data. It will only pull from the most popular statistical data without understanding or knowing why. Everyone in the comments championing A.I. is horrendously unaware of how visual storytelling works. It's like arguing that lightsabers are what make Star wars great instead of the relationships, conflicts, and development of the characters.
After watching this video and thinking back to all your previous videos I cannot help but think, that you are some kind of "Van Gogh of words". Your videos are purely poetic and leave a positive "aura" as well, even if your videos are just a digital version of your body and voice. Thanks for sharing your ideas and putting it all together here in this world of zeros and ones.
Great video, as always! On the point about the knowledge about an image being real makes the image more meaningful. Especially when talking about the usage of VFX in movies and "being told that it is real" seems particularly two-sided as the current trend in marketing movies nowadays seems to state that movies are shot entirely practical, whether that's actually true or not. For example, Oppenheimer has plenty of VFX shots, with the caveat that those shots are composites of photographed elements, but to market the film as having no digital effects is disingenuous. Barbie was marketed as all practical which is a blatant lie. The same goes for Top Gun Maverick which projects the narrative that all the planes in the film are real when in fact the vast majority was entirely replaced in post-production. A well-told lie will always remain a lie, and that is true of the way we talk about movies as well, even if we personally agree with the sentiment. As a VFX artist myself I wholeheartedly agree that CGI should only be used when necessary. One, because it makes my job easier. And two, because it allows me more time to focus on the effects that matter to the story. VFX is after all just another storytelling tool. If I add a dragon to a scene the goal of the effect isn't to deceive you into thinking dragons are real, the VFX is there to convey, not to deceive. I do not respect an illustration less than a photograph because of a fundamental belief that the photograph is in essence "more real" than the illustration. I respect an illustration, digital or painted, because I recognise the skill and artistry behind that illustration and the artist's creative intent. I think fundamentally it all comes down to creative intent. And on the topic if AI, that is essentially why I find AI so off-putting is because no creative intent can exist in the creation of AI imagery. If you strip art from its creative intent it ceases to be art.
Thanks for your comment. I was thinking about writing a video about what you said here, the distinction between "conveying" and "deceiving". The idea that the dragon looks "real", or "convincing", even though you are fully aware it is not real. I wasn't aware about the deception you're referring to about films being practical, but I can see the issue. Maybe 'practical' has become a kind of buzz word like 'organic'. Great to hear from a VFX artist - and I'm glad to hear you're sympathetic to my argument. I'm sure it's something you have spent a lot of time thinking about yourself.
@@theartofstorytelling1 Absolutely! There's constant debate in the VFX community about to which degree we can (and probably will) be replaced by AI. VFX artists, like many other departments in entertainment, are overworked and underpaid as is, and now have to live under the threat of being replaced at a moment's notice, by robots no less! It's a similar story to screenwriters and editors, the constant pursuit of churning out "content" rather than "stories" which keeps budgets and time-frames down while workloads keep going up. And I bet if other departments felt the same pressure you would notice a significant quality drop there as well. Could you imagine something like the latest mega-budget blockbuster having terrible audio for something as trivial as the sound designer not being allowed enough time to do a proper job? Replace "sound designer" with "screenwriter", "editor" or "VFX artist" and that's basically where we're at. It's fundamentally about respecting the department that's doing the work. In the early days of VFX, the artists were treated like rockstars because if you didn't follow their advice the effect simply wouldn't work. Now that the technology is so readily available and workers plentiful, artists are easily swept under the rug and treated very much second-grade. And the deception of marketing "all practical"-filmmaking even when the opposite is true is just the late stage of that. If you haven't already, I highly recommend The Movie Rabbit Hole's "NO CGI" series on UA-cam. A 4-part cringe-fest of producers, directors and actors lying straight to your face while the evidence is right there.
It goes even deeper than that, there's another infinitely more complex stage, beyond what's contained in the actual image. Much like Benjamin put it in the essay you're referring to, Aura isn't just confined to work itself. It's the work of art, in it's context that matters so much - for example the context of the three dimensional, real space where it was intended to reside and so was also specifically created for; the context of it's time as a part of history or of course in it's creators biographical context. AI could never and will never be able to transcend to that plane, be a part of the actual lived reality, that resides in everything true. For another good introduction into the topic I can wholeheartedly recommend Great Art Explained Video on Da Vinci's Last Supper and of course John Bergers Way's of Seeing! And thank you for the great video!
You're absolutely right - the depth of complexity in an image is far great ever than the physical complexity I described. This is the thing that I never see referenced in all the discussion and hype about AI. Thanks for the reference - I love that channel!
@@theartofstorytelling1 Oh yes! Also, AI definitely is groundbreaking in so many ways, but I feel like the majority of the public-discussion about it's place in the arts, somehow mistakes content as art, do you know what I mean? Truly happy that channels like yours educate about concepts like these and give a wider audience a perspective that photography or filmmaking etc. as fine arts, are in fact not "dead" or on the brink of replacement!
Of course the suits aren't going to care - unless we wise up and refuse to pay for "art" that's not human-originated...but by definition, there's no art, no music, no film, no theater, no literature, without the crucial human-to-human connection. Hopefully we'll always be able to pick up those subtle cues to discern what's human and what's not, and vote with our wallets accordingly (and care).
Just to add to this, the suits will not only not care, they'll celebrate the day when they don't have to deal with writers' strikes or actors' temperaments.
AI itself may never produce cinema/art, but a human can use AI to create cinema/art. And when that happens, we shouldn't be biased against it, just because of this perception of AI being some evil antithesis to art. The same way that a photographer can use a camera to do a lot of the work that a painter would otherwise have to do manually... a storyteller could use AI to do a lot of the work that a filmmaker would do manually... but they're still the one making the artistic choice to accept or reject what the AI spits out, to refine and control it, or roll with happy accidents, etc... the same way a photographer simply makes an artistic choice to accept or reject what the camera is showing, or to refine the exposure and adjust the framing, etc... A modern digital artist using AI to do a lot of the work and simply "directing" that process via prompts is much the same. Just because a photographer doesn't have to paint the mountain, the universe just gave them the mountain for free and they just choose how to capture it... someone using AI to create art may get the imagery for free, but the human involved is still the one making the choice about how to use that imagery, to refine it, edit it, place it into a sequence that creates a film, make choices about sound design... even if AI is producing the audio, it's still a human making a choice to accept or reject the iteration that the AI spat out and then how to incorporate it into a project from there. It's still the human deciding and directing what the piece of art is, and when it's finished and ready to present to people. That's how AI is getting used right now, and will continue to be for a long time. It's not advanced enough to do everything itself. It's just raw generation that really needs to be prompted specifically, refined, go through many iterations to get what you want, make choices... all being done by a human that is USING the AI. It's not just done by the AI itself. Maybe one day, AI will be advanced enough to do everything independently of any human, and on that day... most people still won't use it that way. Humans want to be involved in the creative process. There'll always be human artists who want to make content, and will do it any way they can. If AI becomes the easiest, most accessible way to create whatever you want... then that'll be great. It'll be a world of endless, infinite creative possibilities for artists to direct the AI however they want. When anybody can make a Hollywood level visual as easily as anybody can write a sentence with a pen... that's when we've truly achieved the motion picture medium reaching the point of being "accessible as the pen". Where you don't need money or resources or power over other people in order to get what you want as an artist, which has always been a barrier for the majority of people on the planet from being able to make a film that isn't just a home-movie or student-film level of production. And as the saying goes, "When an artform becomes as accessible as the pen, that's when the real artists will emerge." AI giving any artist the same power of authorship over their work as an author has over a book, is actually a really awesome evolution for the artform. It's not going to be dominated by Hollywood and rich executives in major studios anymore... it's going to be unbiquitous, and all about how humans use AI to create what they want. But just like CGI not being considered "real filmmaking", or Roger Ebert thinking that "video games can never be art"... this is just a stubborn status-quo/old-fashioned mindset that is objecting to a new technology or practice that is simply different or somehow "easier" than an older technology or practice, or that somehow doesn't seem as "pure" or "real" or whatever the nitpick about it is. It's art, if it's representing any kind of idea in any tangible form. This is just an evolution of the TOOLS for art. This happens every time. And every time, the new tool eventually proves to NOT have ruined all human creativity, but just expands it and makes it more accessible and makes more stuff possible. AI will be much the same.
I can give you the point that a storyteller could use ai to tell his/her stories, but i believe they wont be held in great standards. AI is despised, and most people just wont put the effort to listen to them as long as he doesnt put the effort in telling them. I know ai content, as of right now, requires “some” effort to put out, but its not about effort, its just that the things you end up seeing on screen dont have a story, it doesnt have the thoughtful slow and natural creation of the artist
Interesting argument, but a large part of it boils down to complexity. Why are practical effects and stunts better than CGI when they are possible? I would argue that it is not because of an ethical preference for truth, but because reality is much more complex than what we are currently able to generate with computers, and even at a subconscious level, as a viewer we "know" that a CGI shot is not real. It lacks visual verisimilitude - which is much less of a problem when what is represented is not real (like a Balrog) because our brains have less points of comparison. And that part of the argument might very well falter with time: as computers become more powerful and IA more complex and trained, it might eventually "digest" enough complexity that our brains are fooled by the images it generates. For the ontological argument (a movie/photograph depicts the truth of a moment): AI "learn"- they take what has been made before and produce novelty from it - and that mean that, fundamentally, what you said also applies to their production. The IA-created dog could not have happened without the existence of all the dogs whose pictures were taken and "fed" to the IA model, the lighting is determined from thousands of real or imaginary lighting conditions whose existence is necessary for the AI to have been trained in the first place. It is awfully similar to the process that let us dream, visualize a novel… or create art. I would only agree that, until AGI exists (and we're probably far from it), an AI is not an artist, it's a tool. Like a camera, a pencil or a brush. Of course it's a more complex tool, but the camera is a way more complex tool than a brush and oils, and there are still painters out there, and painting is still an art form; photography is another. So while AI's existence might change and transform other media, creating with AI might very well just be its own art form, separate and coexisting with other - more "primitive" - ones…
Lately every time I finish a movie that I really enjoyed, I ask myself, "Could AI make that?" And the answer is always no, because whatever quality that made it worth watching was something real and done with intention. It doesn't matter if AI can produce identical images, it would only be superficial and meaningless. Would anyone care about an AI-generated martial arts film? Doubt it.
What AI usually does is take random pictures and add random movements. If that can be cinema, then who needs AI? Just film a bunch of random shots and string them all together, and you've got cinema. Anyone can make it, no special technology is needed.
It's not only about the past, but also about everything else in the universe in the exact same moment of the photo that WASN'T caught on camera. That is a deliberate choice that contributes greatly to build the actual captured image
Then wouldn't it also stand to reason that the same thing applies to AI images? There's vastly more stuff that wasn't included in the AI image, given that the possible images are essentially infinite. Wouldn't that make AI generated images more significant?
@@nuberiffic no, because AI can't possibly know the exact state of every particle, atomic or subatomic, in the universe. We can't know as well just to be clear, but that's not the point. AI would have to build a simulation, we are in the "simulation" if that makes sense.
@@mrnalan88 AI is a simulation though. That's the entire principle behind it. And you're just further proving my point. Yes, AI can't know the exact state of everything (neither can a camera) But your whole point was that it's what the camera doesn't include that makes it special. AI is not including far more than a real camera does(n't)
@@nuberiffic you aren't getting the point, and no, AI (by AI here I mean transformer based deep learning generative models used today for these things) is not a simulation, otherwise it wouldn't get physics wrong, but it does.
The biggest obstacle to AI creating great art, literature, film, or anything creative is its inability to convey subtext. AI can churn out text or images, but great art conveys multiple levels of meaning.
My biggest fear is that the superficial "awe" and just sheer mass of all the garbage that will be created is going to overwhelm us into simply not caring. But hopefully that will pass and the appreciation for the depth, nuance and realness of the captured moment will return.
Excellent essay. As the child of musicians, a lifelong visual artist, and husband of a fine artist, I can attest to the analog relevance of creativity which imbues artifacts with the metadata you refer to. As a McLuhan fanboy, I am always looking for "the message" in new technology. In the case of AI, the message in the medium is that the means to an end is not as important as the ends, which makes sense in the present-day social media environment where content is infinitely abundant, infinitely accessible, and infinitely changeable. Process means nothing. An infinite stream of content has become the currency of relevance. (That's why teenagers want to grow up to be UA-camrs). AI simply accelerates access to the ends.
I think that the most telling thing about AI is that people want to use it for concept art, when it should be the other way around. You get a human to make the concept art and feed that into the machine. For that you'll get a work as good as a human with zero creativity.
other way around, concept art is a blue print for your final, concept artists will do 30 different concepts and whittle them down to 5, present to their client or boss and then revise. It's the part you want to spend the least time doing because most of it is gonna get scrapped anyways but it has to be a good representation of what you want your final to look like. As you get closer to finalizing the concept the more refined the idea will get and the less you can rely on AI. Then when you commit to making the final you can't use AI because AI can't be copyrighted. If you use AI in your client facing product you're product can't be legally protected. You can legally take that AI coca cola ad right now because copyright does not cover AI generated imagery.
This is something that can't be condensed into a short commentary. The main point of your video - and of this on going discussion - is articulated at the 9:00 mark "(...) the knowledge of the stunt being real makes the image much more meaningful and exciting." This is all it comes down to. Top athletes are so admired around the world not because of the results they achieve, but because they stand as a testament to what dedication and determination to pushing the human body can do. People like Messi, Ronaldo or Jordan have conquered their place in history because of how they've dedicated themselves into mastering a specific set of skills - and that's what we, as spectators, are reacting to when they get the ball. If you put someone who can't kick a ball to save their lives in an exoskeleton that enables them to instantly play, at the very least, just as well as Messi or Ronaldo, there's nothing to cheer for; there's no excitement, there's no achievement and there is no value because they are not doing anything. Even if you put a professional player in an exoskeleton, there's nothing there because you know the results are not down to their ability. Same exact thing applies to AI in artistic expression. A quick story: some months ago, a phenomenal thumbnail of a street photograph appeared on my Instagram Explore page. I clicked on it and it was a masterful shot; everything was just where it should be - perfect composition, framing, timing, light, color, texture and exposure. It would make Gruyaert, Webb, Herzog or Hass green with envy. It was that good. I went to the users profile and, wow, even more stellar photographs. "This guy is an outstanding photographer!", I thought. I kept scrolling down and his gallery suddenly changes to B&W and the quality of the images drops astronomically; it was what you'd expect from someone who had barely used a camera in their life. I thought maybe those B&W photos were his earlier, much older work, but there was nothing stating otherwise and the upload dates were all recent. I went back to the masterful color work and looked at the hashtags - AI generated. This is not about an AI engine's ability to output a photorealistic image with all the characteristics of a masterful photograph, it's about the illusion of competence this person is riding. His ability to describe in a prompt what an outstanding street photograph should look like and subsequently curate the results has NOTHING to do with his ability to ACTUALLY take one. When I first began to fall in love with photography, I already drooled all over the work of McCurry, Bresson, Depardon, Riboud, etc; I knew a great photo when I saw one, but could I capture something that was even remotely close to that? Not even in my dreams. They are attempting to convince others they have the sensibility, skill and craft to produce something that they can't produce. It's about a completely incompetent person trying to be seen as a master of a given craft. Same logic applies to other forms of expression, including, or course, filmmaking. Filmmaking is the result of a collective expression, it's the result of a bunch of choices made by a team under specific conditions. That's what the craft of filmmaking is. Anyone who considers outputting a film is denouncing that they have no interest in the craft of filmmaking, and therefore should find something else to do. GenAI is like having a belly and giving yourself a six pack in Photoshop - you're still out of shape. On legal note, AI generated media has to be uncopyrightable. Only the expression of an idea can be copyrighted, not the idea itself. AI systems are the ones responsible for the choices to materialize whatever is asked of them; people curate the results, but the choices that led to those results are not their own. You are no more the "creator" as you are the "creator" of the family painting you commissioned from a given artist, even if you chose the setting and pose each person. The artist is the creator of the painting, not you. So there is nothing to copyright, and without copyright, no one can make money out of this. As a concluding note, I'll add that your observation on CGI made it sound like CGI elements are a product of simply pressing a key; they are the result of a vast team of digital artisans who craft those elements by hand, but using pixels instead of clay, stone or wood. Everything AI does people have been able to do for quite some time. It solves the grand total of zero problems.
the real thing will always be appreciated more by those who know that it is just that. like with tom cruise and his stunts. AI is a fun tool to mess around with imo but should never replace actual photography or filmmaking.
The day I can't pick up a camera (if they stop existing and the old ones are too old to fix), either a stills, video, hybrid, or dedicated cinema camera...you might as well get my grave ready.
Bond movies were always better before green screen and CGI. Even though we can suspend reality for the plot, the adult human brain has several inbuilt and experience subroutines when processing an image before declaring it "real"
The current tools (text prompting) with the current technology won’t create cinema. But we have no idea what might come. No one had any idea that this technology was on the horizon just a few years ago; it’s very foolish to dismiss it now. I hope the tools will enable more people to tell more stories better and more easily, like digital technology did before them. But you’re absolutely right that it’s very hard to imagine anyone creating a film like Barry Lyndon with AI, even with technology that allows for hands-on performance manipulation and shot composition. I still think it’s a mistake to not allow for the possibility that it could within the next decade. And if it does-if anyone with vision could create a film equal to Kubrick for effectively free from his computer-am I really meant to believe that’s bad for art? I can’t imagine anything that would unleash “art” more, to be honest.
Full disclosure I’m making this comment based on the title of your video alone. I remember in the late 1990s. I had to go to a video editor to pick up a video that my work had produced and I had to wait around that I was talking to the guy for a while. The conversation we were having was talking about digital media and digital projection. And his opinion at the time was digital will never replace film because you can’t get the Fidelity would always look pixelated, and you cannot get as clean of an image as you can with traditional film. Fast-forward to today to theaters, even actually use film anymore all the theaters I’ve been to showcase that they have digital projection and my local theater. You can actually see those server rooms where the films are stored. So when you look at today’s movies and I get classic cinema is lost even in human produce movies today, but I don’t know that we can’t say that AI won’t be able to replicate this. Hence, why the most recent strike there was a lot of language in their terms about the use of AI.
I enjoyed this, thank you. I think just by sheer volume that can be produced by machine, even if 99.99% of it is AI slop, there will still be 0.01% of it that is ‘Cinema’ by happenstance. And with enough scale, that 0.01% can still be more output than humans can produce in a lifetime. Once it creates an instance of cinema by happenstance (or brute force, if you will), feedback is going to give it a greater chance of creating more going forward. While AI cannot create the metadata that the visual is real rather than generated, there can also be a different kind of wonder in the metadata of something that happens extremely rarely, or is created by complexity beyond our imagination (such that it resembles magic). So, there could be other new wonders we may encounter that gets incorporated into the definition of ‘cinema’.
Infinite monkeys and infinite typewriters may produce accidental masterpieces, but hey, random numbers doing weird things won me $1,085 at a casino on a $1 bet once (bet my lucky number on a roulette wheel, took $6 of the take off because the max bet was $30, let it ride, and it hit again), doesn't make me a "great gambler" any more than your example makes generative AI a great artist.
Meh. I think you are completely right that AI would never be able to produce a Mona Lisa, or indeed a Citizen Kane. But I am pretty sure it would be able to produce something like the "Red One" even now. That film feels like it was made by AI anyway...
Ask an AI to show a clock with hands at 12:03. The AI will fail, because there are very few images online of clocks at that time. AI will usually show you 10:10, or some other aesthetically pleasing time.
After all this being said, all I have to say is, put it to the test. Slip in some AI clips with clips created by humans and have people unknowingly watch them and see how they react. If, on their own without prompting, tell us nothing seemed out of the ordinary, then AI is part of cinema. The only argument this video has is the consumer having knowledge of HOW the clip was made. And that's not a benchmark worthy of testing cinema.
The same observation applies to LLMs. I am a musician (and mathematician) by training, and I know that language does not capture images or music. The LLMs treat language as the equivalent of scratches on paper. It then applies extreme formalism (in the mathematical sense). Even if this approach worked (and I submit that it does not), the source material is unedited web scrapings, so we have the GIGO effect multiplied by the power of the computer. I don't know why people were surprised that ChatGPT was racist and sexist - the source material is racist and sexist. Theodore Sturgeon said that 95% of everything is crap, so it is no surprise that the results of LLMs are mediocre at best and usually rubbish. It is our brains that give meaning. I had co-workers who were fooled by ELIZA in the 1970s because *they* attributed a mind to the creation. When I listen to a computer-generated musical performance (trying to emulate real instruments and real players), it inevitably feels false. Images, and particularly moving images, are even more complex. I hope that this video is more widely seen.
This is a well constructed argument although based on an incorrect assumption. As an AI film maker I am not trying to recreate was has come before. It is a new medium with entirely new possibilities. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
Art is the act of creation, not the completion or viewing or interpretation. The moment of the brushstroke, the writing, the performing is the art, not the final outcome. We enjoy the final piece because of this intention. So if it was generated by AI and there was no artist to begin with, it cannot be considered art.
That it, until AI is so prevalent that artistry - the craft itself of thinking and making - goes extinct, and the nobodies writing the prompts that produce images all circlej3rk themselves into claiming they *are* artists doing art. I mean, it's already happening. And it's embarrassing.
What I also loved about your hand photo was the time of day, ambient light, reflectivity. You could take that same photo again tomorrow and get a different result!
I made a comment in which I accidentally accused you of claiming something you didn't claim, and then wrote a reply to that comment apologizing, but both disappeared. I'm guessing it's because of UA-cam's inconsistent auto-moderation, but the reply never even appeared before disappearing, so I'm writing this to say I did realize I messed up.. cause I have NO IDEA if the 2nd comment even sent. This UI doesn't give feedback on mobile devices when writing replies, surprisingly often.. they just don't appear sometimes..
FWIW, I appreciate a photographic print more than other negative reproductions; although, I cannot remember if I appreciate a Kodachrome projection more than a print. The real body, and especially the eye, is of course preferable, although I'm not sure if knowledge helps, or if it is the reason.
I love your comments at the end. I've no doubt that one day we will have an actual AGI, but what we have now is not capable of autonomous creativity. Until that changes (and opinions vary on how long that will be, but I think decades at a bare minimum), all genuine art will involve human beings. It's so important to emphasise that this is nothing to do with the output of the process. The "product" is NOT the art. Art is a human activity, and I don't give a crap about "art" made purely (or mostly) by a machine, because that's an EMPTY CONCEPT - it's literally meaningless (even if it's technically excellent in some cases). I think machine learning has many good uses - notably in science and medicine, technology design etc. But using it as a substitute for art misses the point completely. The way things are going we're going to end up giving up our humanity by default, and there won't even be any robot uprising to blame.
If the studios can find a way to make decent movies for cheaper with as less human beings involved as possible, they will 100% make movies with it. Corporations hate dealing with humans as much as they love making money. Hell, they'll even boast about being the first to do it, even if it's objectively bad. The novelty alone could be enough to draw people in for a few years.
Awesome video! In this video you emphasize the visual aspect that AI could never replicate. I'm curious on how you think that applies to the storytelling aspect. Do the same principles apply? Is the conclusion, that AI will never replace actual stories written by humans? Or is there more nuance here?
Cinema is, by its very nature, a collaborative artform. Even the most "auterurish" of auteurs can never fill all the roles necessary to make a film. Even the simplest one. Every actor delivers a performance that is uniquely his/her own, and even these are then re-interpreted by the editor. Add the contributions of art directors, sound designers, composers, cinematographers, costume designers, etc., and it's clear that even the most advanced AI will never be able to compete with the collaborative effort that is filmmaking....because a film is never the creation of a single point-of-view. Especially a computer's.
This. I've already seen countless people claim that "it doesn't matter if music is made by AI and not even labeled as such, because who cares, as long as it's good" Seems like the average joe couldn't care less about the most basic ethical thing in artistic endeavors.
If that were true, we'd already be knee deep in a generation perfectly satisfied to watch only Elsagate videos and corporations would be producing them in droves. Also, Rupert Sanders would be a celebrated filmmaker.
Great Stuff... I am not scared of it. Because most humans do love crafting. And filmmaking is some kind of craft too. AI... well it is for those who do not want to put any effort in their work. And it just shows.
This is an argument about human authenticity rather than objective capability, though. Humans operating AI systems will quite easily be producing feature-length cinematic pieces within about 2-4 years from now. The nuances of human expression and tone (as per the Barry Lyndon example) will be reproduced. You'll only know the difference if you're told about it. Think of the same qualitative leap as in the Will Smith spaghetti example applied to everything. When actors, directors, writers etc. cotton on to what's about to happen (and everyone stops chortling about hands and starts getting real), things will be interesting. Huge ructions ahead in every creative industry.
I'm not sure I agree. Good points were made. Certainly seeing Tom Cruise hanging on the side of an airplane is more terrifying knowing that it is real. Not only am I in the shoes of the character, but I also involuntarily am forced to empathize with the actor as well. On the other hand, I could imagine seeing an AI recreation of that scene and not being able to tell the difference. An even better counterpoint might be anime. None of these characters can be real and yet the stories sometimes are so well crafted that I truly feel something. Yes, it was a human writer and human voice actors who made it happen, but will I know when AI does it? I truly hope AI never completely replaces the creative talent of humans. I just don't see the thesis of this video as being sufficient to believe it will never happen.
This is an oversimplification. AI will probably end up being just like CGI. It's not as good as recording a video of something which actually exists, but if you do it right, you won't know anything isn't real. Typically, only a small part of the whole product is made using either tech, because getting things done another way might not be possible or practical.
If for no other reason than to piss off annoying UA-cam video essayists, I hope AI does produce cinema one day. "Artist" is a job, just like any other. I don't remember any outrage when self-driving cars were threatening to put truck drivers out of business, so I see no need to feel outrage that creative fields are being threatened right now.
I WANT to like this video. I WANT to agree with all of this. But all the (good) arguments inevitably come across as "WAHH WAHHH ARTISTS LOSE JOBS, AI BAD!" Which is incredibly reductive, but we all know that it's going to be the counterargument by the industry. What, really, is our argument beyond, "A rose is a rose, it cannot be duplicated?"
I view using AI like using a calculator. It's a tool to help the user make things easier for them. It still takes someone knowing what they're doing to utilize the tool correctly.
No. Using machine learning to "create art" is nothing like using a calculator. Calculator delivers an objective result based on the inputs it is given. People using machine learning "black boxes" are trying to simulate subjective human experience by copying thousands of existing representations of subjective human experiences into said black boxes and ordering them to produce a good enough replica of a subjective human experience. If it were a calculator it would only accept as inputs results someone already calculated, producing only approximate results you'd always have to assume are wrong. Square root of 2 would come out as 1.5. Maybe 1.3. Maybe watermelon.
The thing about stories is not that they are told as a manual for car repair. Stories are moments that evokes emotion in us since they talk both within the lines and between them. AI can copy, analyze against already written stories. In many ways I think AI is a tool. It has its uses. But a tool, like a camera, can only perform its designated task. A camera doesn't understand how movement, a close up or a pan is used to evoke emotion. It just shoots whenever we tell it to, and stop when we tell it to. Until AI understand emotion. AI cannot tell stories.
This video suggests that an AI with enough knowledge of the human experience and existing films will be unable to produce something "meaningful". Of course, AI-generated feature films will never DIRECTLY reflect the "swirling chaos" of moments in our reality (then again, neither do many animated/experimental films). However, that does not mean that such pictures will never become successful, engaging, or even tear-jerking - cinema by any definition.
This video suggests that an AI with enough knowledge of the human experience and existing films will be unable to produce something "meaningful". Of course, AI-generated feature films will never DIRECTLY reflect the "swirling chaos" of moments in our reality (then again, neither do many animated/experimental films). However, that does not mean that such pictures will never become successful, engaging, or even tear-jerking - an advertisement for detergent, by any definition.
The examples you've provided are still life and realism which is on the opposite spectrum of cinema. Cinema seeks to control the swirling chaos and moves closer to the realm of animation. If AI cinema isn’t possible, then animation has never been cinema. The AI tools are already being refined and will attain granularity that is impossible for contemporary filmmakers. The future of cinema is “live-action animation” using AI tools. Every iota of an AI film will have the fingerprints of the artist. The swirling chaos is a distraction good cinema painstakingly seeks to remove so it may highlight one very small thing. Animation resonates more deeply with the human soul than any live-action film. This is precisely because live-action often becomes overwhelmed by swirling chaos-noise. Animation boosts signal. Every element of animation is placed there with human intention. AI cinema will enable the creator to imprint every last ounce of their creativity in the film and will bear the mark of intentional humanity instead of accidental captured chaos that is detached from the cinematic objective. However, what you’re saying is true if you desire the sensation of watching film with all the gears and mechanisms exposed. But then you’re seeking a particular experience, not cinema writ large.
Of course it will. The thing currently lacking is complex directability. Fast forward a few years to where the AI is capable of updating and refining images through ongoing user input and itll be able to craft anything you can with a camera, people, props, etc whilst fully rendering the artistic intent of the person instructing it. To go down the line of thought that the AI wont do it all by itself with very minimal input is like saying cameras will never produce art if you just sit them on a wall and dont bother to focus or frame them.
Did Apple produce an *ad* shot on iPhone, or did they produce a ad-shot-on-iphone? Was Scorceses' The Irishman cinema, when it was made for Netflix? I expect AI, and especially human created story boarding that is used to generate AI rendered frames will increasing be dominate. Is this "cinema". Is the CGI Marvel slop "cinema"?
The term art implies artificiality. By your standard going outside and taking a picture of a random tree is a higher work of art than to actually spend hours sculpting, painting, lighting and rendering a digital tree.
Playing devil's advocate here, society as a whole doesn't appreciate the nuance of how or why art is created. All most people care about is whether the final image is "pretty" or that the movie is entertaining. The notion of the starving artist is alive and well, and it's only going to grow as AI art takes center stage because AI art is cheaper to produce and brings in what the companies behind it want, money. Art is only possible because people are willing to create it, but art rarely goes beyond the creator to have a bigger impact or be seen by those who might actually appreciate or care about the deeper meaning. Saying "AI will NEVER Produce Cinema" is playing semantics. Sure, AI might not be able to produce anything you or I would see as true art that touches souls, but it'll get to the point where it produces something good enough to be consumed en masse by the general public, and that's all most people and companies care about.
Is AI having a hard time convincing us because it’s almost like using a phone camera to take a picture of a picture on a screen? Instead of a direct transfer? Like AI has to generate “art” to a medium that our eyes can view so our brain can interpret? I feel like Mr. Elon Musk will take care of this problem by having a port we plug into our brain, that way AI can just generate a movie for us directly into the brain bypassing all the intermediate stuff lol. Full disclosure: I’m still waking up and drinking my coffee…
This video is remarkably unwise and ahistorical. When the first images from film began to project on screens across the world, many detractors claimed it would never-never-rise to be a legitimate art form. Painters argued that the mechanical nature of film disqualified it from being art, claiming all the camera did was reproduce reality, and because it was a mechanical reproduction of reality, it could never be considered an artistic medium. These arguments are steeped in fear, much like the dismissals of other innovations throughout history. I remember in art school, when we would look at works where students tried to disqualify something as art by saying, "But I could do that with my eyes closed," or "My kid sister could paint that." Our teacher would often respond, "But why didn't you, or why didn't your little sister paint it?" That simple question cuts through the argument. There are many reasons we assign value to a work of art, and those reasons are often about more than just technical execution. The artist's intention, the cultural context, and the meaning behind the piece all play crucial roles in defining what is considered art. In the same way, dismissing AI as a potential tool for cinema without considering its creative possibilities is shortsighted. The idea that AI can't or won't produce meaningful cinema is beyond silly. As with any new medium, the way we engage with and digest images will change. Future generations, born into a world with AI, will have a completely different value system. A child born three years ago won't remember a world without AI, and their approach to art and storytelling will reflect that. AI is not the first tool to challenge established norms in the world of image-making. From the quill to the pencil, oil paints to the camera, optical visual FX to CGI (computer-generated imagery)-each technological leap has faced resistance. And each has expanded the boundaries of what we consider possible in art. Now, AI joins that growing list of tools available to human artists. To say that AI will never make cinema is as foolish as saying photography or CGI could never be art. It's crucial to note that AI doesn't replace human creativity. AI does not wake up in the morning with a desire to express itself; this is strictly the metier of man. AI amplifies our desire to communicate and offers the possibility to more easily bridge the gap between intention and execution, offering new methods for expression and artistic exploration. AI isn't a machine that "makes art" on its own; it requires human input, guidance, and vision to produce something meaningful. The artist, as always, remains at the core of the creative process, using AI to push boundaries and create works that challenge traditional forms. The resistance to AI as a tool for cinema reminds me of the resistance to early filmmaking itself. But history shows us that art is not static. It evolves. If you want to bury your head in the sand and shout "NEVER," go ahead. But I promise you this: AI will make cinema. It will make daring, confounding, and meaningful cinema. It is simply another tool in the ever-expanding toolkit of human creativity. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can embrace the future of art and cinema. The irony of your argument is that it clings to the ontological connection between the subject that has been photographed and the photograph itself, which is precisely why film was dismissed as an art form in the early days--mechanical reproduction. But art had been made for centuries without such an ontological relationship. Hieronymus Bosch did not paint a real hell, but an imaginary one. You do not need mechanical reproduction to make any art, cinema, or otherwise.
The comments are full of people who are completely missing the point of everything you said in the video. They are reaching for the butter and fluff and not the substance and the subtext. They think that lightsabers are what make Star wars great instead of the interpersonal relationships, the obstacles, the challenges, and the growth of the characters.
Much like how music production was democratized by affordable DAWs and home recording tools, I think we're headed for an even broader democratization. Not just in music, but across creative fields - from indie filmmaking to game development and software creation. The barriers to entry are dropping fast, putting professional-grade tools in everyone's hands. I think AI will absolutely produce cinema, just not on it's own. It's a tool, not a replacement for human creativity, even though some may use it as such. I've started developing my dream game thanks to coding help through AI. AI has set my creativity free, and I think the same will be true for people somewhat like me who always wanted to create films, you know?
Right now, as a tool, it is exceptional. The special effects artists will not like a world where only one or two of them are necessary to train the machine; but to the small movie producer, game developer.. it is a revolution of freedom.
"Democratization" is the most dangerous word in the English language. P.J. O'Rourke once wrote that "to label something as public is to instantly brand that thing as inferior" and used as his examples public schools, public parks, and public toilets. The same is true about "democratized" media, because it puts on the same level the works of Leonardo da Vinci and my niece and nephew when they were in preschool having their finger-painting work on my brother's fridge. I for one think gatekeeping has a useful purpose in this world.
Unfortunately, only those with coin, connections, clout, computer code, control, corporate communities, and opulent opportunities will rise to popularity. Quality is *meaningless.* Experience in and with storytelling and dramatic structure is equally non-sequitur. That's just how it is, and it's why Eyegurr, KK, LH, and others like them ("Madame Spider" writers) are successful and reign supreme! 💪😎✌️ 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ "Before I start, I must see my end. Destination known, my mind's journey now begins. Upon my chariot, heart and soul's fate revealed. In time, all points converge; hope's strength resteeled. But to earn final peace at the universe's endless refrain, we must see all in nothingness... before we start again." 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ --Diamond Dragons (series)
For us AI video creators, I would liken us to puppeteers. The puppet is not alive, but we breathe life into the imagery. It is not a lie, it is just an expression of ideas that are often impossible to film in the real world. And I have a deep respect for real world imagery, as I use real cameras and AI.
I have a better argument against AI in art. Art is an expression of humanity that can only be created by humans. AI (Artificial Intelligence) will always be "artificial".
What are your thoughts on how AI will (or won't) change the art of cinema?
I think big studios that are still clinging on to the blockbuster mentality, like Disney and Sony, will absolutely use AI to its fullest and completely ignore the audience. However I also think AI will become very common place in indie films and passionate films by well known directors. I think this will be the case because of fantasy stories that include maybe a hard to render dragon or background and ultimately AI is easier to use than paying a large crew to do it. I don't want AI to be the reason people lose jobs but I also have the perspective that it could be a very good tool for the artist to get the look right, although AI needs some massive improvement before it can make something like interstellar.
It may not produce cinema (or art of any kind) but it can churn out prolefeed and that's all the corporations and the vast bulk of the consumers want.
Until we create a society that raises our expectations to something better than shallow lowest-common-denominator garbage, we deserve no better than what we're given.
Thank you for a great and thought-provoking video. It brought me peace. You have become one of my favorite creators and I perceive your every new video as a treat.
I think that art is-and always will be-driven by the desire or need to create something from within the artist's soul, heart, or mind that demands to be made manifest. It is sometimes said that, during the process of creation, the person enters "the zone" or the present moment. It can also be perceived that the work is being created through the artist, rather than by the artist, although that is also undoubtedly true. Of course, the creator is not in that free-flow state 100% of the time. Writing, for example, often means a stubborn contest with an empty page.
If there is an AI tool that makes people feel this creative spark (be it in the design of the prompt or through some other step in the tool's usage), then there might be a glimpse of true creation in the finished product. But in the vast majority of cases, this spark will not be there, because it is just too easy and mundane to use these tools. At the end of the day, a person feeling the burning desire to partake in a creative process will do all they can to bring something that doesn't yet exist into the world, consciously shaping and refining it.
For example, knowledge of languages will soon become redundant because we will have real-time translation in the speaker's own voice (think The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Only someone with love and awe for languages will learn them for the sake of the knowledge and the feeling itself-because they need to. The impulse to learn will no longer come from external circumstances but from an inner drive.
In my opinion, art will always find a way, regardless of the tools available. However, it will exist side-by-side with non-art products and will likely be in the crushing minority. You said it perfectly: da Vinci's destination wasn't simply the resulting pretty picture. If it were, he might be forgotten now. Perhaps he would have been briefly lauded in his time, like a mainstream piece of music fed to a consuming audience ad absurdum. But it would definitely be no The Dark Side of the Moon.
Fun fact: in a not so distant furure, AI will learn from your video on how to make better cinema.
I think the premise of the video comes from flawed assumptions about generative AI art, especially the bit about 'artistic intent'. I only work with generated images, but more than just a text prompt goes into it. For instance you can use start images that seed the generation in a particular way, and I often draw these myself, or cut and paste some existing images in photoshop etc to get the distribution of colours and form I am looking for in the final image. And even in prompt writing, it's a whole artform. Each model reacts differently to prompts, and you have to work with it for awhile before you develop intuition on how to bend it to your will. It's arcane and almost incantational, and you gradually learn which unexpected words can lead to more desired results. Some models even retain some residual influence from previous generations (much as will an LLM) and I don't understand how that even works...it's bizarre.
For video, the tech is still super rough. There's a lot of limitations on it currently, particularly with shot length. I think the next logical tool to be built is something to keyframe a string of prompts together, or to generate visuals using sound and dialogue as prompts (much in the way most humans can visualise the content of an audiobook). Tools like that are not technically impossible but could prove a bit challenging.
Will AI replace cinema? I doubt it. But I do think it will be used as a tool within it. There's some creators here on UA-cam putting together some really interesting stuff. A lot of it has a very surreal vibe, which kind of comes with the territory with AI (especially if a creator wants to escape the default 'glossy' look of gen AI slop). But I can definitely see it opening up new types of visual storytelling, and allow more people to become filmmakers. But it won't fully replace anything, just complement it. Sort of like how techno didn't obliterate the music industry.
Like the viral joke says, "I want AI and robots and stuff to make my laundry and chores so I can make my art, not the other way around"
Movies mass produced by an AI carry as much substance as a pre-written happy birthday card.
Yet we keep buying them. In fact, greeting cards are stupid; we all just recycle or throw them away anyway after reading them. Sometimes we don't even read them, especially if there's money in them.
@@ebinrock I never bought any greeting card, on principle alone that they are, in fact, stupid. If I'm to give a card, I make it myself.
@thisisfyne For a while, Hallmark had e-cards, often with animation and sound, which makes much more sense and eliminates paper waste. But like so many companies in their "infinite wisdom", they discontinued them.
@@ebinrock lmao, good ol' corporate wisdom
Even that has more merit cause a person design it
3:01 I would argue that the production of the image is, at best, a THIRD of the process.
Whether we're talking about making movies, videogames, and I'm sure other forms of media, I'd say that pre-production and post-production play a huge part in what we see as a final product.
If anything, I think our biggest loss will be the pre-production part; the thinking part in which a human being intends to infuse his artistic expression into the world.
The pragmatist in me knows that it will annihilate low level, introductory jobs (because it did) and with how much companies are shoving this down our throats: they're expecting people to just submit to it. To say that I'm marginally bitter about that would be a mild understatement.
I don't feel it will create anything of value and anyone who says otherwise is appeased by tricks you can use on infants. The motion isn't there. The heart isn't there. The intention, the purpose, the physicality. No matter how much the technology improves: it won't capture the fundamental human failings that make Art, ART.
It's the product of charlatans and grifters.
The problem isn’t that AI will make a film as well as humans do. The problem is that it will make it mediocre or even poorly, but still good enough to sell.
We're heading into dark ages, filled with shitty productions.
Newsflash. We arrived there 20 years ago. Humans are very capable of producing utter shite without computer assistance.
Newsflash. We arrived there 20 years ago. Humans are very capable of producing utter shite without computer assistance.
@@robertdouble559 very true. there's a lot of "slop" being created and passed off as cinema today (marvel for example or any nostalgiabait that disney churns out) and people eat it up and pay for the cinema experience of seeing the same thing over and over and over.
@@robertdouble55920 years? News flash... crap has always existed. As time goes by we cherish the best of the generation and ignore the rest. Watch not thec best movies of the 70's. Watch EVERY movie of the 70's. The long forgotten bulk was crap. I would say this is the best era of television by shear volume of great shows in my 55 years of tv obsession but doesn't mean there isn't even more crap being pumped out as always.
It doesn't matter how much AI bros talk looms or cameras or whatever other past technological revolutions. From early humanity to right now, the truth of art has always been "you get out what you put in". People that don't care about their craft produce things that aren't worth caring about. GIGO.
2:42 My immediate reaction to this idea of "making" photos without *taking* photos was: "where's the fun in that?" And I think that sums it up.
Here's the point: I'm a musician. If I want to, I can create a piano piece from scratch in my DAW, even adding dynamics and subtle pedal events etc., tweaking it until it sounds pretty good. But that piece would still have to be in a fairly simple style, because I can do things on a piano that I could never even begin to program using a piano roll because they are ten times more subtle and complicated than that. (I know AI isn't a MIDI track, but bear with me.) The decades of training and experience I have behind me, playing piano as a child, playing keyboards in bands - all of that is inside me, and the best way, the very BEST way for me to feel good about that is to play the damn piano myself. There's nothing quite like sitting down after a hard day and improvising on my piano, feeling the frustrations and sorrows melt away, and knowing that I paid a significant price of time and effort to be able to do that. I'm not going to get that by making piano parts in MIDI - and neither am I going to get it by using a machine learning tool to try to do the same thing.
My point is that the human experience, not just of producing, but LEARNING to produce art, music, sculpture, film, books... this is a precious thing. It rewards us with self-respect. How are text prompts and AI-generated images, music and movies going to give us that? Once you take away money and the profit motive, you're left with an empty shell. AI is a mirage that uses pretty lights to distract us from genuinely rewarding effort.
Agree!
I think it's in the same vein as autotune and quantising.
Yes, you can generate music that is perfectly in tune and perfectly in time.
But that's boring.
Art needs that human element, those beautiful mistakes and stylistic playing that makes your art unique.
People like Glenn Fricker have repeatedly pointed out that metal music is stagnating because every producer is using the same guitar / bass / drum plugins, then quantising everything: so it all sounds the same. It's the same with pop music - Everyone is using the same gear, or even people to make their music. So it all just become this melange of beige.
And that's how you can always spot an AI image - it's too clean, too perfect.
There's no dirt, no scratches, no funny little quirks.
Nothing that makes it personal.
Best philosophical take on the subject. Incredibly well put and rightly optimistic.
The video leaves me optimistic while the comments are doing the opposite.
That was the goal of the video to be a warm comfort blanket... but it's not reality. It will be a tool that is used or ignored by creative types. "Blank is going to destroy blank " is a choice. I just watched Nosferatu. Not sure how much is CGI, not sure if it was film or digital... but it was disturbing and beautiful adaptation. If Eggers decides on using practical effects or cgi it's just a tool. A skilled artist trying to convey their vision is all that matters in the end. Use it, don't use it.
The comments are full of people who still don't understand what storytelling is or how storytelling works and how it impacts us. As humans, emotionally and intellectually. They only think that the technology will get better, meaning that the visuals will get better, but that the storytelling will not improve. And storytelling, I don't mean necessarily dialogue and plot and all that, I mean the individual movement on the frame, the intention behind the imagery, the placement and composition of the figures in the image. AI won't be able to express that because it doesn't have expression or personal experience. It has statistical data. It will only pull from the most popular statistical data without understanding or knowing why. Everyone in the comments championing A.I. is horrendously unaware of how visual storytelling works. It's like arguing that lightsabers are what make Star wars great instead of the relationships, conflicts, and development of the characters.
After watching this video and thinking back to all your previous videos I cannot help but think, that you are some kind of "Van Gogh of words". Your videos are purely poetic and leave a positive "aura" as well, even if your videos are just a digital version of your body and voice.
Thanks for sharing your ideas and putting it all together here in this world of zeros and ones.
Agreed.
What a great thing to say. Well said, I agree.
Great video, as always!
On the point about the knowledge about an image being real makes the image more meaningful. Especially when talking about the usage of VFX in movies and "being told that it is real" seems particularly two-sided as the current trend in marketing movies nowadays seems to state that movies are shot entirely practical, whether that's actually true or not. For example, Oppenheimer has plenty of VFX shots, with the caveat that those shots are composites of photographed elements, but to market the film as having no digital effects is disingenuous. Barbie was marketed as all practical which is a blatant lie. The same goes for Top Gun Maverick which projects the narrative that all the planes in the film are real when in fact the vast majority was entirely replaced in post-production. A well-told lie will always remain a lie, and that is true of the way we talk about movies as well, even if we personally agree with the sentiment.
As a VFX artist myself I wholeheartedly agree that CGI should only be used when necessary. One, because it makes my job easier. And two, because it allows me more time to focus on the effects that matter to the story. VFX is after all just another storytelling tool. If I add a dragon to a scene the goal of the effect isn't to deceive you into thinking dragons are real, the VFX is there to convey, not to deceive. I do not respect an illustration less than a photograph because of a fundamental belief that the photograph is in essence "more real" than the illustration. I respect an illustration, digital or painted, because I recognise the skill and artistry behind that illustration and the artist's creative intent. I think fundamentally it all comes down to creative intent. And on the topic if AI, that is essentially why I find AI so off-putting is because no creative intent can exist in the creation of AI imagery. If you strip art from its creative intent it ceases to be art.
Thanks for your comment. I was thinking about writing a video about what you said here, the distinction between "conveying" and "deceiving". The idea that the dragon looks "real", or "convincing", even though you are fully aware it is not real. I wasn't aware about the deception you're referring to about films being practical, but I can see the issue. Maybe 'practical' has become a kind of buzz word like 'organic'. Great to hear from a VFX artist - and I'm glad to hear you're sympathetic to my argument. I'm sure it's something you have spent a lot of time thinking about yourself.
@@theartofstorytelling1 Absolutely! There's constant debate in the VFX community about to which degree we can (and probably will) be replaced by AI. VFX artists, like many other departments in entertainment, are overworked and underpaid as is, and now have to live under the threat of being replaced at a moment's notice, by robots no less! It's a similar story to screenwriters and editors, the constant pursuit of churning out "content" rather than "stories" which keeps budgets and time-frames down while workloads keep going up. And I bet if other departments felt the same pressure you would notice a significant quality drop there as well. Could you imagine something like the latest mega-budget blockbuster having terrible audio for something as trivial as the sound designer not being allowed enough time to do a proper job? Replace "sound designer" with "screenwriter", "editor" or "VFX artist" and that's basically where we're at. It's fundamentally about respecting the department that's doing the work. In the early days of VFX, the artists were treated like rockstars because if you didn't follow their advice the effect simply wouldn't work. Now that the technology is so readily available and workers plentiful, artists are easily swept under the rug and treated very much second-grade. And the deception of marketing "all practical"-filmmaking even when the opposite is true is just the late stage of that.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend The Movie Rabbit Hole's "NO CGI" series on UA-cam. A 4-part cringe-fest of producers, directors and actors lying straight to your face while the evidence is right there.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Springs to mind when you're talking about describing her expression.
Really inspired take on this whole thing.
Incredible video. You articulated my feelings on this perfectly. Thank you for making this.
I can't imagine _why_ anyone would want "cinema" produced by a machine. What would be the point, other than someone getting money they don't deserve?
They already listen to music produced by a machine...
@@nuberiffic And that's just as shitty, and just as incomprehensible.
It goes even deeper than that, there's another infinitely more complex stage, beyond what's contained in the actual image. Much like Benjamin put it in the essay you're referring to, Aura isn't just confined to work itself. It's the work of art, in it's context that matters so much - for example the context of the three dimensional, real space where it was intended to reside and so was also specifically created for; the context of it's time as a part of history or of course in it's creators biographical context. AI could never and will never be able to transcend to that plane, be a part of the actual lived reality, that resides in everything true.
For another good introduction into the topic I can wholeheartedly recommend Great Art Explained Video on Da Vinci's Last Supper and of course John Bergers Way's of Seeing!
And thank you for the great video!
You're absolutely right - the depth of complexity in an image is far great ever than the physical complexity I described. This is the thing that I never see referenced in all the discussion and hype about AI. Thanks for the reference - I love that channel!
@@theartofstorytelling1 Oh yes! Also, AI definitely is groundbreaking in so many ways, but I feel like the majority of the public-discussion about it's place in the arts, somehow mistakes content as art, do you know what I mean? Truly happy that channels like yours educate about concepts like these and give a wider audience a perspective that photography or filmmaking etc. as fine arts, are in fact not "dead" or on the brink of replacement!
Of course the suits aren't going to care - unless we wise up and refuse to pay for "art" that's not human-originated...but by definition, there's no art, no music, no film, no theater, no literature, without the crucial human-to-human connection. Hopefully we'll always be able to pick up those subtle cues to discern what's human and what's not, and vote with our wallets accordingly (and care).
Just to add to this, the suits will not only not care, they'll celebrate the day when they don't have to deal with writers' strikes or actors' temperaments.
@@ebinrockand then they shall have to deal with the numbers of people who want art, and not the content they are putting out.
AI can make only a recycled garbage
Human can make real unique art (but also a recycled garbage)
AI itself may never produce cinema/art, but a human can use AI to create cinema/art. And when that happens, we shouldn't be biased against it, just because of this perception of AI being some evil antithesis to art. The same way that a photographer can use a camera to do a lot of the work that a painter would otherwise have to do manually... a storyteller could use AI to do a lot of the work that a filmmaker would do manually... but they're still the one making the artistic choice to accept or reject what the AI spits out, to refine and control it, or roll with happy accidents, etc... the same way a photographer simply makes an artistic choice to accept or reject what the camera is showing, or to refine the exposure and adjust the framing, etc... A modern digital artist using AI to do a lot of the work and simply "directing" that process via prompts is much the same. Just because a photographer doesn't have to paint the mountain, the universe just gave them the mountain for free and they just choose how to capture it... someone using AI to create art may get the imagery for free, but the human involved is still the one making the choice about how to use that imagery, to refine it, edit it, place it into a sequence that creates a film, make choices about sound design... even if AI is producing the audio, it's still a human making a choice to accept or reject the iteration that the AI spat out and then how to incorporate it into a project from there. It's still the human deciding and directing what the piece of art is, and when it's finished and ready to present to people.
That's how AI is getting used right now, and will continue to be for a long time. It's not advanced enough to do everything itself. It's just raw generation that really needs to be prompted specifically, refined, go through many iterations to get what you want, make choices... all being done by a human that is USING the AI. It's not just done by the AI itself. Maybe one day, AI will be advanced enough to do everything independently of any human, and on that day... most people still won't use it that way. Humans want to be involved in the creative process. There'll always be human artists who want to make content, and will do it any way they can. If AI becomes the easiest, most accessible way to create whatever you want... then that'll be great. It'll be a world of endless, infinite creative possibilities for artists to direct the AI however they want. When anybody can make a Hollywood level visual as easily as anybody can write a sentence with a pen... that's when we've truly achieved the motion picture medium reaching the point of being "accessible as the pen". Where you don't need money or resources or power over other people in order to get what you want as an artist, which has always been a barrier for the majority of people on the planet from being able to make a film that isn't just a home-movie or student-film level of production. And as the saying goes, "When an artform becomes as accessible as the pen, that's when the real artists will emerge." AI giving any artist the same power of authorship over their work as an author has over a book, is actually a really awesome evolution for the artform. It's not going to be dominated by Hollywood and rich executives in major studios anymore... it's going to be unbiquitous, and all about how humans use AI to create what they want.
But just like CGI not being considered "real filmmaking", or Roger Ebert thinking that "video games can never be art"... this is just a stubborn status-quo/old-fashioned mindset that is objecting to a new technology or practice that is simply different or somehow "easier" than an older technology or practice, or that somehow doesn't seem as "pure" or "real" or whatever the nitpick about it is. It's art, if it's representing any kind of idea in any tangible form. This is just an evolution of the TOOLS for art. This happens every time. And every time, the new tool eventually proves to NOT have ruined all human creativity, but just expands it and makes it more accessible and makes more stuff possible. AI will be much the same.
Thats like saying a guy who tastes a lot of dishes and chooses which one he likes best is a chef
I can give you the point that a storyteller could use ai to tell his/her stories, but i believe they wont be held in great standards. AI is despised, and most people just wont put the effort to listen to them as long as he doesnt put the effort in telling them. I know ai content, as of right now, requires “some” effort to put out, but its not about effort, its just that the things you end up seeing on screen dont have a story, it doesnt have the thoughtful slow and natural creation of the artist
Interesting argument, but a large part of it boils down to complexity. Why are practical effects and stunts better than CGI when they are possible? I would argue that it is not because of an ethical preference for truth, but because reality is much more complex than what we are currently able to generate with computers, and even at a subconscious level, as a viewer we "know" that a CGI shot is not real. It lacks visual verisimilitude - which is much less of a problem when what is represented is not real (like a Balrog) because our brains have less points of comparison. And that part of the argument might very well falter with time: as computers become more powerful and IA more complex and trained, it might eventually "digest" enough complexity that our brains are fooled by the images it generates.
For the ontological argument (a movie/photograph depicts the truth of a moment): AI "learn"- they take what has been made before and produce novelty from it - and that mean that, fundamentally, what you said also applies to their production. The IA-created dog could not have happened without the existence of all the dogs whose pictures were taken and "fed" to the IA model, the lighting is determined from thousands of real or imaginary lighting conditions whose existence is necessary for the AI to have been trained in the first place. It is awfully similar to the process that let us dream, visualize a novel… or create art.
I would only agree that, until AGI exists (and we're probably far from it), an AI is not an artist, it's a tool. Like a camera, a pencil or a brush. Of course it's a more complex tool, but the camera is a way more complex tool than a brush and oils, and there are still painters out there, and painting is still an art form; photography is another. So while AI's existence might change and transform other media, creating with AI might very well just be its own art form, separate and coexisting with other - more "primitive" - ones…
Well put!
Lately every time I finish a movie that I really enjoyed, I ask myself, "Could AI make that?" And the answer is always no, because whatever quality that made it worth watching was something real and done with intention. It doesn't matter if AI can produce identical images, it would only be superficial and meaningless. Would anyone care about an AI-generated martial arts film? Doubt it.
What AI usually does is take random pictures and add random movements. If that can be cinema, then who needs AI? Just film a bunch of random shots and string them all together, and you've got cinema. Anyone can make it, no special technology is needed.
It's not only about the past, but also about everything else in the universe in the exact same moment of the photo that WASN'T caught on camera. That is a deliberate choice that contributes greatly to build the actual captured image
Then wouldn't it also stand to reason that the same thing applies to AI images?
There's vastly more stuff that wasn't included in the AI image, given that the possible images are essentially infinite.
Wouldn't that make AI generated images more significant?
@@nuberiffic no, because AI can't possibly know the exact state of every particle, atomic or subatomic, in the universe. We can't know as well just to be clear, but that's not the point. AI would have to build a simulation, we are in the "simulation" if that makes sense.
@@mrnalan88 AI is a simulation though.
That's the entire principle behind it.
And you're just further proving my point.
Yes, AI can't know the exact state of everything (neither can a camera)
But your whole point was that it's what the camera doesn't include that makes it special.
AI is not including far more than a real camera does(n't)
@@nuberiffic you aren't getting the point, and no, AI (by AI here I mean transformer based deep learning generative models used today for these things) is not a simulation, otherwise it wouldn't get physics wrong, but it does.
@@mrnalan88 there's no physics in a still image dude.
And other programs that aren't AI also get physics wrong.
The biggest obstacle to AI creating great art, literature, film, or anything creative is its inability to convey subtext. AI can churn out text or images, but great art conveys multiple levels of meaning.
My takeaway from this vid: cinema = content + context. AI will never be able to provide the human context.
My biggest fear is that the superficial "awe" and just sheer mass of all the garbage that will be created is going to overwhelm us into simply not caring. But hopefully that will pass and the appreciation for the depth, nuance and realness of the captured moment will return.
“Step 1 I have to exist” 😂
This title will age like milk 💀
To make an apple pie, first you must create the universe
Smash cut to the 2028 oscars. Ai wins best picture. The movie sucks and we're all homeless.
Excellent essay. As the child of musicians, a lifelong visual artist, and husband of a fine artist, I can attest to the analog relevance of creativity which imbues artifacts with the metadata you refer to. As a McLuhan fanboy, I am always looking for "the message" in new technology. In the case of AI, the message in the medium is that the means to an end is not as important as the ends, which makes sense in the present-day social media environment where content is infinitely abundant, infinitely accessible, and infinitely changeable. Process means nothing. An infinite stream of content has become the currency of relevance. (That's why teenagers want to grow up to be UA-camrs). AI simply accelerates access to the ends.
I think that the most telling thing about AI is that people want to use it for concept art, when it should be the other way around. You get a human to make the concept art and feed that into the machine. For that you'll get a work as good as a human with zero creativity.
other way around, concept art is a blue print for your final, concept artists will do 30 different concepts and whittle them down to 5, present to their client or boss and then revise. It's the part you want to spend the least time doing because most of it is gonna get scrapped anyways but it has to be a good representation of what you want your final to look like. As you get closer to finalizing the concept the more refined the idea will get and the less you can rely on AI. Then when you commit to making the final you can't use AI because AI can't be copyrighted. If you use AI in your client facing product you're product can't be legally protected. You can legally take that AI coca cola ad right now because copyright does not cover AI generated imagery.
This is something that can't be condensed into a short commentary. The main point of your video - and of this on going discussion - is articulated at the 9:00 mark "(...) the knowledge of the stunt being real makes the image much more meaningful and exciting." This is all it comes down to.
Top athletes are so admired around the world not because of the results they achieve, but because they stand as a testament to what dedication and determination to pushing the human body can do. People like Messi, Ronaldo or Jordan have conquered their place in history because of how they've dedicated themselves into mastering a specific set of skills - and that's what we, as spectators, are reacting to when they get the ball. If you put someone who can't kick a ball to save their lives in an exoskeleton that enables them to instantly play, at the very least, just as well as Messi or Ronaldo, there's nothing to cheer for; there's no excitement, there's no achievement and there is no value because they are not doing anything.
Even if you put a professional player in an exoskeleton, there's nothing there because you know the results are not down to their ability.
Same exact thing applies to AI in artistic expression.
A quick story: some months ago, a phenomenal thumbnail of a street photograph appeared on my Instagram Explore page. I clicked on it and it was a masterful shot; everything was just where it should be - perfect composition, framing, timing, light, color, texture and exposure. It would make Gruyaert, Webb, Herzog or Hass green with envy. It was that good. I went to the users profile and, wow, even more stellar photographs. "This guy is an outstanding photographer!", I thought. I kept scrolling down and his gallery suddenly changes to B&W and the quality of the images drops astronomically; it was what you'd expect from someone who had barely used a camera in their life. I thought maybe those B&W photos were his earlier, much older work, but there was nothing stating otherwise and the upload dates were all recent. I went back to the masterful color work and looked at the hashtags - AI generated.
This is not about an AI engine's ability to output a photorealistic image with all the characteristics of a masterful photograph, it's about the illusion of competence this person is riding.
His ability to describe in a prompt what an outstanding street photograph should look like and subsequently curate the results has NOTHING to do with his ability to ACTUALLY take one.
When I first began to fall in love with photography, I already drooled all over the work of McCurry, Bresson, Depardon, Riboud, etc; I knew a great photo when I saw one, but could I capture something that was even remotely close to that? Not even in my dreams.
They are attempting to convince others they have the sensibility, skill and craft to produce something that they can't produce.
It's about a completely incompetent person trying to be seen as a master of a given craft.
Same logic applies to other forms of expression, including, or course, filmmaking.
Filmmaking is the result of a collective expression, it's the result of a bunch of choices made by a team under specific conditions. That's what the craft of filmmaking is.
Anyone who considers outputting a film is denouncing that they have no interest in the craft of filmmaking, and therefore should find something else to do.
GenAI is like having a belly and giving yourself a six pack in Photoshop - you're still out of shape.
On legal note, AI generated media has to be uncopyrightable. Only the expression of an idea can be copyrighted, not the idea itself. AI systems are the ones responsible for the choices to materialize whatever is asked of them; people curate the results, but the choices that led to those results are not their own. You are no more the "creator" as you are the "creator" of the family painting you commissioned from a given artist, even if you chose the setting and pose each person.
The artist is the creator of the painting, not you.
So there is nothing to copyright, and without copyright, no one can make money out of this.
As a concluding note, I'll add that your observation on CGI made it sound like CGI elements are a product of simply pressing a key; they are the result of a vast team of digital artisans who craft those elements by hand, but using pixels instead of clay, stone or wood.
Everything AI does people have been able to do for quite some time. It solves the grand total of zero problems.
AI makes me sad because it is never a real representation of an actual thing, an actual place or object that exists in reality.
the real thing will always be appreciated more by those who know that it is just that. like with tom cruise and his stunts.
AI is a fun tool to mess around with imo but should never replace actual photography or filmmaking.
The day I can't pick up a camera (if they stop existing and the old ones are too old to fix), either a stills, video, hybrid, or dedicated cinema camera...you might as well get my grave ready.
Bond movies were always better before green screen and CGI. Even though we can suspend reality for the plot, the adult human brain has several inbuilt and experience subroutines when processing an image before declaring it "real"
If the simulation hypotheses is real - it kind of already is …
Thank you~you just said everything that's been making me uneasy about AI film but didn't know why
And people still say AI won't take any jobs, now it's taking over an entire industry
*edit: great essay on the beauty of art and the deeper layers
The current tools (text prompting) with the current technology won’t create cinema. But we have no idea what might come. No one had any idea that this technology was on the horizon just a few years ago; it’s very foolish to dismiss it now. I hope the tools will enable more people to tell more stories better and more easily, like digital technology did before them.
But you’re absolutely right that it’s very hard to imagine anyone creating a film like Barry Lyndon with AI, even with technology that allows for hands-on performance manipulation and shot composition. I still think it’s a mistake to not allow for the possibility that it could within the next decade.
And if it does-if anyone with vision could create a film equal to Kubrick for effectively free from his computer-am I really meant to believe that’s bad for art? I can’t imagine anything that would unleash “art” more, to be honest.
Well put!
Full disclosure I’m making this comment based on the title of your video alone. I remember in the late 1990s. I had to go to a video editor to pick up a video that my work had produced and I had to wait around that I was talking to the guy for a while. The conversation we were having was talking about digital media and digital projection. And his opinion at the time was digital will never replace film because you can’t get the Fidelity would always look pixelated, and you cannot get as clean of an image as you can with traditional film. Fast-forward to today to theaters, even actually use film anymore all the theaters I’ve been to showcase that they have digital projection and my local theater. You can actually see those server rooms where the films are stored. So when you look at today’s movies and I get classic cinema is lost even in human produce movies today, but I don’t know that we can’t say that AI won’t be able to replicate this. Hence, why the most recent strike there was a lot of language in their terms about the use of AI.
Mr. Baby is a great name.
I enjoyed this, thank you. I think just by sheer volume that can be produced by machine, even if 99.99% of it is AI slop, there will still be 0.01% of it that is ‘Cinema’ by happenstance. And with enough scale, that 0.01% can still be more output than humans can produce in a lifetime.
Once it creates an instance of cinema by happenstance (or brute force, if you will), feedback is going to give it a greater chance of creating more going forward.
While AI cannot create the metadata that the visual is real rather than generated, there can also be a different kind of wonder in the metadata of something that happens extremely rarely, or is created by complexity beyond our imagination (such that it resembles magic). So, there could be other new wonders we may encounter that gets incorporated into the definition of ‘cinema’.
Infinite monkeys and infinite typewriters may produce accidental masterpieces, but hey, random numbers doing weird things won me $1,085 at a casino on a $1 bet once (bet my lucky number on a roulette wheel, took $6 of the take off because the max bet was $30, let it ride, and it hit again), doesn't make me a "great gambler" any more than your example makes generative AI a great artist.
Wow! Great point!
Meh. I think you are completely right that AI would never be able to produce a Mona Lisa, or indeed a Citizen Kane. But I am pretty sure it would be able to produce something like the "Red One" even now. That film feels like it was made by AI anyway...
Art is literally NOT about truth. It is about reality. Those are different things, but truth and art (artifice) are almost antonyms.
Great demonstrations!
No amount of technology can overcome regression to the mean. AI can only re-mix what already exists.
Ask an AI to show a clock with hands at 12:03. The AI will fail, because there are very few images online of clocks at that time. AI will usually show you 10:10, or some other aesthetically pleasing time.
After all this being said, all I have to say is, put it to the test. Slip in some AI clips with clips created by humans and have people unknowingly watch them and see how they react.
If, on their own without prompting, tell us nothing seemed out of the ordinary, then AI is part of cinema.
The only argument this video has is the consumer having knowledge of HOW the clip was made. And that's not a benchmark worthy of testing cinema.
The same observation applies to LLMs. I am a musician (and mathematician) by training, and I know that language does not capture images or music. The LLMs treat language as the equivalent of scratches on paper. It then applies extreme formalism (in the mathematical sense). Even if this approach worked (and I submit that it does not), the source material is unedited web scrapings, so we have the GIGO effect multiplied by the power of the computer. I don't know why people were surprised that ChatGPT was racist and sexist - the source material is racist and sexist. Theodore Sturgeon said that 95% of everything is crap, so it is no surprise that the results of LLMs are mediocre at best and usually rubbish.
It is our brains that give meaning. I had co-workers who were fooled by ELIZA in the 1970s because *they* attributed a mind to the creation. When I listen to a computer-generated musical performance (trying to emulate real instruments and real players), it inevitably feels false. Images, and particularly moving images, are even more complex.
I hope that this video is more widely seen.
AI can easily make hollywood cinema because it's formulaic and mass produced.
But AI can never make TRUE Cinema.
very convincing arguments. I think I largely agree
This is a well constructed argument although based on an incorrect assumption. As an AI film maker I am not trying to recreate was has come before. It is a new medium with entirely new possibilities. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
AI looks like generic stockfootage that knows only slow motion.
Thanks for being an embodied human being and making this 💪🏻
Art is the act of creation, not the completion or viewing or interpretation. The moment of the brushstroke, the writing, the performing is the art, not the final outcome. We enjoy the final piece because of this intention. So if it was generated by AI and there was no artist to begin with, it cannot be considered art.
That it, until AI is so prevalent that artistry - the craft itself of thinking and making - goes extinct, and the nobodies writing the prompts that produce images all circlej3rk themselves into claiming they *are* artists doing art. I mean, it's already happening. And it's embarrassing.
"The medium IS the message."
What I also loved about your hand photo was the time of day, ambient light, reflectivity.
You could take that same photo again tomorrow and get a different result!
I made a comment in which I accidentally accused you of claiming something you didn't claim, and then wrote a reply to that comment apologizing, but both disappeared. I'm guessing it's because of UA-cam's inconsistent auto-moderation, but the reply never even appeared before disappearing, so I'm writing this to say I did realize I messed up.. cause I have NO IDEA if the 2nd comment even sent. This UI doesn't give feedback on mobile devices when writing replies, surprisingly often.. they just don't appear sometimes..
Wow I am so happy this was in my recommended!!
FWIW, I appreciate a photographic print more than other negative reproductions; although, I cannot remember if I appreciate a Kodachrome projection more than a print. The real body, and especially the eye, is of course preferable, although I'm not sure if knowledge helps, or if it is the reason.
I love your comments at the end. I've no doubt that one day we will have an actual AGI, but what we have now is not capable of autonomous creativity. Until that changes (and opinions vary on how long that will be, but I think decades at a bare minimum), all genuine art will involve human beings. It's so important to emphasise that this is nothing to do with the output of the process. The "product" is NOT the art. Art is a human activity, and I don't give a crap about "art" made purely (or mostly) by a machine, because that's an EMPTY CONCEPT - it's literally meaningless (even if it's technically excellent in some cases). I think machine learning has many good uses - notably in science and medicine, technology design etc. But using it as a substitute for art misses the point completely. The way things are going we're going to end up giving up our humanity by default, and there won't even be any robot uprising to blame.
AI may not be capable of producing "cinema", but it will make plenty of "content"
Some would say that cinema is a well told lie.
It won't be used for cinema; it'll be a useful tool for artists (and non-artists) to storyboard visual ideas quickly. That's all it'll ever be.
If the studios can find a way to make decent movies for cheaper with as less human beings involved as possible, they will 100% make movies with it.
Corporations hate dealing with humans as much as they love making money.
Hell, they'll even boast about being the first to do it, even if it's objectively bad.
The novelty alone could be enough to draw people in for a few years.
@@thisisfynehumans hate other humans and will place restrictions on them .. AI can help overcome that
Awesome video! In this video you emphasize the visual aspect that AI could never replicate. I'm curious on how you think that applies to the storytelling aspect. Do the same principles apply? Is the conclusion, that AI will never replace actual stories written by humans? Or is there more nuance here?
Cinema is, by its very nature, a collaborative artform. Even the most "auterurish" of auteurs can never fill all the roles necessary to make a film. Even the simplest one. Every actor delivers a performance that is uniquely his/her own, and even these are then re-interpreted by the editor. Add the contributions of art directors, sound designers, composers, cinematographers, costume designers, etc., and it's clear that even the most advanced AI will never be able to compete with the collaborative effort that is filmmaking....because a film is never the creation of a single point-of-view. Especially a computer's.
Be careful saying "never."
People who refer to movies as "cinema" will probably always find issues with AI generated content, but your average person will most likely not care.
Exactly!
This. I've already seen countless people claim that "it doesn't matter if music is made by AI and not even labeled as such, because who cares, as long as it's good"
Seems like the average joe couldn't care less about the most basic ethical thing in artistic endeavors.
If that were true, we'd already be knee deep in a generation perfectly satisfied to watch only Elsagate videos and corporations would be producing them in droves.
Also, Rupert Sanders would be a celebrated filmmaker.
Are you using an AI Jimmy Fallon filter
Great Stuff... I am not scared of it. Because most humans do love crafting. And filmmaking is some kind of craft too. AI... well it is for those who do not want to put any effort in their work. And it just shows.
This is an argument about human authenticity rather than objective capability, though. Humans operating AI systems will quite easily be producing feature-length cinematic pieces within about 2-4 years from now. The nuances of human expression and tone (as per the Barry Lyndon example) will be reproduced. You'll only know the difference if you're told about it. Think of the same qualitative leap as in the Will Smith spaghetti example applied to everything. When actors, directors, writers etc. cotton on to what's about to happen (and everyone stops chortling about hands and starts getting real), things will be interesting. Huge ructions ahead in every creative industry.
I'm not sure I agree.
Good points were made. Certainly seeing Tom Cruise hanging on the side of an airplane is more terrifying knowing that it is real. Not only am I in the shoes of the character, but I also involuntarily am forced to empathize with the actor as well. On the other hand, I could imagine seeing an AI recreation of that scene and not being able to tell the difference.
An even better counterpoint might be anime. None of these characters can be real and yet the stories sometimes are so well crafted that I truly feel something. Yes, it was a human writer and human voice actors who made it happen, but will I know when AI does it?
I truly hope AI never completely replaces the creative talent of humans. I just don't see the thesis of this video as being sufficient to believe it will never happen.
Many individuals will use it, never the less.
This is an oversimplification.
AI will probably end up being just like CGI.
It's not as good as recording a video of something which actually exists, but if you do it right, you won't know anything isn't real.
Typically, only a small part of the whole product is made using either tech, because getting things done another way might not be possible or practical.
I think at the bottom of it all, people want to experience connection with other people. And in AI generated content, this is completely missing.
If for no other reason than to piss off annoying UA-cam video essayists, I hope AI does produce cinema one day. "Artist" is a job, just like any other. I don't remember any outrage when self-driving cars were threatening to put truck drivers out of business, so I see no need to feel outrage that creative fields are being threatened right now.
I WANT to like this video. I WANT to agree with all of this. But all the (good) arguments inevitably come across as "WAHH WAHHH ARTISTS LOSE JOBS, AI BAD!" Which is incredibly reductive, but we all know that it's going to be the counterargument by the industry. What, really, is our argument beyond, "A rose is a rose, it cannot be duplicated?"
Interesting perspective!
AI is exactly same as 3D . Only Cool to use it sometimes.
Another Great video! I fully agree with you.
I view using AI like using a calculator. It's a tool to help the user make things easier for them. It still takes someone knowing what they're doing to utilize the tool correctly.
No.
Using machine learning to "create art" is nothing like using a calculator. Calculator delivers an objective result based on the inputs it is given.
People using machine learning "black boxes" are trying to simulate subjective human experience by copying thousands of existing representations of subjective human experiences into said black boxes and ordering them to produce a good enough replica of a subjective human experience.
If it were a calculator it would only accept as inputs results someone already calculated, producing only approximate results you'd always have to assume are wrong.
Square root of 2 would come out as 1.5.
Maybe 1.3.
Maybe watermelon.
Give it a few years
The thing about stories is not that they are told as a manual for car repair.
Stories are moments that evokes emotion in us since they talk both within the lines and between them.
AI can copy, analyze against already written stories. In many ways I think AI is a tool. It has its uses.
But a tool, like a camera, can only perform its designated task.
A camera doesn't understand how movement, a close up or a pan is used to evoke emotion.
It just shoots whenever we tell it to, and stop when we tell it to.
Until AI understand emotion. AI cannot tell stories.
Patreon!
Sad but ai will be able to do everything
This video suggests that an AI with enough knowledge of the human experience and existing films will be unable to produce something "meaningful". Of course, AI-generated feature films will never DIRECTLY reflect the "swirling chaos" of moments in our reality (then again, neither do many animated/experimental films). However, that does not mean that such pictures will never become successful, engaging, or even tear-jerking - cinema by any definition.
This video suggests that an AI with enough knowledge of the human experience and existing films will be unable to produce something "meaningful". Of course, AI-generated feature films will never DIRECTLY reflect the "swirling chaos" of moments in our reality (then again, neither do many animated/experimental films). However, that does not mean that such pictures will never become successful, engaging, or even tear-jerking - an advertisement for detergent, by any definition.
The examples you've provided are still life and realism which is on the opposite spectrum of cinema. Cinema seeks to control the swirling chaos and moves closer to the realm of animation. If AI cinema isn’t possible, then animation has never been cinema. The AI tools are already being refined and will attain granularity that is impossible for contemporary filmmakers. The future of cinema is “live-action animation” using AI tools. Every iota of an AI film will have the fingerprints of the artist. The swirling chaos is a distraction good cinema painstakingly seeks to remove so it may highlight one very small thing. Animation resonates more deeply with the human soul than any live-action film. This is precisely because live-action often becomes overwhelmed by swirling chaos-noise. Animation boosts signal. Every element of animation is placed there with human intention. AI cinema will enable the creator to imprint every last ounce of their creativity in the film and will bear the mark of intentional humanity instead of accidental captured chaos that is detached from the cinematic objective. However, what you’re saying is true if you desire the sensation of watching film with all the gears and mechanisms exposed. But then you’re seeking a particular experience, not cinema writ large.
good post
Of course it will. The thing currently lacking is complex directability. Fast forward a few years to where the AI is capable of updating and refining images through ongoing user input and itll be able to craft anything you can with a camera, people, props, etc whilst fully rendering the artistic intent of the person instructing it. To go down the line of thought that the AI wont do it all by itself with very minimal input is like saying cameras will never produce art if you just sit them on a wall and dont bother to focus or frame them.
Did Apple produce an *ad* shot on iPhone, or did they produce a ad-shot-on-iphone?
Was Scorceses' The Irishman cinema, when it was made for Netflix?
I expect AI, and especially human created story boarding that is used to generate AI rendered frames will increasing be dominate. Is this "cinema". Is the CGI Marvel slop "cinema"?
The existence of CG fests like Transformers and Avatar show that fakery can be successful. It isn't art, but it does sell.
The term art implies artificiality. By your standard going outside and taking a picture of a random tree is a higher work of art than to actually spend hours sculpting, painting, lighting and rendering a digital tree.
Playing devil's advocate here, society as a whole doesn't appreciate the nuance of how or why art is created. All most people care about is whether the final image is "pretty" or that the movie is entertaining. The notion of the starving artist is alive and well, and it's only going to grow as AI art takes center stage because AI art is cheaper to produce and brings in what the companies behind it want, money.
Art is only possible because people are willing to create it, but art rarely goes beyond the creator to have a bigger impact or be seen by those who might actually appreciate or care about the deeper meaning. Saying "AI will NEVER Produce Cinema" is playing semantics. Sure, AI might not be able to produce anything you or I would see as true art that touches souls, but it'll get to the point where it produces something good enough to be consumed en masse by the general public, and that's all most people and companies care about.
Is AI having a hard time convincing us because it’s almost like using a phone camera to take a picture of a picture on a screen? Instead of a direct transfer?
Like AI has to generate “art” to a medium that our eyes can view so our brain can interpret?
I feel like Mr. Elon Musk will take care of this problem by having a port we plug into our brain, that way AI can just generate a movie for us directly into the brain bypassing all the intermediate stuff lol.
Full disclosure: I’m still waking up and drinking my coffee…
This video is remarkably unwise and ahistorical. When the first images from film began to project on screens across the world, many detractors claimed it would never-never-rise to be a legitimate art form. Painters argued that the mechanical nature of film disqualified it from being art, claiming all the camera did was reproduce reality, and because it was a mechanical reproduction of reality, it could never be considered an artistic medium.
These arguments are steeped in fear, much like the dismissals of other innovations throughout history. I remember in art school, when we would look at works where students tried to disqualify something as art by saying, "But I could do that with my eyes closed," or "My kid sister could paint that." Our teacher would often respond, "But why didn't you, or why didn't your little sister paint it?"
That simple question cuts through the argument. There are many reasons we assign value to a work of art, and those reasons are often about more than just technical execution. The artist's intention, the cultural context, and the meaning behind the piece all play crucial roles in defining what is considered art. In the same way, dismissing AI as a potential tool for cinema without considering its creative possibilities is shortsighted.
The idea that AI can't or won't produce meaningful cinema is beyond silly. As with any new medium, the way we engage with and digest images will change. Future generations, born into a world with AI, will have a completely different value system. A child born three years ago won't remember a world without AI, and their approach to art and storytelling will reflect that.
AI is not the first tool to challenge established norms in the world of image-making. From the quill to the pencil, oil paints to the camera, optical visual FX to CGI (computer-generated imagery)-each technological leap has faced resistance. And each has expanded the boundaries of what we consider possible in art. Now, AI joins that growing list of tools available to human artists. To say that AI will never make cinema is as foolish as saying photography or CGI could never be art.
It's crucial to note that AI doesn't replace human creativity. AI does not wake up in the morning with a desire to express itself; this is strictly the metier of man. AI amplifies our desire to communicate and offers the possibility to more easily bridge the gap between intention and execution, offering new methods for expression and artistic exploration. AI isn't a machine that "makes art" on its own; it requires human input, guidance, and vision to produce something meaningful. The artist, as always, remains at the core of the creative process, using AI to push boundaries and create works that challenge traditional forms.
The resistance to AI as a tool for cinema reminds me of the resistance to early filmmaking itself. But history shows us that art is not static. It evolves. If you want to bury your head in the sand and shout "NEVER," go ahead. But I promise you this: AI will make cinema. It will make daring, confounding, and meaningful cinema. It is simply another tool in the ever-expanding toolkit of human creativity. The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can embrace the future of art and cinema.
The irony of your argument is that it clings to the ontological connection between the subject that has been photographed and the photograph itself, which is precisely why film was dismissed as an art form in the early days--mechanical reproduction. But art had been made for centuries without such an ontological relationship. Hieronymus Bosch did not paint a real hell, but an imaginary one. You do not need mechanical reproduction to make any art, cinema, or otherwise.
It'll get alot closer than anything hollywood has shit out the past 10 years.
Cope and denial.
The comments are full of people who are completely missing the point of everything you said in the video. They are reaching for the butter and fluff and not the substance and the subtext. They think that lightsabers are what make Star wars great instead of the interpersonal relationships, the obstacles, the challenges, and the growth of the characters.
Much like how music production was democratized by affordable DAWs and home recording tools, I think we're headed for an even broader democratization. Not just in music, but across creative fields - from indie filmmaking to game development and software creation. The barriers to entry are dropping fast, putting professional-grade tools in everyone's hands. I think AI will absolutely produce cinema, just not on it's own. It's a tool, not a replacement for human creativity, even though some may use it as such. I've started developing my dream game thanks to coding help through AI. AI has set my creativity free, and I think the same will be true for people somewhat like me who always wanted to create films, you know?
Right now, as a tool, it is exceptional. The special effects artists will not like a world where only one or two of them are necessary to train the machine; but to the small movie producer, game developer.. it is a revolution of freedom.
"Democratization" is the most dangerous word in the English language.
P.J. O'Rourke once wrote that "to label something as public is to instantly brand that thing as inferior" and used as his examples public schools, public parks, and public toilets.
The same is true about "democratized" media, because it puts on the same level the works of Leonardo da Vinci and my niece and nephew when they were in preschool having their finger-painting work on my brother's fridge.
I for one think gatekeeping has a useful purpose in this world.
Unfortunately, only those with coin, connections, clout, computer code, control, corporate communities, and opulent opportunities will rise to popularity. Quality is *meaningless.* Experience in and with storytelling and dramatic structure is equally non-sequitur. That's just how it is, and it's why Eyegurr, KK, LH, and others like them ("Madame Spider" writers) are successful and reign supreme! 💪😎✌️
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
"Before I start, I must see my end. Destination known, my mind's journey now begins. Upon my chariot, heart and soul's fate revealed. In time, all points converge; hope's strength resteeled. But to earn final peace at the universe's endless refrain, we must see all in nothingness... before we start again."
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
--Diamond Dragons (series)
For us AI video creators, I would liken us to puppeteers. The puppet is not alive, but we breathe life into the imagery. It is not a lie, it is just an expression of ideas that are often impossible to film in the real world. And I have a deep respect for real world imagery, as I use real cameras and AI.
I have a better argument against AI in art. Art is an expression of humanity that can only be created by humans. AI (Artificial Intelligence) will always be "artificial".