[HN Gopher] Sora: Creating video from text
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Sora: Creating video from text
        
       Author : davidbarker
       Score  : 3475 points
       Date   : 2024-02-15 18:14 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (openai.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (openai.com)
        
       | cod1r wrote:
       | OpenAI is definitely cooking
        
       | htrp wrote:
       | > All videos on this page were generated directly by Sora without
       | modification.
       | 
       | I hope there is at least some cherrypicking here. This also seems
       | like some shots fired at some of the other gen video startups
        
         | palmfacehn wrote:
         | The example cat had two left forelegs.
        
       | senthilnayagam wrote:
       | samples look amazing , Looking forward for access, and hope they
       | price it competitively
        
         | treesciencebot wrote:
         | If we go from DALL-E 3, it won't be nowhere near competitive
         | while they have the superior ground. Generating a high quality
         | 1024x1024 image with costs around ~$0.002, but $0.08 on DALL-E
         | 3 (20x more expensive per-image). For videos with very high
         | computational needs (since each frame needs to be temporally
         | consistent, you need huge GPUs to serve this) I'm expecting
         | this to be so much more expensive than its competitors (Pika or
         | SVD1.1)
        
       | zemo wrote:
       | > Prompt: Historical footage of California during the gold rush.
       | 
       | this is the opposite of history
        
         | minimaxir wrote:
         | It's a test prompt to demo the model, not a clickbait social
         | media post.
        
           | zemo wrote:
           | yeah I think a tech company showing how their tech can be
           | used to cause damage to a humanities field as one of their
           | leading product demos is bad
        
           | diputsmonro wrote:
           | Yes, but the point is that in a few years, there won't be a
           | difference. Those clickbait accounts already exist for AI
           | generated images. How many impressionable or young people
           | have been fooled into believing history that never happened?
           | 
           | More importantly, how can these accounts subtly direct the
           | generations to instill modern ideology or politics into
           | "historical" images, giving them historical credibility?
           | Think of all the subtly white supremacist "retvrn" accounts,
           | for example, falsely recontextualizing inventions and
           | accomplishments to support their ideology.
           | 
           | We all need to be thinking much more creatively and cynically
           | about how these tools will be abused. The technology will get
           | better. The people who want to abuse it will get smarter. And
           | your capability to distinguish fake information is likely
           | much worse than you believe - to say nothing of younger
           | people who have less context and experience to form a mental
           | "immune system".
        
             | minimaxir wrote:
             | Granted, the blog post is about opening the model up for
             | red-teaming, so highlighting potential vectors for abuse is
             | actually the desired intent.
        
             | psychoslave wrote:
             | >How many impressionable or young people have been fooled
             | into believing history that never happened?
             | 
             | I would say, all of them. Since the dawn of history.
             | Actually, far before, as treachery certainly precedes
             | speech itself by a few million years in the struggle to
             | survive game.
             | 
             | Just to take a contemporary western (mostly?) thing: how
             | did it went last time you looked straight into the eyes of
             | kids to reveal them Santa Clauss is a lie and yes almost
             | all adults in their society are into that evil conspiracy?
             | And what about the adult around you deeply attached to
             | their national myths, not even mentioning all the folklore
             | around their afterlife beliefs?
             | 
             | But don't worry, everything is going to go well, I promise
             | and you know you can trust me. :)
        
         | pimlottc wrote:
         | Yeah, my heart sank when I saw that.
         | 
         | Social media is really good at separating content from context,
         | things like this will distort people's understanding of
         | history.
        
         | zen928 wrote:
         | only if you consider "historical footage" to exclusively mean
         | the "[original] historical footage [stored in archiving]"
         | versus e.g. "historical[ly accurate] footage"
         | 
         | if "historical" is going to be used subjectively with no
         | further qualifying statements then the meaning of "history"
         | will be subjucated to the context it's being presented in, I
         | don't see it's use here as contradictory
        
           | zemo wrote:
           | I think most people consider "history" to mean "things that
           | have actually happened" and not "the aesthetic of the past"
           | as you seem to be suggesting.
        
       | hownowbrowncow wrote:
       | Amazing.
       | 
       | One wonders how you might gain a representation of physics
       | learned in the model. Perhaps multimodal inputs with rendered
       | objects; physics simulations?
        
         | ilaksh wrote:
         | Just lots of videos from Youtube probably.
        
       | zmk5 wrote:
       | These samples look pretty amazing. I'm curious the compute
       | required to train and even deploy something like this. How would
       | it scale to making something like a CGI Pixar movie?
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | Pretty sure you plus tier not be using this free, too much
       | processing power needed
        
         | m3kw9 wrote:
         | I love the downvote, could be an OpenAI employee in the know.
        
       | anon291 wrote:
       | Wow!
        
       | dist-epoch wrote:
       | Totally a coincidence that it's announced immediately after the
       | new Gemini reveal.
        
         | stronglikedan wrote:
         | Timing is everything. Smart move
        
       | nuz wrote:
       | AGI at the quality of sora or dalle but for intelligence is gonna
       | be quite the thing to witness
        
       | treesciencebot wrote:
       | This is leaps and bounds beyond anything out there, including
       | both public models like SVD 1.1 and Pika Labs' / Runway's models.
       | Incredible.
        
         | Zelphyr wrote:
         | Agreed. It's amazing how much of a head start OpenAI appears to
         | have over everyone else. Even Microsoft who has access to
         | everything OpenAI is doing. Only Microsoft could be given the
         | keys to the kingdom and still not figure out how to open any
         | doors with them.
        
           | SeanAnderson wrote:
           | Eh. MSFT owns 49% of OpenAI. Doesn't really seem like they
           | need to do much except support them.
        
             | Zelphyr wrote:
             | Except they keep trying to shove AI into everything they
             | own. CoPilot Studio is an example of how laughably bad at
             | it they are. I honestly don't understand why they don't
             | contract out to OpenAI to help them do some of these
             | integrations.
        
               | SeanAnderson wrote:
               | Every company is trying to shove AI into everything they
               | own. It's what investors currently demand.
               | 
               | OpenAI is likely limited by how fast they are able to
               | scale their hiring. They had 778 FTEs when all the board
               | drama occurred, up 100% YoY. Microsoft has 221,000. It
               | seems difficult to delegate enough headcount to all the
               | exploratory projects of MSFT and it's hard to scale
               | headcount quicker while preserving some semblance of
               | culture.
        
             | frabcus wrote:
             | They don't own 49% of OpenAI. They have capped rights to
             | 49% of OpenAI's profits.
        
               | SeanAnderson wrote:
               | Apparently all the rumors weren't true then, my mistake.
               | 
               | I don't think what you're saying is correct though,
               | either. All the early news outlets reported 49%
               | ownership:
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI#:~:text=Rumors%20of%
               | 20t...
               | 
               | https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/23/23567448/microsoft-
               | openai...
               | 
               | https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-antitrust-regulator-
               | cons...
               | 
               | https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/23/microsoft-invests-
               | billions...
               | 
               | The only official statement from Micorosft is "While
               | details of our agreement remain confidential, it is
               | important to note that Microsoft does not own any portion
               | of OpenAI and is simply entitled to share of profit
               | distributions," said company spokesman Frank Shaw.
               | 
               | No numbers, though.
               | 
               | Do you have a better source for numbers?
        
           | Voloskaya wrote:
           | Microsoft doesn't have access to OpenAI's research, this was
           | part of the deal. They only have access to the weights and
           | inference code of production models and even then who has
           | access to that inside MS is extremely gated and only a few
           | employees have access to this based on absolute need to
           | actually run the service.
           | 
           | AI researcher at MSFT barely have more insights about OpenAI
           | than you do reading HN.
        
             | Zelphyr wrote:
             | I didn't realize that. Thank you for the clarification.
        
             | toneyG wrote:
             | This is not true. Microsoft have a perpetual license to all
             | of OpenAI's IP. If they really wanted to they could get
             | their hands on it.
        
               | 93po wrote:
               | Yeah but what's in the license? It's not public so we
               | have no way of knowing
        
             | Jensson wrote:
             | Microsoft said that they could continue OpenAI's research
             | with no slowdown if OpenAI cut them off by hiring all
             | OpenAI's people, so from that statement it sounds like they
             | have access.
        
             | costcofries wrote:
             | I promise you this isn't true.
        
             | vitorgrs wrote:
             | No. They have early access. Example: MSFT was using Dall-e
             | Exp (early 3 version) in PUBLIC, since February of 2023.
             | 
             | In the same month, they were also using GPT4 in public -
             | before OpenAI.
             | 
             | And they had access to GPT4 in 2022 (which was when they
             | decided to create Bing Chat, now called Copilot).
             | 
             | All the current GPT4 models at MSFT are also finetuned
             | versions (literally Creative and Precise mode runs
             | different finetuned versions of GPT4). It runs finetuned
             | versions since launch even...
        
           | pcbro141 wrote:
           | Many people say the same about Google/DeepMind.
        
         | davidbarker wrote:
         | I'm almost speechless. I've been keeping an eye on the text-to-
         | video models, and if these example videos are truly indicative
         | of the model, this is an order of magnitude better than
         | anything currently available.
         | 
         | In particular, looking at the video titled "Borneo wildlife on
         | the Kinabatangan River" (number 7 in the third group), the
         | accurate parallax of the tree stood out to me. I'm so curious
         | to learn how this is working.
         | 
         | [Direct link to the video:
         | https://player.vimeo.com/video/913130937?h=469b1c8a45]
        
           | calgoo wrote:
           | The video of the gold rush town just makes me think of what
           | games like Red Dead and GTA could look like.
        
             | 93po wrote:
             | holy cow, is that the future of gaming? instead of 3D
             | renders it's real-time video generation, complete with
             | audio and music and dialog and intelligent AI conversations
             | and it's a unique experience no one else has ever played.
             | gameplay mechanics could even change on the fly
        
               | monlockandkey wrote:
               | Shove all the tech you mentioned into a VR headset and it
               | is literally game over for humans
        
               | Xirgil wrote:
               | Digital Westworld
        
               | slowmovintarget wrote:
               | I'll take one holodeck, please.
        
               | rightbyte wrote:
               | You'd still get a headache after 20 minutes. No matter
               | how addictive, it wont be bad until you can wear VR
               | headsets for hours.
        
               | krapp wrote:
               | Even otherwise, and no matter how good the screen and
               | speakers are, a screen and speakers can only be so
               | immersive. People oversell the potential for VR when they
               | describe it as being as good as or better than reality.
               | Nothing less than the Matrix is going to work in that
               | regard.
        
               | trafficante wrote:
               | Yep, once your brain gets over the immediate novelty of
               | VR, it's very difficult to get back that "Ready Player
               | One" feeling due to the absence of sensory feedback.
               | 
               | If/once they get it working though, society will shift
               | fast.
               | 
               | There's an XR app called Brink Traveler that's full of
               | handcrafted photogrammetry recreations of scenic
               | landmarks. On especially gloomy PNW winter days, I'll lug
               | a heat lamp to my kitchen and let it warm up the tiled
               | stone a bit, put a floor fan on random oscillation, toss
               | on some good headphones, load up a sunny desert location
               | in VR, and just lounge on the warm stone floor for an
               | hour.
               | 
               | My conscious brain "knows" this isn't real and just
               | visuals alone can't fool it anymore, but after about 15
               | minutes of visuals + sensory input matching, it stops
               | caring entirely. I've caught myself reflexively squinting
               | at the virtual sun even though my headset doesn't have
               | HDR.
        
               | theshackleford wrote:
               | Many people can. I can and have been since the DK1. I've
               | done 12 hour plus stints in it.
        
               | arathis wrote:
               | lol horseshit
        
               | theshackleford wrote:
               | You're projecting.
        
               | rightbyte wrote:
               | Really? My head hurts bad after 30 minutes and I feel
               | uneasy after like 10-15.
               | 
               | The DK1 I could wear for like 1 minite before feeling
               | sick, so they are getting better ...
               | 
               | I am prone to sea sickness. Maybe it is related.
        
               | gdubs wrote:
               | That's why NVIDIA's CEO said recently that in the future
               | every pixel will be generated -- not rendered.
        
               | Keyframe wrote:
               | five years ago:
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayPqjPekn7g I'm eager to
               | see an updated version.
        
               | dartos wrote:
               | Sometimes, but for specific or unique art styles,
               | statistical models like this may not work well.
               | 
               | For games like call of duty or other hyper realistic
               | games it very likely will be.
        
               | arvinsim wrote:
               | For games like 2D/3D fighting games where you don't to
               | generate a lot of terrain, the possibilities of randomly
               | generating stages with unique terrain and obstacles is
               | interesting.
        
               | yard2010 wrote:
               | The answer is most definitely YES. Computer games, and of
               | course, porn, the stuff the internet is made up for.
        
               | joegibbs wrote:
               | I think for the near future we'll see something like
               | this:
               | 
               | https://youtube.com/watch?v=P1IcaBn3ej0
               | 
               | From a few years ago, where the game is rendered
               | traditionally and used as a ground truth, with a model on
               | top of it that enhances the graphics.
               | 
               | After maybe 10-15 years we will be past the point where
               | the entire game can be generated without obvious mistakes
               | in consistency.
               | 
               | Realtime AI dialogue is already possible but still a bit
               | primitive, I wrote a blog post about it here:
               | https://jgibbs.dev/blogs/local-llm-npcs-in-unreal-engine
        
               | notpachet wrote:
               | Lucid Dreaming as a Service.
               | 
               | See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_Sky
        
           | QuadmasterXLII wrote:
           | The diffusion is almost certainly taking place over some sort
           | of compressed latent, from the visual quirks of the output I
           | suspect that the process of turning that latent into images
           | goes latent -> nerf / splat -> image, not latent ->
           | convolutional decoder -> image
        
         | mizzao wrote:
         | Must be intimidating to be on the Pika team at the moment...
        
           | alokjnv10 wrote:
           | you nailed it
        
         | jsheard wrote:
         | Where is the training material for this coming from? The only
         | resource I can think of that's broad enough for a general
         | purpose video model is YouTube, but I can't imagine Google
         | would allow a third party to scrape all of YT without putting
         | up a fight.
        
           | Zetobal wrote:
           | It's movies the shots are way to deliberate to have random
           | YouTube crap in the dataset.
        
             | cma wrote:
             | You can still have a broad dataset and use RLHF to steer it
             | more towards the aesthetic like midjourney and SDXL did
             | through discord feedback. I think there was still some
             | aesthetic selection in the dataset as well but it still
             | included a lot of crap.
        
         | xnx wrote:
         | It's very good. Unclear how far ahead of Lumiere it is
         | (https://lumiere-video.github.io/) or if its more of a
         | difference in prompting/setttings.
        
           | ehsankia wrote:
           | In terms of following the prompt and generating visually
           | interesting results, I think they're comparable. But the
           | resolution for Sora seems so far ahead.
           | 
           | Worth noting that Google also has Phenaki [0] and VideoPoet
           | [1] and Imagen Video [2]
           | 
           | [0] https://sites.research.google/phenaki/
           | 
           | [1] https://sites.research.google/videopoet/
           | 
           | [2] https://imagen.research.google/video/
        
           | vunderba wrote:
           | The big stand out to me beyond almost any other text video
           | solution is that the video duration is tremendously longer
           | (minute+). Everything else that I've seen can't get beyond 15
           | to 20 seconds at the absolute maximum.
        
         | drdaeman wrote:
         | Let's hold our breath. Those are specifically crafted hand-
         | picked good videos, where there wasn't any requirement but
         | "write a generic prompt and pick something that looks good",
         | with no particular requirements. Which is very different from
         | the actual process where you have a very specific idea and want
         | the machine to make it happen.
         | 
         | DALL-E presentation also looked cool and everyone was stoked
         | about it. Now that we know of its limitations and oddities?
         | YMMV, but I'd say not so much - Stable Diffusion is still the
         | go-to solution. I strongly suspect the same thing with Sora.
        
           | treesciencebot wrote:
           | The examples are most certainly cherry-picked. But the
           | problem is there are 50 of them. And even if you gave me 24
           | hour full access to SVD1.1/Pika/Runway (anything out there
           | that I can use), I won't be able to get 5 examples that match
           | these in quality (~temporal consistency/motions/prompt
           | following) and more importantly in the length. Maybe I am
           | overly optimistic, but this seems too good.
        
             | xnx wrote:
             | Credit to OpenAI for including some videos with failures
             | (extra limbs, etc.). I also wonder how closely any of these
             | videos might match one from the training set. Maybe they
             | chose prompts that lined up pretty closely with a few
             | videos that were already in there.
        
           | htrp wrote:
           | https://twitter.com/sama/status/1758200420344955288
           | 
           | They're literally taking requests and doing them in 15
           | minutes.
        
             | drdaeman wrote:
             | Cool, but see the drastic difference in quality ;)
        
               | z7 wrote:
               | Depends on the quality of the prompts.
        
               | golol wrote:
               | Lack of quality in the details yes but the fact that
               | characters and scenes depict consistent and real movement
               | and evolution as opposed to the cinemagraph and frame
               | morphing stuff we have had so far is still remarkable!
        
               | ShamelessC wrote:
               | There are absolutely example videos on their website
               | which have worse quality than that.
        
               | karmasimida wrote:
               | It has a comedy like quality lol
               | 
               | But all to be said, it is no less impressive after this
               | new demo
        
               | gigglesupstairs wrote:
               | Drastic difference in quality of the prompts too. Ones
               | used in the OP are quite detailed ones mostly.
        
               | zamadatix wrote:
               | That particular example seems to have more a "cheap 3d"
               | style to it but the actual synthesis seems on par with
               | the examples. If the prompt had specified a different
               | style it'd have that style instead. This kind of
               | generation isn't like actual animating, "cheap 3d" style
               | and "realistic cinematic" style take roughly the same
               | amount of work to look right.
        
             | minimaxir wrote:
             | The output speed doesn't disprove possible cherry-picking,
             | especially with batch generation.
        
               | djoletina wrote:
               | What is your point? That they make multiple ones and pick
               | out the best ones? Well duh? That's literally how the
               | model is going to be used.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | Please make your substantive points without swipes. This
               | is in the site guidelines:
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
        
               | efrank3 wrote:
               | Who cares? If it can be generated in 15 minutes then it's
               | commercially useful.
        
               | lostemptations5 wrote:
               | Especially of you think that after you can get feedback
               | and try again..15 minutes later have a new one...try
               | again...etc
        
             | timdiggerm wrote:
             | Looks ready for _Wishbone_
        
             | raydev wrote:
             | OpenAI people running these prompts have access to way more
             | resources than any of us will through the API.
        
           | og_kalu wrote:
           | It doesn't matter if they're cherrypicked when you can't
           | match this quality with SD or Pika regardless of how much
           | time you had.
           | 
           | and i still prefer Dalle-3 to SD.
        
           | sebzim4500 wrote:
           | In the past the examples tweeted by OpenAI have been fairly
           | representative of the actual capabilities of the model. i.e.
           | maybe they do two or three generations and pick the best, but
           | they aren't spending a huge amount of effort cherry-picking.
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | > Stable Diffusion is still the go-to solution. I strongly
           | suspect the same thing with Sora.
           | 
           | Sure, for people who want detailed control with AI-generated
           | video, workflows built around SD + AnimateDiff, Stable Video
           | Diffusion, MotionDiff, etc., are still going to beat Sora for
           | the immediate future, and OpenAI's approach structurally
           | isn't as friendly to developing a broad ecosystem adding
           | power on top of the base models.
           | 
           | OTOH, the basic simple prompt-to-video capacity of Sora _now_
           | is good enough for some uses, and where detailed control is
           | not essential that space is going to keep expanding -- one
           | question is how much their plans for safety checking (which
           | they state will apply both to the prompt and every frame of
           | output) will cripple this versus alternatives, and how much
           | the regulatory environment will or won 't make it possible to
           | compete with that.
        
             | karmasimida wrote:
             | Generate stock video bits I think.
        
             | theLiminator wrote:
             | I suspect given equal effort into prompting both, Sora
             | probably provides superior results.
        
               | dragonwriter wrote:
               | > I suspect given equal effort into prompting both, Sora
               | probably provides superior results
               | 
               | Strictly to _prompting_ , probably, just as that is the
               | case with Dall-E 3 vs, say, SDXL.
               | 
               | The thing is, there's a lot more that you _can_ do than
               | just tweaking prompting with open models, compared to
               | hosted models that offer limited interaction options.
        
           | blibble wrote:
           | they're not fantastic either if you pay close attention
           | 
           | there are mini-people in the 2060s market and in the cat one
           | an extra paw comes out of nowhere
        
             | dartos wrote:
             | The woman's legs move all weirdly too
        
           | ChildOfChaos wrote:
           | Stable diffusion is not the go-to solution, it's still behind
           | midjourney and DAllE
        
           | educaysean wrote:
           | Would love to see handpicked videos from competitors that can
           | hold their own against what SORA is capable of
        
           | throwaway4233 wrote:
           | While Sora might be able to generate short 60-90 second
           | videos, how well it would scale with a larger prompt or a
           | longer video remains yet to be seen. And the general logic of
           | having the model do 90% of the work for you and then you edit
           | what is required might be harder with videos.
        
             | sebastiennight wrote:
             | 60 seconds at a time is much better than enough.
             | 
             | Most fictional long-form video (whether live-action movies
             | or cartoons, etc) is composed of many shots, most of them
             | much shorter than 7 seconds, let alone 60.
             | 
             | I think the main factor that will be key to generate a
             | whole movie is being able to pass some reference images of
             | the characters/places/objects so they remain congruent
             | between two generations.
             | 
             | You could already write a whole book in GPT-3 from running
             | a series of one-short-chapter-at-a-time generations and
             | passing the summary/outline of what's happened so far. (I
             | know I did, in a time that feels like ages ago but was just
             | early last year)
             | 
             | Why would this be different?
        
               | throwaway4233 wrote:
               | > I think the main factor that will be key to generate a
               | whole movie is being able to pass some reference images
               | of the characters/places/objects so they remain congruent
               | between two generations.
               | 
               | I partly agree with this. The congruency however needs to
               | extend to more than 2 generations. If a single scene is
               | composed of multiple shots, then those multiple shots
               | need to be part of the same world the scene is being shot
               | in. If you check the video with the title `A beautiful
               | homemade video showing the people of Lagos, Nigeria in
               | the year 2056. Shot with a mobile phone camera.` the
               | surroundings do not seem to make sense as the view starts
               | with a market, spirals around a point and then ends with
               | a bridge which does not fit into the market. If the the
               | different shots generated the model did fit together
               | seamlessly, trying to make the fit together is where the
               | difficulty comes in. However I do not have any experience
               | in video editing, so it's just speculation.
        
             | Solvency wrote:
             | You do realize virtually all movies are made up of shots
             | often lasting no longer than 10 seconds. Edited together.
             | Right.
        
               | Der_Einzige wrote:
               | The best films have long takes. Children of men or
               | stalker come to mind
        
             | esafak wrote:
             | The CGI industry is about to be turned upside down. They
             | charge hundreds of thousands per minute, and it takes them
             | forever to produce the finished product.
        
           | schleck8 wrote:
           | Wrong, this is the first time I've seen an astronaut with a
           | knit cap.
        
           | 999900000999 wrote:
           | The year is 2030.
           | 
           | Sarah is a video sorter, this was her life. She graduated top
           | of her class in film, and all she could find was the
           | monotonous job of selecting videos that looked just real
           | enough.
           | 
           | Until one day, she couldn't believe it. It was her. A video
           | of of her in that very moment sorting. She went to pause the
           | video, but stopped when he doppelganger did the same.
        
             | turnsout wrote:
             | Seems like in about two years I'll be able to stuff this
             | saved comment into a model and generate this full episode
             | of Black Mirror
        
             | esafak wrote:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Is_Awful
        
               | Zondartul wrote:
               | I got reminded of an even older sci-fi story:
               | https://qntm.org/responsibility
        
           | barfingclouds wrote:
           | Look at Sam altman's twitter where he made videos on demand
           | from what people prompted him
        
         | iLoveOncall wrote:
         | It is incredible indeed, but I remember there was a humongous
         | gap between the demoed pictures for DALL-E and what most
         | prompts would generate.
         | 
         | Don't get overly excited until you can actually use the
         | technology.
        
         | sschueller wrote:
         | Yes, but I am stuck in their (American) view of what is
         | consider appropriate. Not what is legal, but what they
         | determine to be OK to produce.
         | 
         | Good luck generating anything similar to an 80s action movie.
         | The violence and light nudity will prevent you from generating
         | anything.
        
           | Xirgil wrote:
           | I suspect it's less about being puritanical about violence
           | and nudity in and of themself, and more a blanket ban to make
           | up for the inability to prevent the generation of actually
           | controversial material (nude images of pop stars, violence
           | against politicians, hate speech)
        
             | wilg wrote:
             | No, it's America's fault.
        
             | SamBam wrote:
             | Put like that, it's a bit like the Chumra in Judaism [1].
             | The fence, or moat, _around_ the law that extends even
             | further than the law itself, to prevent you from
             | accidentally commiting a sin.
             | 
             | 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumra_(Judaism)
        
               | UberFly wrote:
               | Na. It's more like what he said: Cover your ass legally
               | for the real problems this could cause.
        
           | TulliusCicero wrote:
           | It's not a particularly American attitude to be opposed to
           | violence in media though, American media has plenty of
           | violence.
           | 
           | They're trying to be all-around uncontroversial.
        
           | throwitaway222 wrote:
           | I am guessing a movie studio will get different access with
           | controls dropped. Of course, that does mean they need to be
           | VERY careful when editing, and making sure not to release a
           | vagina that appears for 1 or 2 frames when a woman is picking
           | up a cat in some random scene.
        
             | Fricken wrote:
             | We can't do narrative sequences with persistent characters
             | and settings, even with static images.
             | 
             | These video clips just generic stock clips. You cut cut
             | them together to make a sequence of random flashy whatever,
             | but you still can't do storytelling in any conventional
             | sense. We don't appear to be close to being able to use
             | these tools for the hypothetical disruptive use case we
             | worry about.
             | 
             | Nonetheless, The stock video and photo people are in
             | trouble. So long as the details don't matter this stuff is
             | presumably useful.
        
           | zamadatix wrote:
           | I wonder how much of it is really "concern for the children"
           | type stuff vs not wanting to deal with fights on what should
           | be allowed and how and to who right now. When film was new
           | towns and states started to make censorship review boards.
           | When mature content became viewable on the web battles (still
           | ongoing) about how much you need to do to prevent minors from
           | accessing it came up. Now useful AI generated content is the
           | new thing and you can avoid this kind of distraction by going
           | this route instead.
           | 
           | I'm not supporting it in any way, I think you should be able
           | to generate and distribute any legal content with the tools,
           | but just giving a possible motive for OpenAI being so
           | conservative whenever it comes to ethics and what they are
           | making.
        
           | golergka wrote:
           | I've been watching 80s movies recently, and amount of nudity
           | and sex scenes often feels unnecessary. I'm definitely not a
           | prude. I watch porn, I talk about sex with friends, I go to
           | kinky parties sometimes. But it really feels that a lot of
           | movies sacrificed stories to increase sex appeal -- and now
           | that people have free and unlimited access to porn, movies
           | can finally be movies.
        
         | jasonjmcghee wrote:
         | I agree in terms of raw generation, but runway especially is
         | creating fantastic tooling too.
        
         | jug wrote:
         | Yup, it's been even several months! ;) But now we finally have
         | another quantum leap in AI.
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | I know it's Runway (and has all manner of those dream-like AI
         | artifacts) but I like what this person is doing with just a
         | bunch 4 second clips and an awesome soundtrack:
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/JClloSKh_dk
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/upCyXbTWKvQ
        
         | rvz wrote:
         | All those startups have been squeezed in the middle. Pika,
         | Runway, etc might as well open source their models.
         | 
         | Or Meta will do it for them.
        
       | cuuupid wrote:
       | Not loving that there are more details on safety than details of
       | the actual model, benchmarks, or capabilities.
       | 
       | > That's why we believe that learning from real-world use is a
       | critical component of creating and releasing increasingly safe AI
       | systems over time.
       | 
       | "We believe safety relies on real-world use and that's why we
       | will not be allowing real-world use until we have figured out
       | safety."
        
         | diputsmonro wrote:
         | Yeah, it would be way better if they just released it right
         | away, so that political campaigns can use AI generated videos
         | of their opponents doing horrible/stupid things right before an
         | election and before any of the general public has any idea that
         | fake videos could be this realistic.
        
           | serf wrote:
           | you joke, but the hobbling of these 'safe' models is exactly
           | what spurs development of the unsafe ones that are ran
           | locally, anonymously, and for who knows what purpose.
           | 
           | someone really interested in control would want OpenAI or
           | whatever centralized organization to be able to sift through
           | the results for dangerous individuals -- part of this is
           | making sure to stymie development of alternatives to that
           | concept.
        
       | imbusy111 wrote:
       | I had a good laugh looking at the sliding and twisting legs in
       | the "Girl walking in City" video.
        
         | ummonk wrote:
         | I'm a little concerned that so many people in these comments
         | say they wouldn't be able to tell that it's not real.
        
         | kjqgqkejbfefn wrote:
         | Indeed @0:15, the right leg goes to the left and vice versa.
        
       | minimaxir wrote:
       | I do wonder why OpenAI chose the name "Sora" for this model. AI
       | is now going to have intersectionality with Kingdom Hearts.
       | (Atleast you don't need a PhD to understand AI.)
        
         | meitham wrote:
         | Sora is pictures or movie (visual) in arabic!
        
         | hk__2 wrote:
         | I'm confused as well because "sora" means "sister" in
         | Neapolitan.
        
           | GaggiX wrote:
           | I'm glad I'm not the only to have think of that, it's usually
           | used for insults. I thought it was kinda funny.
        
         | pavlov wrote:
         | "Scene-Oriented Rank Adaptation"?
         | 
         | I have no idea, just guessing...
        
         | yogorenapan wrote:
         | Hear me out: Someone on the team is a fan of Yosuga No Sora
        
           | Tiberium wrote:
           | I'm not the only one ;)
        
         | starshadowx2 wrote:
         | Sora means sky in Japanese, their reasoning is akin to "the
         | sky's the limit".
         | 
         | > The team behind the technology, including the researchers Tim
         | Brooks and Bill Peebles, chose the name because it "evokes the
         | idea of limitless creative potential."
        
         | xandrius wrote:
         | It also means up/upstairs in some dialect
        
         | renewiltord wrote:
         | That's because it means AI Model in Wiltordian.
        
         | ristomatti wrote:
         | Obviously for it's meaning in Finnish, "gravel".
        
       | nerdjon wrote:
       | It is honestly quite concerning just how good these videos look.
       | 
       | Like you can see some weird artifacts, but take one of these
       | videos, compress it down to a much lower quality and with the
       | loss of quality you might not be able to tell the difference
       | based on these examples. Any artifacts would likely be gone.
       | 
       | Given what I had seen on social media I had figured anything
       | remotely real was a few years away, but I guess not...
       | 
       | I guess we have just stopped worrying about the impact of these
       | tools?
        
       | agomez314 wrote:
       | Imagine someone combining this with the Apple Vision Pro...many
       | people will simply opt out of reality and live in a digital
       | world. Not that this is new, but I'll entice a lot more people
       | than ever before.
        
         | pants2 wrote:
         | Basically the Holodeck.
        
           | ilaksh wrote:
           | I was just thinking that -- I used to think the Holodeck was
           | far-fetched. Now it seems like it's practically around the
           | corner (with VR/XR glasses).
        
             | ctoth wrote:
             | Presumably the Post-atomic horror set back technology for a
             | while, so we should be able to expect TNG-level technology
             | before the war. This also explains why Kirk's Enterprise
             | uses datatapes.
        
         | TechnicolorByte wrote:
         | Had the same thought. Seems like we're entering the era of
         | generative AI and mixed reality in a very real way very soon.
         | 
         | As much as I love the technology, I'm really not looking
         | forward to this becoming ubiquitous. Time and time again we've
         | allowed technological progress to outpace our ability to weight
         | the societal pros ands cons.
         | 
         | Smartphones and the rise of image-heavy social media has
         | rapidly changed social norms. Watch a video of people out in
         | public 20 years ago: no screen to distract them at bus stops,
         | concert events, or while eating dinner with friends. And if
         | that seems trite, consider how well correlated the rise in
         | suicide rates is with the popularity of these technologies.
         | 
         | Not sure if this makes me a luddite or if the feeling is common
         | in this crowd.
        
         | m3kw9 wrote:
         | but you cannot walk/feel it, just watching. It's still a huge
         | gap to reality, less so, but you will still feel it's fake very
         | vividly because those senses are missing.
        
           | kuprel wrote:
           | chips will have to come a long way for this to be generated
           | in real time, but there's no reason a generated 3D
           | environment can't be interactive
        
             | m3kw9 wrote:
             | Maybe some sort of implants that can generate senses. Would
             | be 100s of years because you can say simulate
             | weight/pressure and pinpoint accuracy if feeling friction.
        
           | dw_arthur wrote:
           | Watching it is enough for a lot of people. Watching 1080p
           | first person extreme sport videos on youtube is almost too
           | compelling to me. I have to turn it off because it feels
           | addictive.
        
         | TealMyEal wrote:
         | in their research paper it says "These capabilities suggest
         | that continued scaling of video models is a promising path
         | towards the development of highly-capable simulators of the
         | physical and digital world, and the objects, animals and people
         | that live within them*." they are well set on that happening
        
       | supriyo-biswas wrote:
       | I wonder what served as the dataset for the model. Videos on
       | YouTube presumably, since messing around with the film industry
       | would be too expensive?
        
         | tinyhouse wrote:
         | How would they access youtube tough?
        
           | bori5 wrote:
           | yt-dlp
        
         | achr2 wrote:
         | Almost certainly troves of stock footage. The type of
         | exaggerated motion seen in these examples is very reminiscent
         | of stock footage. And it is heavily textually annotated for
         | search.
        
       | chasing wrote:
       | Yeah, you just can't let all media, all the cost and hard work of
       | millions of photographers, animators, filmmakers, etc be
       | completely consumed and devalued by one company just because it's
       | a very cool technical trick. The more powerful these services
       | become the more obvious that will be.
       | 
       | What OpenAI does is amazing, but they obviously cannot be allowed
       | to capture the value of every piece of media ever created --
       | it'll both tank the economy and basically halt all new creation
       | if everything you create will be immediately financially
       | weaponized against you, if everything you create goes immediately
       | into the Machine that can spit out a billion variations, flood
       | the market, and give you nothing in return.
       | 
       | It's the same complaint people have had with Google Search pushed
       | to its logical conclusion: anything you create will be anonymized
       | and absorbed. You put in the effort and money, OpenAI gets the
       | reward.
       | 
       | Again, I like OpenAI overall. But everyone's got to be brought to
       | the table on this somehow. I wish our government would be capable
       | of giving realistic guidance and regulation on this.
        
         | CooCooCaCha wrote:
         | It's funny, people dreamed of AI robots doing the shitty work
         | that nobody wants to do so that we are free to pursue things we
         | actually want to do.
         | 
         | But in reality it seems like the opposite is going to be true.
         | AI is automating the creative, intellectual work and leaving
         | the rest to us.
        
           | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
           | Blue collar workers have the last laugh
        
             | Drakim wrote:
             | Turns out the only jobs robots can't take are the ones
             | where humans are specialized, such as cleaning staircases.
        
               | theultdev wrote:
               | It's just cheaper to put humans on tedious physical
               | tasks. See Amazon.
               | 
               | AI is cheaper than a high paid designer, developer,
               | writer, etc.
               | 
               | A robot is more expensive than a human laborer.
               | 
               | It's really funny to see the squirm from those thinking
               | truckers would be automated away, not them.
        
               | reducesuffering wrote:
               | > A robot is more expensive than a human laborer.
               | 
               | Not when intelligence is cheap and highly abundant.
               | Perfecting general robotics as an improvement on humans
               | will be quick. The upper limit of strength and
               | consistency is much higher.
        
               | theultdev wrote:
               | I mean today, in the real world.
               | 
               | It is currently more expensive to build a robot for many
               | tasks than it is to have a human do it.
               | 
               | > Perfecting general robotics as an improvement on humans
               | will be quick.
               | 
               | It has not been nor is there any indication it will be.
        
               | hansonkd wrote:
               | Today in the real world AI can replace very little of
               | designers, programmers, etc. Lots of potential and
               | extrapolation, sure. but hasn't happened. What has
               | actually been produced by AI has been panned as not quite
               | ripe yet.
               | 
               | Same with robotics. Lots of potential, but hasn't
               | happened yet. If you read the description, Sora, is based
               | out of trying to simulate the physical world to solve
               | physics based problems. Something that would be perfect
               | for the next leap in robotics.
        
               | theultdev wrote:
               | I use to pay designers for artwork, now I just use AI.
               | 
               | There's no physical task that robots have replaced humans
               | for me.
               | 
               | Hell, even the roomba sucks (pun intended) and my wife
               | has to pick up the slack.
        
               | nogridbag wrote:
               | Haven't you seen Migo Robotics? :)
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCKN8k-OFG8
        
             | prisenco wrote:
             | Plumbers keep winning.
        
               | Xirgil wrote:
               | What happens when anyone can put on their AR headset and
               | have AI diagnose and walk them through exactly how to fix
               | their plumbing problems?
        
               | prisenco wrote:
               | What happens when their AR headset gets wet?
               | 
               | Less glibly, no matter how good you are at following
               | instructions, tearing out a wall filled with water than
               | can destroy your home, fiberglass insulation that can
               | damage your lungs and electrical wiring that can kill you
               | will never be something I'd recommend a layman do. No
               | matter how good the ai tutorials are.
        
               | Vetch wrote:
               | Don't take tacit knowledge for granted.
        
             | throwup238 wrote:
             | This is the beginning of the end for many of them too. Look
             | at the opening line of the page:
             | 
             |  _> We're teaching AI to understand and simulate the
             | physical world in motion, with the goal of training models
             | that help people solve problems that require real-world
             | interaction._
             | 
             | Text-to-video is just the flashy demo that everyone can
             | understand after exposure to text-to-image. Once the model
             | can "simulate the physical world in motion" it's only a few
             | steps away from generic robotic control software that can
             | automate a ton of processes that were impossible before.
             | 
             | Humans still have the benefit of dexterity and precise
             | muscle control but in the vast majority of cases robots can
             | overcome those limitations with better control software and
             | specialized robotic end effectors. This won't soon replace
             | someone crawling under a house or welding in awkward
             | positions, but it could for example replace someone who
             | flips burgers or does manual labwork.
             | 
             | This could eliminate the limiting factor for automating
             | many manual processes. ( _ruh-roh_ )
        
             | karmasimida wrote:
             | Think about it. Sora demonstrate AI can understand real
             | world physics to a scary degree.
             | 
             | If you use Sora like models to imagine what actions needed
             | to be taken, then realize it, well, the only thing left is
             | to create an arm/fingers that can took action, then you are
             | done.
        
           | sho_hn wrote:
           | Just like it's far more likely for AI to replace middle-
           | management and stream instructions to meat-bots than replace
           | menial labor.
        
             | mwigdahl wrote:
             | Sounds disturbingly like "Manna"
             | (https://marshallbrain.com/manna1)
        
           | throwup238 wrote:
           | I'm sorry but as a large language model I must insist that
           | you get back in the kitchen and make me a burger.
        
           | CuriouslyC wrote:
           | It's bimodal. AI can automate a lot of low level knowledge
           | work, but as wide and deep as its knowledge is, it is also
           | incredibly superficial when it comes to logic and creativity.
           | What it's going to do is hollow out the middle class, as
           | creative people who know how to wield AI will become wealthy
           | while the majority of white collar workers are forced into
           | trades.
        
             | nopinsight wrote:
             | A major follow up to GPT-4 later this year is rumored to be
             | (far) superior at logical reasoning than GPT-4. What's
             | likely to happen if that becomes real?
        
               | CuriouslyC wrote:
               | That might let it encroach more into some fields like law
               | where it's almost good enough already. Shitty time to be
               | a junior lawyer, firms are going to hire and promote
               | people not for their legal skills but for their ability
               | to manage/attract clients.
               | 
               | In general though, I don't think the extra reasoning
               | ability is going to enable it to displace that much
               | farther than it already will, GPT lives in a box and
               | responds to prompts. When it's connected to multiple
               | layers of real-time sensor data and self-directing,
               | that'll be another story.
        
               | nopinsight wrote:
               | From last week: OpenAI shifts AI battleground to software
               | that operates devices and automates tasks
               | 
               | https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-shifts-ai-
               | bat...
               | 
               | There were independent efforts to create AI agents since
               | last year as well. AutoGPT and BabyAGI iirc. They didn't
               | go far probably because the LLM used was not good enough
               | for that.
        
           | dilap wrote:
           | Maybe we'll see a resurgence in live theater.
        
             | multi_tude wrote:
             | Agree, plus performance art might finally hit the
             | mainstream :)
        
           | dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
           | Somehow, according to that logic, and in general the logic of
           | all AI danger hysteria, humans have no agency in determining
           | what the limits of what AI is fed and of its use and abuse.
        
             | diputsmonro wrote:
             | _Some_ humans do - the investors and executives in AI tech
             | companies (and the legislators who theoretically could
             | regulate them) , who all stand to make a lot of money from
             | every one of the  "AI danger hysteria" scenarios, and are
             | therefore highly motivated to bring them to fruition.
             | 
             | The rest of us have no choice. Despite millions of artists,
             | animators, etc. all being resoundly opposed to AI art, the
             | models that infringe their work are still allowed to exist,
             | and it seems they're fighting a losing battle.
             | 
             | A lot of people are being "hysterical" because a lot of
             | people _don 't_ have a choice.
             | 
             | To be clear, the problem of these scenarios is tightly
             | intertwined with the problem of unfettered capitalism and
             | wealth inequality in general. Food and shelter require
             | money, and we get money by working a job. If millions of
             | jobs disappear overnight, then of course millions of people
             | are going to be distressed over no longer having ready
             | access to food and shelter.
             | 
             | The idea of "just getting another job" doesn't scale to the
             | destruction of entire industries employing tens of millions
             | of people. This is how depressions are made.
             | 
             | The idea of "the depression will end someday" is not only
             | not necessarily true as wealth inequality skyrockets, but
             | is also cold comfort to the people who will lose their
             | houses and for some, lives, due to the disruption.
             | 
             | A different economic system could perhaps allow us to
             | appreciate these technological advances without worrying
             | about them displacing our ability to live. But the American
             | political system consistently and firmly rejects any ideas
             | not rooted in social darwinist capitalism.
             | 
             | For your sake, I hope your resume is _very_ impressive.
        
               | visarga wrote:
               | If millions of jobs disappear overnight it means AI is
               | amazingly good, which means people will also have AI
               | empowerment on a whole new level as open source trails
               | companies by 1-2 years. Everyone will just order their AI
               | "take care of my needs", maybe work along with it. You
               | got to agree that we already have some amazing open
               | models and they are only getting better - that
               | empowerment will remain with us in times of need.
               | 
               | "Companies employing people" will be replaced by "people
               | employing AI". Open models are free, small, fast,
               | trainable and easy to use. They capture 90% of the value
               | at 10% the cost, and are private.
        
               | diputsmonro wrote:
               | "Companies employing people" getting replaced by
               | _anything_ is pretty dangerous in an economic system
               | where employment is synonymous with having food and
               | shelter. It won 't matter that AI could help me keep a
               | to-do list or generate pretty videos if I don't have a
               | job or income.
               | 
               | What we're looking at is a massive decrease in the
               | relative economic value of the average human's work. If
               | the economic value of a hundred people is less than what
               | the company can produce with a single human operator
               | running AI models, then those 100 people are economically
               | worthless, and don't get to eat.
               | 
               | We drastically need to tax the usage of AI models on the
               | huge windfall they're about to create for their
               | operators, and use that to fund universal basic income
               | for those displaced. Generally speaking, as automation
               | and wealth disparity skyrocket, UBI will be required to
               | maintain any semblance of the society we currently have.
               | I am incredibly pessimistic about the chances of that
               | happening in any real way though.
        
             | visarga wrote:
             | We don't have any control because we don't trust each
             | other. Prisoner's dilemma
        
           | ajmurmann wrote:
           | Is it automating the creative part of the work or the
           | mechanical part of creative work?
        
             | whstl wrote:
             | It's automating a big chunk of the money-making part of
             | creative work.
        
             | Hoasi wrote:
             | It's automating some of the craftsmanship part, which is
             | substantial, but in a sense, it also threatens the creative
             | part.
             | 
             | It's already very tempting for large entertainment
             | businesses to create lazy remakes as it involves less risk.
             | Automating creative jobs will create a shift at the
             | production level but also on the receiving end: the public.
        
           | zemo wrote:
           | that would never happen because someone owns the robots and
           | rich people can afford more robots than poor people and rich
           | people aren't rich people if poor people aren't poor
        
           | croes wrote:
           | The problem, as long as people need money to live, every work
           | is necessary and every automation is a threat.
        
           | 93po wrote:
           | Robotics is going to catch up extremely fast
        
             | danavar wrote:
             | I would agree. While we are seeing all this creative work
             | get automated by AI, how big of an impact would that really
             | have on the economy?
             | 
             | Fully-functional autonomous driving will have a much larger
             | economic impact - and that's just the first area where
             | autonomous robots will come into our lives.
        
           | nerdix wrote:
           | I'm kind of excited to see how scifi authors will tackle the
           | generative AI revolution in their novels.
           | 
           | As of now, the models still need large amounts of human
           | produced creative works for training. So you can imagine a
           | story set in a world where large swathes of humanity are
           | regulated to being basically gig workers for some quadrillion
           | dollar AI megacorp where they sit around and wait to be
           | prompted by the AI. "Draw a purple cat with pink stripes and
           | a top hat" and then millions of freelance artists around the
           | world start drawing a stupid picture of a cat because the
           | model determined that it had insufficient training data to
           | produce high quality results for the given prompt. And that's
           | how everyone lives their lives....just working to feed the
           | model but everything consumed is generated by the model. It's
           | rather dystopian.
        
             | alex_suzuki wrote:
             | I would read that! But hopefully it won't be written by
             | ChatGPT.
        
             | dsign wrote:
             | I would say it's very profitable in terms of ideas...if you
             | put the work. The problem is that most main-market sci-fi
             | is not about ideas, but about cool special effects and good
             | vs bad guys.
        
               | dovin wrote:
               | Sure, 90% of everything is crap.
        
             | Hoasi wrote:
             | > As of now, the models still need large amounts of human
             | produced creative works for training.
             | 
             | That will likely always be the case. Even 100% synthetic
             | data has to come from somewhere. Great synopsis! Working
             | for hire to feed a machine that regurgitates variations of
             | the missing data sounds dystopian. But here we are, almost
             | there.
        
               | ItsMattyG wrote:
               | Eventually models will likely get their creativity by:
               | 
               | 1. Interacting with the randomness of the world
               | 
               | and
               | 
               | 2. Thinking a lot, going in loops and thought loops and
               | seeing what they discover.
               | 
               | I don't expect them to need humans forever.
        
               | Hoasi wrote:
               | Agreed, by some definitions, specifically associating
               | unrelated things, models are already creative.
               | 
               | Hallucinations are highly creative as well. But unless
               | the technology changes, large language models will need
               | human-made training substrate data for a long time to
               | operate.
        
             | mortenjorck wrote:
             | I have a novel I've been working on intermittently since
             | the late 2000s, the central conflict of which grew to be
             | about labor in an era of its devaluation. The big reveal
             | was always going to be the opposite of Gibson's Mona Lisa
             | Overdrive, that rather than something human-like turning
             | out to be AI, society's AI infrastructure turns out to
             | depend on mostly human "compute" (harvested in a
             | surreptitious way I thought was clever).
             | 
             | I've been trying to figure out how to retool the story to
             | fit a timeline where ubiquitous AI that can write poems and
             | paint pictures predates ubiquitous self-driving cars.
        
             | cubefox wrote:
             | It's ironic that you nonetheless think "scifi authors" will
             | be writing those novels, not language models.
        
           | Der_Einzige wrote:
           | This was known for a long time:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox
        
           | dingnuts wrote:
           | if it was actually AI, instead of a stochastic parrot, we
           | could ask it to design robots that could do the manual labor
           | that we still have to do, because we haven't been able to
           | design robots to do the manual labor.
           | 
           | Unfortunately, LLMs aren't intelligent in any way, so you
           | cannot ask them to synthesize any kind of second-order
           | knowledge.
           | 
           | This is why they won't take away the creative work, either.
           | They are fundamentally incapable of creating anything new.
        
           | golol wrote:
           | Come on, don't you see that the capability to understand the
           | physical world that sora demonstrates is exactly what we need
           | to develop those household robots? All these genAI products
           | are just toys because they are technology demonstrators.
           | They're all steps in the way to AGI and androids.
        
             | CooCooCaCha wrote:
             | No. Because sensorimotor control is a completely different
             | ballgame and AI tech for that is far behind these models.
        
               | golol wrote:
               | sensorimotor control is imo not at all the bottleneck.
               | Teleoperated androids could do lots of useful things
               | right now, but the AI is lacking to automate them.
        
               | CooCooCaCha wrote:
               | "The ai is lacking to automate them"
               | 
               | Yes that's my whole point...
        
           | Hoasi wrote:
           | > AI is automating the creative, intellectual work and
           | leaving the rest to us.
           | 
           | Indeed, there is a risk it completely devalues creative jobs.
           | That's ironic. Even if you can still use AI creatively, it
           | removes the pleasure of creating. Prompting feels like
           | filling Excel sheets while also feeding a pachinko machine.
        
           | neilk wrote:
           | https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/sad-2
        
           | bsza wrote:
           | Machines have replaced a lot of blue-collar jobs alright.
           | It's just that most of it happened during the Industrial
           | Revolution, so we aren't even aware of all the shitty (and
           | not-shitty-but-obsolete-nonetheless) jobs that used to exist.
        
         | palmfacehn wrote:
         | Similar things were said about Internet piracy in decades past.
        
         | Geep5 wrote:
         | Your argument is used time and time again with technology's
         | progress.
        
           | hk__2 wrote:
           | That doesn't make it invalid. It's a tough question, there's
           | no easy answer.
        
           | tomtheelder wrote:
           | I really don't think that's true. Essentially the argument is
           | that these models are more or less just outputting the work
           | of others. Work already done- not theoretical future work,
           | which is what people usually criticize new technologies for.
           | 
           | The question here is really about whether it's sufficiently
           | transformative, or whether that's even the right standard to
           | be applied to generated media.
        
           | chasing wrote:
           | Yup! Technology is powerful. It impacts people's lives.
           | 
           | I love tech, but if you take the stance that it's okay to
           | hurt people for the sake of technical progress, you get into
           | some very dark and terrible places...
        
             | CooCooCaCha wrote:
             | It doesn't help that the tech industry is trying to make it
             | seem black and white. Like you're either endlessly
             | optimistic and let tech run rampant or you're a depressing
             | doomer pessimist. We should reject this framing whenever
             | possible.
        
             | hackerlight wrote:
             | > it's okay to hurt people for the sake of technical
             | progress
             | 
             | That's a strawman. The real view is that protecting jobs
             | that are made extinct by technology and automation is
             | historically a bad idea because it leads to stagnation and
             | poverty. It's better to let people lose their jobs, and for
             | those people to find other jobs, while supporting them with
             | a social safety net while they make the transition. Painful
             | for them but unfortunately very necessary for a prosperous
             | society.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | > for those people to find other jobs, while supporting
               | them with a social safety net while they make the
               | transition
               | 
               | This is the part that no one is expecting to see actually
               | happen, though. Without that addressed, your argument is
               | sound but footless.
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | Instead of using this outrage and energy to push a
               | political will to grant something that benefits everyone
               | forever, we should use it to grant something that helps
               | prop up a few people in dying industries so that they can
               | stifle innovation which would lead to a creative
               | revolution?
               | 
               | What no one is asking is: 'it this makes it easy for
               | anyone to be an artist, a director, a musician... what
               | are we going to get, and will it be worse than what we
               | have now?
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | > What no one is asking is: 'it this makes it easy for
               | anyone to be an artist, a director, a musician... what
               | are we going to get, and will it be worse than what we
               | have now?
               | 
               |  _Everyone_ is asking this.
               | 
               | But that's also not the only question. The one you're
               | ignoring here is: If these tools enable one artist to do
               | the work of a hundred, what happens to the other 99?
               | 
               | AI boosters have as yet offered no satisfactory answer
               | for this question. Given the intimate involvement some of
               | them have with politics at the national and global level,
               | this absence constitutes reasonable grounds for suspicion
               | that no answer is intended or forthcoming, and that
               | suspicion is what's asking here to be addressed.
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | > If these tools enable one artist to do the work of a
               | hundred, what happens to the other 99?
               | 
               | Not really -- as people have gotten more efficient at
               | their jobs, we tend to just produce more/better things,
               | not impoverish a bunch of people. If one person can day
               | (8 hours) making a shoe by hand, and one person can make
               | a shoe in an hour using a shoe making machine, then we
               | don't have one less shoe maker, we have two people making
               | 16 shoes a day. As an effect, shoes are now much cheaper,
               | so they aren't only worn by rich people. If the one-shoe-
               | per-day maker refuses to use a shoe making machine, he or
               | she can upsell their 'hand crafted' shoes to rich people
               | who want to distinguish themselves.
               | 
               | Believe me, I am not a 'free market fixes everything'
               | person, at all, but in these cases, that is how it has
               | worked since the industrial revolution. This is not a new
               | process (automation making a task much more
               | accessible/efficient) and this is not a new complaint
               | (what happens to the people who made a living doing
               | task).
               | 
               | Change is scary -- and everyone has the right to be
               | afraid of an uncertain future, but I can't recall an
               | instance of the regressive approach actually working to
               | allay the fears of those who imposed it. Yet, we all see
               | huge reminders of how our lives have been improved by
               | making hard things easier and accessible to more people.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | The argument as presented so omits even the possibility
               | of harm being done anyone in this process as to seem as
               | if it seeks to foreclose the thought at root.
               | 
               | It would not surprise me if anyone called this
               | pollyannaish, or even Panglossian.
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | Can you explain yourself differently please? I have no
               | idea what you mean.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | You don't really touch at any point in your argument on
               | even the possibility someone _might_ be harmed, in the
               | process of entire segments of the labor market being
               | automated. Why is that?
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | It is assumed is anything with any kind of scale that
               | harm with occur.
               | 
               | Did anyone get harmed when photography was used to
               | supplant portraits? Did anyone get harmed when mail
               | started getting sent by rail instead of horse? Did anyone
               | get harmed when air travel became possible? Did anyone
               | get harmed when we supplied electric power to homes?
               | 
               | I have an idea -- why don't you propose a solution to AI
               | ruining creative jobs and we can apply that standard to
               | it.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | Price in the externality. The multiple of US GDP that
               | OpenAI currently seeks in funding should certainly
               | suffice to fund UBI, and if that slows down OpenAI's
               | development of new capabilities, then that should still
               | be preferable to the alternative of OpenAI being enjoined
               | from doing business until that is done.
               | 
               | Of course you may respond that this is unrealistic, which
               | it is; it requires a government capable of acting via
               | regulation in defense of its citizens, and so nothing
               | like it will be done.
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | I would love to have UBI. If AI fear gets that going I
               | would be happy, but I must agree that is unrealistic.
        
               | diputsmonro wrote:
               | The social safety net component of your idea is both
               | extremely important and not at all likely in the modern
               | ultra-capitalist, "even healthcare is socialist
               | extremism" political atmosphere.
               | 
               |  _Maybe_ mass unemployment will create a sea change in
               | that mentality, but most of the people who 's opinions
               | need to be changed will probably just laugh at "the
               | elites" getting screwed over.
        
               | cabalamat wrote:
               | It's a shame Andrew Yang isn't running this year, as his
               | 2020 platform of UBI because of AI is looking very
               | prescient.
        
             | sekai wrote:
             | > okay to hurt people for the sake of technical progress,
             | you get into some very dark and terrible places
             | 
             | Hurt is a very subjective word in this context, how many
             | people do you think the invention of the steam engine hurt?
             | Or the electricity?
        
               | joks wrote:
               | I think dismantling creative fields like this is
               | completely different from automating manual labor in a
               | way that makes humanity more prosperous. I don't see what
               | the upside is of this -- it's not making creative work
               | better, it's devaluing creative work and disenfranchising
               | creatives.
        
               | stale2002 wrote:
               | > I don't see what the upside is of this
               | 
               | The upside is that creative works are completely
               | democratized.
               | 
               | Now, anyone, with very little effort is fully empowered
               | to create creative works on their own and there is no
               | barrier to entry.
               | 
               | Yes, empowerment and democratization harms people who's
               | livelyhood depends on disenfranchisement.
        
               | CaptainFever wrote:
               | What makes creative labour better and more deserving of
               | protection than manual labour?
        
           | paxys wrote:
           | Is it? What is another example of a technological leap that
           | made a certain class of workers redundant while also
           | continually relying on the output of these same workers to be
           | feasible in the first place?
           | 
           | The current batch of LLMs is in the same class of
           | technological revolutions as Napster and The Pirate Bay.
           | Immensely impactful, sure, but mostly because of theft of
           | value from elsewhere.
        
             | hansonkd wrote:
             | Isn't the Luddite movement an example?
             | 
             | The factories that replaced the artisans were only made
             | possible by the work of the artisans forging the way.
        
               | lewhoo wrote:
               | I don't think so. The main idea is that for AI to
               | continue to develop new data is needed. Skills of the
               | Luddites were no longer needed.
        
               | CaptainFever wrote:
               | New data can still be created using AI and curation,
               | couldn't it? New works, incorporating AI or not, still
               | enjoy copyright protections that one can monetize by
               | selling access to that specific work.
        
           | timdiggerm wrote:
           | Okay? That could just as easily mean this argument has been
           | right all along.
        
           | s__s wrote:
           | The argument should be brought up every single time. Each
           | major technological jump is a unique event completely
           | different from the last.
           | 
           | AI is nothing like anything we've seen, and is truly unique
           | in the dangers it poses to the world.
        
         | mring33621 wrote:
         | "Can't be allowed"
        
         | CuriouslyC wrote:
         | Things that can be easily reproduced already have little value,
         | the people who produce those things have adapted to focus on
         | brand, and that's just how it's going to be from now own.
        
           | sho_hn wrote:
           | Reminds me of an interview with a Korean pop music producer I
           | watched 15 years ago.
           | 
           | South Korea had a high % of broadband penetration earlier
           | than many Western countries, and as a result physical CD
           | sales crashed very hard, and very quickly. So he asked
           | himself, what's the most analog good I could sell? It's
           | people. And went the pop idol / personality marketing route
           | with great and lasting success.
        
           | chasing wrote:
           | > Things that can be easily reproduced already have little
           | value...
           | 
           | Nonsense. Also, my point is that it shouldn't be up to tech
           | companies to unilaterally decide what has value.
        
             | nicksrose7224 wrote:
             | I dont think they're saying its up to tech companies to
             | decide what has value, more that the development of new
             | technology itself ends up deciding for the rest of the
             | world how things are valued.
             | 
             | It's been this way for 10,000 years since the invention of
             | the wheel. New inventions change how things are valued by
             | making it easier for people do more work with less time.
        
             | stale2002 wrote:
             | It's not up to them.
             | 
             | Instead it is up to the consumers.
             | 
             | If consumers choose to give money to AI company, and not to
             | artists, then in the eyes of the consumer those artists do
             | not have value.
        
         | Mockapapella wrote:
         | The creators who create media can also use these tools to
         | create more media faster, as can novices. It's not like OpenAI
         | literally eats the media, never to be shared with the world
         | again.
        
           | jsheard wrote:
           | Oh I see, they're not eating the media, just extorting the
           | creators into paying OpenAI in perpetuity to use the tool
           | derived from their own work, or face becoming uncompetitive
           | with their peers who do use it. What if landlords, but for
           | media creation, and they don't even have to pay for the land
           | in the first place. That's fine then.
        
             | Mockapapella wrote:
             | > pay a subscription to OpenAI in perpetuity in order to
             | remain competitive with their peers
             | 
             | This is how technology works in general and should not be
             | vilified. Someone comes up with a better way to do things
             | (in this case bringing creative ideas to life) and charges
             | a premium on top of that for their efforts. If the current
             | wave of creators doesn't like it, then they should instead
             | make something people want more than what their competition
             | has to offer.
             | 
             | Either way, this is why local open source models are
             | critical, so that everyone can benefit without needing to
             | pay any single party.
        
               | jsheard wrote:
               | If a company were founded tomorrow which allowed you to
               | stream unlicensed TV shows and movies for a monthly
               | subscription, undercutting Netflix and Amazons licensed
               | streams, that wouldn't be described as "a better way to
               | do things" just because their customers prefer it for
               | being cheaper and easier because all the content is in
               | one place. The difference between that and what OpenAI is
               | doing is just degrees of abstraction, either way they're
               | deriving value from others work without compensating
               | them, and actively undermining the ongoing creation of
               | the work they're appropriating, while simultaneously
               | relying on the ongoing creation of that work to keep
               | feeding their machine.
               | 
               | IP law has yet to decide whether my interpretation of the
               | situation is correct in the legal sense, but I find it
               | impossible to see "ChatGPT absorbs the work of
               | writers/journalists and sells a superficially reworded
               | version without attribution or compensation" as anything
               | but theft obfuscated behind lots of fancy math. It's only
               | going to get worse if LLMs end up displacing traditional
               | search engines, so one day you'll publish an article and
               | get exactly one impression from GPTBot which then turns
               | around and figuratively copies your homework.
        
               | diputsmonro wrote:
               | Forgive me for thinking that it may be difficult for
               | independent artists to compete against the trillion-
               | dollar groundbreaking plagiarism machine that is actively
               | plagiarizing their work faster than they can produce
               | original work, without consequence, and suffocating them
               | under a deluge of generated works.
               | 
               | This is an extremely different difference of scale, which
               | does constitute a meaningful difference from prior
               | technologies.
        
               | Mtinie wrote:
               | It's difficult for independent artists to live as
               | independent artists today, even without the specter of a
               | "trillion-dollar groundbreaking plagiarism machine"[0].
               | So far, we've still been producing original work,
               | primarily because it's what we do even when we're not
               | making money from it. It's a blessing and a curse.
               | 
               | This is not to dismiss the concern. I simply wanted to
               | state that artists will find ways to keep moving the
               | creative bar forward.
               | 
               | [0] I really like this turn of phrase, thank you for
               | sharing it.
        
             | brigadier132 wrote:
             | > extorting
             | 
             | That's not what extortion is. Stop abusing language.
        
           | overthehorizon wrote:
           | I create media for a living, painstakingly creating stuff
           | from scratch in 3D. This tool will not help me, it will help
           | clients avoid ever having to contract me. The main
           | beneficiaries of this are holders of capital
        
             | notimpotent wrote:
             | But doesn't this technology give you the same edge?
             | 
             | You can deliver more content, faster, cheaper.
        
             | MrNeon wrote:
             | This issue here is thinking you, holding the knowledge to
             | 3D model, are not also a holder of capital. Capital isn't
             | just money.
        
         | supriyo-biswas wrote:
         | People on HN like to split hairs and make muddled
         | juxtapositions about human rights and AI model capabilities.
         | But this is something that people and governments around the
         | world would have to reckon with very quickly, since the rate at
         | which generative AI technology is advancing, there could be
         | hundreds of millions of people who're unemployed and have no
         | way to find work.
         | 
         | The quickest way to address this would be an extremely high tax
         | rate on any generative AI model, say 500%, while the government
         | figures out what's the best way to sustain an economy (such as
         | UBI) with a diminishing set of consumers as more people are
         | pushed towards unemployment.
        
           | pstorm wrote:
           | 500%? So if the generative AI model created something worth
           | $1m, you tax it $5m? How do you tax a technology anyways?
        
             | cabalamat wrote:
             | I suspect what was meant is something like 500% VAT, where
             | if a generative AI charges a customer $6, then $5 goes to
             | the taxman and $1 to the AI company.
        
           | stale2002 wrote:
           | I can run these models on my home PC.
           | 
           | How are you going to stop me from doing that?
           | 
           | Even the free and open source stuff will destroy industries
           | and you can't confiscate everyone's consumer gamer PCs.
           | 
           | Taxing the big guys doesn't save creative industries. It's a
           | lost cause.
        
             | ndjshe3838 wrote:
             | Exactly, you can't put it back in the box
             | 
             | The only thing I can imagine is like limiting people's
             | compute power
             | 
             | But even then they'd just go do it in another country or
             | use an online service based in another country
        
             | supriyo-biswas wrote:
             | Taxes are meant to capture some of the profit that is made
             | by a business entity. You could use a local model, but if
             | you sell some kind of product or service, the tax would be
             | levied on you. Not declaring that properly, of course, is
             | tax evasion :)
        
               | stale2002 wrote:
               | Most productive work will use AI to facilitate that work
               | in some way. I'm already doing that with coding.
               | 
               | There isn't a way to "capture" the value from that.
               | 
               | Even if you aren't directly selling AI assets to someone
               | else, people simply using AI themselves will still
               | destroy industries.
               | 
               | Good luck confiscating everyone's graphics cards. The cat
               | is is out of the box already.
               | 
               | > the tax would be levied on you
               | 
               | No it wouldn't. AI is already everywhere. Its game over.
               | You aren't going to be able to track basically anyone who
               | is using local models or other AI.
        
               | BeFlatXIII wrote:
               | ...and how would such tax evasion be proven in a court of
               | law?
        
         | m_ke wrote:
         | There will just be 1000x more content, with most of it hyper
         | personalized and consumed by individual users instead of by
         | masses of people.
        
         | dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
         | I think there is 100% chance it will be regulated to address
         | some of the points you raised. Copyright being essentially
         | neutered won't work.
        
         | niam wrote:
         | I see the validity of this concern in the short term, but long
         | term I feel like this is a bit doomsday. I don't want anyone's
         | livelihood to get shafted, but realistically I see this as
         | lowering the barrier to creating videos / proofs of concept--
         | which is a good thing (with a lot of caveats and asterisks).
        
         | moralestapia wrote:
         | >Yeah, you just can't let all media, all the cost and hard work
         | of millions of photographers, animators, filmmakers, etc be
         | completely consumed and devalued by one company just because
         | it's a very cool technical trick.
         | 
         | Oh man, how I miss it when ice was hauled from the Arctic in
         | boats.
        
           | chasing wrote:
           | You recognize the difference, right? Modern freezers don't
           | rely on people shipping ice from the Arctic. Generative AI
           | does rely on people continuing to create media.
        
             | moralestapia wrote:
             | It doesn't anymore. It sucks, but that's what it is.
        
               | chasing wrote:
               | Where do you think the training data comes from?
        
               | moralestapia wrote:
               | _came from_
        
               | chasing wrote:
               | comes from
        
               | moralestapia wrote:
               | No, once the model is trained it doesn't need any new
               | media.
        
         | fardinahsan146 wrote:
         | Sorry no. If there was even the remotest possibility that
         | everyone could be brought to the table, none of these would
         | even exist.
         | 
         | Training a massive model like this is a risk, and no one is
         | going to take that risk without some reward. You can complain
         | OpenAI is going to too much of the value, but its value that
         | would have otherwise never existed. It's value.
        
         | airstrike wrote:
         | > Yeah, you just can't let
         | 
         | Who's "you"?
        
           | VoodooJuJu wrote:
           | The middle class.
           | 
           | Automate away the lower classes all you want, just don't
           | touch the white collar class, that's a heckin' nono.
        
         | powera wrote:
         | I am getting sick of these "people can't be allowed to make
         | their own nice things easily, because of a pugnacious (and very
         | online) interest group that wants to keep getting money" takes.
        
         | mythz wrote:
         | Typical argument against technological progress "We should ban
         | technology to stop it doing what humans can do in a fraction of
         | time and resources".
         | 
         | Can see this create an explosion of new Content from aspiring
         | Film, Story tellers and cut scenes from Game creators that
         | previously never would have the budget or capabilities to be
         | able to see their ideas through to creation.
        
           | wnc3141 wrote:
           | If we had a safety net where career progression and
           | time/money invested in training was unnecessary to sustain
           | life, then maybe. Until then it feels like a bit of allowing
           | a few people to plunder and own the collective output of
           | millions.
        
             | visarga wrote:
             | This moment seems like trade guilds revolting against free
             | craftsmen. What AI is essentially doing is learning skills
             | from people according to their works and then helping
             | everyone according to their needs. It's more rad than open
             | source.
             | 
             | This is not plunder, it is empowerment. Blocking generative
             | AI would be a huge power grab for copyright owners. They
             | want to claim ideas and styles, and all their possible
             | combinations.
             | 
             | Gen AI need only ensure it never reproduces a copyrighted
             | work verbatim. Culture doesn't work if we stop ideas from
             | moving freely.
        
               | karpour wrote:
               | Artists should be able to choose whether their work gets
               | used to train machine learning algorithms.
        
               | CaptainFever wrote:
               | This is a very vague statement that covers both opt-in
               | and opt-out.
        
               | wnc3141 wrote:
               | I agree that preventing technology from dispersing
               | generally prevents the creation of wealth. However, given
               | our current economic structure, the downside in
               | instability of a livelihood has dramatic effects on
               | swaths of people who were unlucky enough to be disrupted
               | -think of the dramatic costs of retraining, healthcare
               | access, the high costs of diminished earnings, inability
               | to accrue wealth and retire. Perhaps we could socialize
               | these costs, but we don't and are unlikely to do so.
               | 
               | Another issue to look at is the lack of ownership of the
               | tools of your trade. In a context where many use AI
               | models to competitively produce, hosts of AI models
               | essentially own the access to your trade - thereby able
               | to charge a toll, or privilege certain behaviors for any
               | who strive to make living with these tools. (of course
               | this is happening now with plenty of software products).
               | The ultimate trajectory of this is not democratization of
               | a toolset, but a transfer of wealth from labor to
               | capital. And keep in mind that the labor share of income
               | has been steadily declining for half a century.
               | 
               | The creation of wealth from AI ultimately depends on the
               | strength of democratic and pluralistic institutions that
               | safeguard ownership of your trade, democratized access to
               | capital, and safeguards of welfare in the environment of
               | creative destrcution. Otherwise you wind up with the
               | cotton gin.
        
             | ls612 wrote:
             | "Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made
             | a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first
             | place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad
             | move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans."
        
             | educaysean wrote:
             | We all stand on the shoulders of giants. Yes, I want
             | artists and other creators to be compensated fairly for any
             | work that they contribute into training datasets, but
             | outside of that there is no moral responsibility AI
             | creators should feel towards those whose potential careers
             | would be impacted.
        
               | chasing wrote:
               | > ...there is no moral responsibility AI creators should
               | feel...
               | 
               | Yeah, this is why "AI creators" shouldn't be the ones
               | unilaterally deciding how this all plays out.
        
               | stale2002 wrote:
               | They aren't. Every person is free to use AI or not.
               | 
               | Go blame your fellow consumers if you don't like the fact
               | that they prefer AI.
               | 
               | These are choices that everyone makes. AI companies alone
               | aren't forcing everyone to use their cool new tools.
               | Instead, thats a decision that 10s of millions of people
               | are making every day.
        
         | thomastjeffery wrote:
         | They shouldn't get _exclusive_ rights to ignore IP law.
         | Instead, we should _all_ get that right.
         | 
         | Copyright should have ended decades ago. It has accomplished
         | nothing but harm.
        
         | throw4847285 wrote:
         | This has been shared before, but:
         | https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FadzEwVWAAYEyRW?format=jpg&name=...
        
         | wnc3141 wrote:
         | Research on creativity and competition points to this.
         | Essentially, creativity occurs when there is some expectancy of
         | increasing competitiveness. However when the expectancy of
         | value capture from your effort becomes less clear, or
         | diminished, creativity stops altogether.
         | 
         | (as pointed out in the "Freakonomics" episode highlighting this
         | reaserch)
         | 
         | https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/102/3/583/96779...
         | 
         | https://freakonomics.com/podcast/can-a-i-take-a-joke/
        
         | jsemrau wrote:
         | Interestingly a lot of movies flopped in 2023 not because of
         | bad visuals, but because their writing was bad. Hence, I
         | believe the demise of the movie industry is overstated. I can
         | see completely new forms of entertainment coming out of this.
         | Probably Youtube will be the biggest winner as the social
         | network with the highest monetization and reach.
        
         | wewtyflakes wrote:
         | Does it not just shift where we (as people) perceive value? If
         | the cost of content drops to effectively zero, it seems
         | reasonable that we would not value it so highly. If so, it does
         | not mean that people do not value anything, but it may mean we
         | start associating value with new or different things. While
         | this may disrupt industries, I do not think we have an ethical
         | or legal duty to those industries to remain profitable.
        
           | bbor wrote:
           | GREAT response imo, I'll try to remember this concise
           | phrasing. I think this highlights that people aren't worried
           | so much about changes coming to them as consumers, and are
           | much more worried about what "industries no longer remaining
           | profitable" means for them as a laborer.
           | 
           | Means for us :(
        
         | visarga wrote:
         | > just because it's a very cool technical trick
         | 
         | That's one big trick, almost magical.
        
         | malermeister wrote:
         | The limitation is with capitalism, not with the technology.
         | It's time we move on to post-scarcity communism, Star Trek
         | style.
        
         | bbor wrote:
         | capture the value of every piece of media ever created
         | 
         | In what way does "I have a computer that can make movies" mean
         | "I have captured the value of every piece of media ever
         | created?" What do you mean by "value"? In my biased view, this
         | amazing new technology couldn't possibly be a better time to
         | fix our insane notions of property, intellectual or otherwise
        
         | ComplexSystems wrote:
         | I don't disagree with your basic sentiment, but it's worth
         | pointing out that, on some level, the * _entirety of artificial
         | intelligence*_ is not much more than a  "cool technical trick."
        
         | strangescript wrote:
         | Meanwhile, I am going to take my horse and buggy down to the
         | local blacksmith to get some work done...
        
         | seydor wrote:
         | They could pay people to capture it. They could buy out one of
         | the stock video companies. this is not important
        
         | Krasnol wrote:
         | Never ever will there be everyone at the table. This is not how
         | the Internet works. It is not how the world and humanity work.
         | If OpenAI doesn't do it, the next big player will. China will.
         | Maybe it'll soon not even need China because it'll be so easy
         | to deploy.
         | 
         | There is no stop now. It's too late for that. Time to think
         | about the full development and how we'll handle that. How we as
         | people will be able to exist next to it. What our purpose in
         | the world is supposed to be. What the purpose of "value" is.
         | What the purpose of "economy" or "the market" is.
         | 
         | Exiting times.
        
         | wilg wrote:
         | It doesn't really matter, because if this is possible then it
         | will not be exclusive to OpenAI for long. It's simply just
         | something that can exist. There will be open source versions of
         | everything lagging 1-2 years behind or something.
        
         | bsza wrote:
         | Do you feel the same about the hard work of knocker-uppers
         | having been devalued by the invention of the alarm clock? Or is
         | it just the (relatively) highly paid intellectual workers that
         | "cannot be allowed" to be replaced with machines?
        
         | bottlepalm wrote:
         | You can't regulate it because it will just be outsourced to
         | another country.
         | 
         | Nope, we are headed towards deflation. Families that need only
         | a single worker to support everyone, and even support extended
         | family, and less time working overall.
        
         | resolutebat wrote:
         | It's worth remembering that "intellectual property" is an
         | entirely artificial and fairly recent construct. Humanity did
         | fine for thousands of years without it, and I'm not going to
         | shed too many years if OpenAI blows it up.
         | 
         | https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
         | 
         | https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
        
         | vunderba wrote:
         | Are you against records? Because the technology to record songs
         | and play them back at your leisure killed an entire industry of
         | live performers / instrumentalists?
         | 
         | The call for live music _drastically shrank_ when it became
         | trivial for any business or residence to play music on command.
         | 
         | Are you against automatic language translation? I can
         | positively guarantee that the training data that they used to
         | be able to create significantly better translation models was
         | not authorized for that purpose.
         | 
         | The entire translator industry has been steadily shrinking ever
         | since the invention of automatic language translation.
         | 
         | Etc etc etc.
         | 
         | There's obviously two aspects of this complex social issue
         | right now.
         | 
         | 1. Whether or not the usage of publicly available media as
         | training data is legal/ethical.
         | 
         | 2. Whether or not the output of these types of generative
         | systems ( _even if_ they 're trained on "ethical" training
         | data) which may result in the displacement of many jobs is
         | legal/ethical.
         | 
         | I'm neither for nor against AI (LLM, diffusion, video, etc),
         | but if you are going to take a stance, then you have to be
         | consistent in your view.
         | 
         | You don't get to cherry pick - I don't want to see you using
         | chatGPT, copilot, stable diffusion, DALL-E, midjourney, sora,
         | etc.
        
           | chasing wrote:
           | It's weird that a call for generative AI to be more equitable
           | towards the people whose creative work powers it is being
           | interpreted as somehow being against tech, against AI, or
           | that I think technological advancement should never make jobs
           | obsolete.
        
       | dietmtnview wrote:
       | oh man, we're going to be in The Running Man really quick.
        
       | hansonkd wrote:
       | Countdown to when studios licensing this for "unlimited" episodes
       | of your favorite series.
       | 
       | There was Seinfeld "Nothing, Forever" AI parody, but once the
       | models improve enough and are cheap enough to deploy, studios
       | will license their content for real and just have endless
       | seasons.
       | 
       | Or even custom episodes. Imagine if every episode of a TV show
       | was unique to the viewer.
        
         | htrp wrote:
         | Speedrunning Black Mirror
        
         | mbil wrote:
         | I imagine it's not long before we see hyper-targeted
         | commercials where the actors look like us, live in our city,
         | etc.
        
           | hansonkd wrote:
           | Custom AI commercials would be very interesting. Instead of
           | seeing strangers enjoying the benefits of the product, it
           | shows you. A car commercial would show you driving, etc.
           | 
           | Commercials and TV episodes could have a basic "story arc"
           | and then completely customized to the viewer.
           | 
           | Think about the simpson's or something. Imagine that the
           | story of the episodes were kept, but you could swap in the
           | characters and locations. So for instance if you lived in
           | Nashville TN, all the simpson's episodes could be generated
           | to show the settings as Nashville instead of Springfield.
           | 
           | Then you could have the AI switch out the characters to be
           | people you want. Maybe you want to replace Lisa with an AI
           | Simpsons version of you. Mayor Quimby with Nashville's actual
           | mayor, etc.
        
             | internetter wrote:
             | Oh lord no thank you
        
             | tavavex wrote:
             | > Custom AI commercials would be very interesting. Instead
             | of seeing strangers enjoying the benefits of the product,
             | it shows you. A car commercial would show you driving, etc.
             | 
             | I think it'd kind of defeat the point - I can't imagine a
             | person that'd want their likenesses to be used to market to
             | them. It'd be a disaster. Setting swaps are more realistic,
             | though at the point where things get good enough for that
             | to be possible, we may just see completely on-demand newly
             | generated media instead of modifying what already exists.
        
             | altruios wrote:
             | If I saw myself onscreen telling myself to buy a product
             | I've never seen or used: I would not buy that product or
             | use that service. It feels violating to have your image
             | used against your best interests (of not being manipulated
             | to be capitalism's bitch) like that.
             | 
             | That is a hell-scape (to me).
             | 
             | Inserting yourself into shows... that's feels different,
             | but my gut tells me advertisers will corrupt that idea
             | quickly. Product placement...
        
               | elevatedastalt wrote:
               | With most things, Today's hell-scape is Tomorrow's Hippie
               | Idea, Day After Tomorrow's Normal, and Next Week's You-
               | Are-Cancelled-If-You-Don't
        
               | azan_ wrote:
               | Could you show any example of that pipeline? I'm trying
               | to think about technology not using which would result in
               | being cancelled, but can't come with anything
        
             | cdme wrote:
             | This sounds absolutely dystopian.
        
           | doabell wrote:
           | Wow, I would imagine this being very effective in election
           | campaigns (for better or for worse, probably for worse).
        
           | ex3ndr wrote:
           | Nothing stopped doing so before AI - just slam a photo of
           | your friends to the ad.
        
           | CSMastermind wrote:
           | There was some monitoring company that used to have creepy
           | web ads that would show the actual company you worked at in
           | the ads.
           | 
           | If anything it was a turn off and I was confused how they
           | knew where I worked.
        
             | easton wrote:
             | They were probably using the ASN for your IP, and your
             | company had its own.
             | 
             | I used to get ones that said "Comcast user you are
             | insecure" and stuff.
        
         | Zelphyr wrote:
         | I wonder if there is anything in the recent Hollywood strikes
         | that will prevent the studios from dong that?
        
           | nielsbot wrote:
           | I think that was one of the areas that SAG-AFTRA lost on.
           | 
           | Majority Report spoke to one of the negotiators and national
           | board member:
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E62k1ZsY1IU
        
         | minimaxir wrote:
         | One understated aspect of AI Seinfeld is that it took many
         | steps to differentiate it from the actual Seinfeld and create
         | its own identity, such as the 144p visual filter and the random
         | microwave. Those tweaks added to its charm.
         | 
         | If someone tried to do AI Seinfeld again in 2024, many would
         | criticze it for not being realistic enough now that the tools
         | to do so are now available.
        
           | suddenclarity wrote:
           | I assume you would still be able to do that, just better?
           | Like pixel art. Super Mario Bros. 3 look great despite being
           | 36 years old. Contrast this with 3D games for the original
           | PlayStation that have aged poorly.
        
             | jquery wrote:
             | The low poly Ps1 aesthetic is huge in indie gaming these
             | days
        
         | ren_engineer wrote:
         | I'm not sure there would be much demand for purely
         | custom/individualized episodes beyond the novelty and maybe for
         | fun with a group of friends. Most of the reason people watch TV
         | or movies is for the shared experience that you can discuss
         | with others. It could definitely drive down production costs
         | though, hopefully HBO uses it to eventually redo Game of
         | Thrones post season 4
        
           | hansonkd wrote:
           | Well there is always your AI girlfriend and AI friend group
           | with the AI generated podcast breaking down the episode. (jk,
           | sort of)
           | 
           | > Most of the reason people watch TV or movies is for the
           | shared experience that you can discuss with others
           | 
           | I wouldn't say that. Most of the reason people watch TV is to
           | kill time.
           | 
           | To be honest, I find my discussions with friends about TV
           | shows on the decline just because of the fact that everyone
           | is watching there own thing. So many shows and people watch
           | them at their own pace. so most of the discussions go like
           | this "Hey have you seen that new Netlix show X?" "No I
           | haven't, maybe I'll check it out". Or "Oh yeah, i saw that a
           | year ago, Its good but I don't remember the details".
           | 
           | Before Streaming when you had a set schedule for TV, it was
           | way easier to discuss things because people were forced to
           | watch programs on a certain day and there was more limited
           | content. This led to "water cooler" conversations about what
           | the previous nights show.
           | 
           | I bet if you graphed (discussions had about tv shows) /
           | (hours watched of tv shows) that graph would trend down.
           | 
           | Think about little kids. My niece watches cocomelon all day
           | long. She doesn't need to discuss it with anybody. She just
           | wants an unlimited stream.
        
             | JKCalhoun wrote:
             | > I wouldn't say that. Most of the reason people watch TV
             | is to kill time.
             | 
             | How annoying to see something amazing and then not be able
             | to find anyone who also experienced it that you can ...
             | what word mean's commiserate but in a positive way?
             | 
             | I'm thinking now about the astronauts that walked on the
             | Moon and had only the few others. I think one of the
             | astronauts bemoaned having gone to this amazing place, like
             | some kind of wild vacation, but not being able ever to
             | return.
        
               | awfulneutral wrote:
               | You can just talk to your AI companion about it. If you
               | involve another human there's always a chance somebody
               | might be slightly bored or inconvenienced, so we want to
               | avoid that.
        
             | nuancebydefault wrote:
             | Indeed. That is why in our family we watch broadcast or
             | timeshifted tv and no netflix. Still it is hard to find
             | other families like that so little tv stuff to talk about
             | at work during lunch.
        
             | jakub_g wrote:
             | Same about music. In good ol' days, one would meet a friend
             | to listen to cool new music together, share CDs with mp3s
             | etc
             | 
             | It's actually really weird. I wanted to buy my niece some
             | CDs for Christmas to discover 90s music, but kids don't
             | listen music from CDs anymore. They don't have devices
             | even. Should I buy her a Spotify gift card and send her
             | links to Spotify via Whatsapp? It's so strange.
        
         | mempko wrote:
         | That would not work because that's now how people work. People
         | watch/play media to connect to others. How can you talk about
         | anything to anyone or have any shared culture when other people
         | will never see what you see?
         | 
         | Movies, books, games, are a collective culture, not an
         | individualist one. I don't know about you, but when I like an
         | experience, I want to share it with others.
        
           | xanderlewis wrote:
           | To be blunt about it, I can't help but imagine that the
           | people who make such comments (and I've seen quite a few
           | recently) are just complete philistines. They're the same
           | people who can't draw, write, play, sing, design, or anything
           | else and yet think they know what's good.
           | 
           | It's almost as if they think the purpose of art or
           | entertainment is to stimulate some particular part of the
           | brain and everything else between that and the
           | screen/speakers/canvas/whatever is just an inconvenience that
           | ought to be dispensed with as soon as technology allows.
        
         | kirill5pol wrote:
         | If this sounds interesting I'd highly recommend this short
         | story by Ken Liu
         | 
         | https://future-sf.com/fiction/1700/
        
         | jpeter wrote:
         | I am thinking of Stargate SG-1 Season 11. And remaking Game of
         | Thrones after Season 5
        
         | slothtrop wrote:
         | Actors had a strike in part over this recently.
        
         | woah wrote:
         | You could have ChatGPT create unlimited simulated forum threads
         | about news articles, but here you are on Hacker News
        
           | xanderlewis wrote:
           | This is such a great example. Simple, but so telling.
        
             | apitman wrote:
             | And yet as time goes on we will become less and less
             | certain which comments are made by humans.
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | That's entirely orthogonal to the issue it was
               | addressing.
               | 
               | The point is that it _doesn 't matter_ how close the two
               | can become (indeed, we're already pretty much there);
               | people will always want to read stuff written by actual
               | people (or at least a thinking being) than something
               | purely generated by a model with no other grounding in
               | reality.
        
         | freediver wrote:
         | We haven't seen that happen for books. Perhaps humans crave
         | human spirit?
        
         | dukeyukey wrote:
         | > Imagine if every episode of a TV show was unique to the
         | viewer.
         | 
         | This is the bit I don't think will happen, at least in big
         | quantities. Half the fun of watching a popular series is being
         | able to discuss it with epople afterwards!
        
       | Janicc wrote:
       | I honestly expected video generation to get stuck at barely
       | consistent 5 second clips without much movement for the next few
       | years. This is the type of stuff I expected to maybe be possible
       | towards the end of the decade. Maybe we really are still at the
       | bottom of the S curve which is scary to think about.
        
       | EwanG wrote:
       | I have a book I've written (first three parts available free at
       | https://www.amazon.com/Summer-of-Wonders/dp/B0CV84D7GR). Is there
       | some way to feed this to the tool and get an animated version
       | out? Or this with some other tool(s)?
        
       | pknerd wrote:
       | So no APIs yet?
        
       | ilaksh wrote:
       | Holy %@$%! Abso%@#inglutely amazing! Also, now I see why we need
       | $7 trillion worth of GPUs.
        
       | uoaei wrote:
       | Visual sharpness at the expense of wider-scale coherence (see:
       | sliding/floating walking woman in Tokyo demo or tiny people next
       | to giant people in Lagos demo) seems to be a local optimum
       | consistently achieved by today's SOTA models in all domains.
       | 
       | This is neat and all but mostly just a toy. Everything I've seen
       | has me convinced either we are optimizing the wrong loss
       | functions or the architectures we have today are fundamentally
       | limited. This should be understood for what it is and not for
       | what people want it to be.
        
         | og_kalu wrote:
         | >Visual sharpness at the expense of wider-scale coherence (see:
         | sliding/floating walking woman in Tokyo demo or tiny people
         | next to giant people in Lagos demo)
         | 
         | Wider-Scale coherence is still much better than previous models
         | and has consistently been improving. It's not "visual sharpness
         | at the expense of coherence". At worst, the models are learning
         | wider-scale coherence slower.
         | 
         | Not everything is equally difficult to learn so it follows that
         | some aspects will lag behind others. If coherence weren't
         | improving you might have a point but it is so...
        
           | uoaei wrote:
           | Scaling laws operate in the limit but eventually practical
           | considerations dominate. There's a lot we haven't yet fully
           | appreciated about biological vision and cognition -- and
           | indeed, common sense as regards sensible video generation and
           | processing -- that have not made their way into this kind of
           | model. NeRFs are interesting and I hope to see more from that
           | side of things in the coming months and years.
        
             | og_kalu wrote:
             | Nature is great and all but looking to it as an example of
             | a lack of scaling and brute force is a bit ridiculous.
             | 
             | Your vision is hundreds of millions of years in the making.
        
               | uoaei wrote:
               | Yes and in that time we've learned some important lessons
               | that it would be unwise to ignore, e.g. comprehension of
               | 3D geometry despite 2D input visual data.
        
         | dsco wrote:
         | Did you just recreate the infamous DropBox comment?
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
        
           | uoaei wrote:
           | That seems like quite the reach, but we will see if it really
           | is just "all you need is scale".
        
         | superconduct123 wrote:
         | Seems like every big jump in improvement someone says "its just
         | a toy"
         | 
         | Its like we keep moving the bar
        
       | epberry wrote:
       | These looks fantastic. Very slight weirdness in some movement,
       | hands, etc. But the main thing that strikes me is the cinematic
       | tracking shots. I guess that's why they use "scenes". It doesn't
       | seem like a movie could be generated with this involving actors
       | talking.
        
       | mring33621 wrote:
       | I wanna see the rest of the knit hat spaceman movie!
        
       | Imnimo wrote:
       | https://openai.com/sora?video=big-sur
       | 
       | In this video, there's extremely consistent geometry as the
       | camera moves, but the texture of the trees/shrubs on the top of
       | the cliff on the left seems to remain very flat, reminiscent of
       | low-poly geometry in games.
       | 
       | I wonder if this is an artifact of the way videos are generated.
       | Is the model separating scene geometry from camera? Maybe some
       | sort of video-NeRF or Gaussian Splatting under the hood?
        
         | nuz wrote:
         | I saw similar artifacts in dalle-1 a lot (as if the image was
         | pasted onto geometry). Definitely wouldn't surprise me if they
         | use synthetic rasterized data to in the training, which could
         | totally create artifacts like this.
        
         | ethbr1 wrote:
         | Curious about what current SotA is on physics-infusing
         | generation. Anyone have paper links?
         | 
         | OpenAi has a few details:
         | 
         | >> _The current model has weaknesses. It may struggle with
         | accurately simulating the physics of a complex scene, and may
         | not understand specific instances of cause and effect. For
         | example, a person might take a bite out of a cookie, but
         | afterward, the cookie may not have a bite mark._
         | 
         | >> _Similar to GPT models, Sora uses a transformer
         | architecture, unlocking superior scaling performance._
         | 
         | >> _We represent videos and images as collections of smaller
         | units of data called patches, each of which is akin to a token
         | in GPT. By unifying how we represent data, we can train
         | diffusion transformers on a wider range of visual data than was
         | possible before, spanning different durations, resolutions and
         | aspect ratios._
         | 
         | >> _Sora builds on past research in DALL*E and GPT models. It
         | uses the recaptioning technique from DALL*E 3, which involves
         | generating highly descriptive captions for the visual training
         | data. As a result, the model is able to follow the user's text
         | instructions in the generated video more faithfully._
         | 
         | The implied facts that it understands physics of simple scenes
         | and any instances of cause and effect are impressive!
         | 
         | Although I assume that's been SotA-possible for awhile, and I
         | just hadn't heard?
        
           | msoad wrote:
           | On the announcement page, it specifically says Sora does not
           | understand physics
        
         | thomastjeffery wrote:
         | The model is essentially doing nothing but dreaming.
         | 
         | I suspect that anything that looks like familiar 3D-rendering
         | limitations is probably a result of the training dataset simply
         | containing a lot of actual 3D-rendered content.
         | 
         | We can't tell a model to dream everything _except_ extra
         | fingers, false perspective, and 3D-rendering compromises.
        
           | makin wrote:
           | Technically we can, that's what negative prompting[1] is
           | about. For whatever reason, OpenAI has never exposed this
           | capability in its image models, so it remains an open source
           | exclusive.
           | 
           | [1] https://stable-diffusion-art.com/how-to-use-negative-
           | prompts...
        
             | thomastjeffery wrote:
             | It's more complicated than that. Negative prompts are just
             | as limited as positive prompts.
        
         | burkaman wrote:
         | Maybe it was trained on a bunch of 3d Google Earth videos.
        
         | downWidOutaFite wrote:
         | Doesn't look flat to me.
         | 
         | Edit: Here[0] I highlighted a groove in the bushes moving with
         | perfect perspective
         | 
         | [0] https://ibb.co/Y7WFW39
        
           | internetter wrote:
           | Look in the top left corner, on the plane
        
         | cush wrote:
         | Wow, yeah I didn't notice it at first, but looking at the rocks
         | in the background is actually nauseating
        
         | cush wrote:
         | The water is on par with Avatar. Looks perfect
        
         | spyder wrote:
         | It's possible it was pre-trained on 3D renderings first,
         | because it's easy to get almost infinite synthetic data that
         | way, and after that they continued the training on real videos.
        
           | iandanforth wrote:
           | In the car driving on the mountain road video you can see
           | level-of-detail popping artifacts being reproduced, so I
           | think that's a fair guess.
        
         | jquery wrote:
         | It looks perfect to me. That's exactly how the area looks in
         | person.
        
         | montag wrote:
         | My vote is yes - some sort of intermediate representation is
         | involved. It just seems unbelievable that it's end-to-end with
         | 2D frames...
        
       | sidcool wrote:
       | Even the videos with some physics anomalies are quite good and
       | entertaining.
        
       | bluechair wrote:
       | The signs are non-sensical but this is probably expected.
        
         | criddell wrote:
         | Why is that so difficult for these things to get right?
        
       | gzer0 wrote:
       | Truly stunning. Waiting on the research paper, says will be
       | published (soon). Can't wait to read on the technical details.
        
       | Delumine wrote:
       | This is insane. Even though there are open-source models, I think
       | this is too dangerous to release to the public. If someone
       | would've uploaded that Tokyo video to youtube, and told me it was
       | a drone.. I would've believed them.
       | 
       | All "proof" we have can be contested or fabricated.
        
         | standardUser wrote:
         | The key word there is "someone". The only way forward is to
         | care a _lot_ more about our sources. Trust is about to become
         | really valuable.
        
           | Delumine wrote:
           | We give too much credit to ordinary people. All these
           | bleeding-edge advancements in AI, code, databases, and
           | technology are things a user on HNews would be aware of.
           | However, most peers in regular jobs, parents, children, et
           | al., would be susceptible to being fooled on social media.
           | They're not going to say... "hmm, let me fact-check and see
           | if the sources are correct and that this wasn't created by
           | AI."
           | 
           | They'll simply see an inflammatory tweet from their leader on
           | Twitter.
        
             | standardUser wrote:
             | They're not going to fact check, they're simply going to
             | think "huh, could be AI" and that will change the way we
             | absorb and process information. It already has. And when we
             | really need to know something and can't afford to be wrong,
             | we'll seek out high trust sources. Just like we do now, but
             | more so.
             | 
             | And of course some large cross section of people will
             | continue to be duped idiots.
        
               | Delumine wrote:
               | Most people don't even know what AI is. I've had to
               | educate my parents that the technology to not only clone
               | my voice, but my face.. is in existence. Pair that with
               | number spoofing, and you have a recipe for disaster to
               | scam people.
        
         | brigadier132 wrote:
         | > All "proof" we have can be contested or fabricated.
         | 
         | This has been the case for a while now already, it's better
         | that we just rip off the bandaid and everyone should become a
         | skeptic. Standards for evidence will need to rise.
        
           | bogwog wrote:
           | If you rip off the bandaid too soon, there will be blood.
        
         | thepasswordis wrote:
         | "Proof" for thousands of years was whatever was written down,
         | and that was even easier to forge.
         | 
         | There was a brief time (maybe 100 years at the most) where
         | photos and videos were practically proof of something
         | happening; that is coming to an end now, but that's just a
         | regression to the mean, not new territory.
        
           | ctoth wrote:
           | Hmmm. Actually I think I finally figured out why I dislike
           | this argument, so thank you.
           | 
           | The important number here isn't the total years something has
           | been true, when talking about something with sociocultural
           | momentum, like the expectation that a recording/video is
           | truthful.
           | 
           | Instead, the important number seems to me to be the total
           | number of lived human years where the thing has been true. In
           | the case of reliable recordings, the last hundred years with
           | billions of humans has a lot more cultural weight than the
           | thousands of preceding years by virtue of there having been
           | far more human years lived with than without the expectation.
        
           | nlpparty wrote:
           | Photos have never been a fundamental proof if the stakes are
           | high or you have an idling censorship institution. Soviets
           | (and maybe others, I just happen to know only about them )
           | successfully edited photos and then mass-reproduced them.
           | 
           | just some google link about the issue:
           | https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/stalin-photo-
           | manipulation-1...
        
         | mzs wrote:
         | I guess you can't read Japanese.
        
           | volkk wrote:
           | maybe for now, only a matter of time before stuff like this
           | is fixed
        
             | serf wrote:
             | the world is getting increasingly surveilled as well, I
             | guess the presumption is that eventually you'll just be
             | able to cross reference a 'verified' recording of the scene
             | against whatever media exists.
             | 
             | "We ran the vid against the nationally-ran Japanese
             | scanners, turns out that there are no streets that look
             | like this, nor individuals."
             | 
             | in other words I think that the sudden leap of usable AI
             | into real life is going to cause another similar leap
             | towards non-human verification of assets and media.
        
             | zogwarg wrote:
             | And I guess you haven't actually been to Tokyo, the number
             | of details which are subtly wrong is actually very high,
             | and it isn't limited to text, heck detecting those flaws
             | isn't even limited by knowledge of Japan:
             | 
             | - Uncanny texture and shape for the manhole cover
             | 
             | - Weirdly protruding yellow line in the middle of the road,
             | where it doesn't make sense - Weird double side-curb on the
             | right, which can't really be called steps.
             | 
             | - Very strange gait for the "protagonist", with the
             | occasional leg swap.
             | 
             | - Not quite sensical geometry for the crosswalks, some of
             | them leading nowhere (into the wet road, but not continuing
             | further)
             | 
             | - Weird glowy inside behind the columns on the right.
             | 
             | - What was previously a crosswalk, becoming wet "streaks"
             | on the road.
             | 
             | - No good reason for crosswalks being the thing visible in
             | the reflection of the sunglasses.
             | 
             | - Absurd crosswalk orientation at the end. (90 degrees off)
             | 
             | - Massive difference in lighting between the beginning of
             | the clip and the end, suggesting an impossible change of
             | day.
             | 
             | Nothing suggests to me that these are easy artifacts to
             | remove, given how the technology is described as
             | "denoising" changes between frames.
             | 
             | This is probably disruptive to some forms of video
             | production, but the high-end stuff I suspect will still use
             | filming mostly ground in truth, this could highly impact
             | how VFX and post-production is done, maybe.
        
               | padolsey wrote:
               | With everything we've seen in the last couple years, do
               | you sincerely believe that all of those points won't be
               | solved pretty soon? There are many intermediary models
               | that can be used to remove these kind of artefacts. Human
               | motion can be identified and run through a pose/control-
               | net filter, for example. If these generations are
               | effectively one-shot without subsequent domain-specific
               | adjustments, then we should expect for every single one
               | of your identified flaws to be remedied pretty soon.
        
         | a_wild_dandan wrote:
         | This changes nothing about "proof" (i.e. "evidence", here).
         | Authenticity is determined by trust in the source
         | institution(s), independent verification, chains of evidence,
         | etc. Belief is about _people_ , not _technology_. Always was,
         | always will be. Fraud is older than Photoshop, than the first
         | impersonation, than perhaps civilization. The sky is not
         | falling here. Always remember: fidelity and belief aren 't
         | synonyms.
        
           | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
           | Scale matters. This will allow unprecedented scale of
           | producing fabricated video. You're right about evidence, but
           | it doesn't need to hold up in court to do a lot of damage.
        
             | a_wild_dandan wrote:
             | No, it doesn't. You cannot scale your way into posting from
             | the official _New York Times_ account, or needing valid
             | government ID to comment, or whatever else contextually
             | suggests content legitimacy. Abusing scale is an ancient
             | exploit, with myriad antidotes. Ditto for producing
             | realistic fakes. Baddies combining the two isn 't new, or
             | cause for panic. We'll be fine.
        
               | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
               | Your entire argument that scale doesn't matter rests on
               | the notion that legitimacy needs to be signalled at all
               | to fool people. It doesn't. It just needs to appeal to
               | people's biases, create social chaos through word of
               | mouth. Also, all you need to get posted on the NY times
               | "account" is to fool some journalists. Scale can help
               | there too by creating so much misinformation it becomes
               | hard to find real information.
               | 
               | Scale definitely matters when that's what you're doing.
               | In fact I challenge you to find any physical or social
               | phenomenon where scale doesn't matter.
        
               | a_wild_dandan wrote:
               | If read aloud, no one could guess if your comment came
               | from 2024 or 2017. There is zero barrier between you and
               | using trusted sources, or endlessly consuming whatever
               | fantasy bullshit supports your biases. That has not, and
               | will not, change.
        
               | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
               | Look, you can repeat all you want that fraud has existed
               | before, but that's not an argument.
        
         | skepticATX wrote:
         | This is what lots of folks said about image generation. Which
         | is now in many ways "solved". And society has easily adapted to
         | it. The same will happen with video generation.
         | 
         | The reality is that people are a lot more resourceful / smarter
         | than a lot of us think. And the ones who aren't have been
         | fooled long before this tech came around.
        
           | diputsmonro wrote:
           | In what ways has image generation been solved? Prompt
           | blocking is about the only real effort I can think of, which
           | will mean nothing once open source models reach the same
           | fidelity.
        
         | m3kw9 wrote:
         | all the news you see has zero proof unless you see it, you just
         | have to have a sense if it's real based on a concensus or trust
         | worthness of a reporter/outlet.
         | 
         | The UA war is real, most likley, but i havent' seen it with my
         | own eyes, nor did most people, but maybe they have
         | relatives/friends saying it, and they are not likely to lie.
         | Stuff like that.
        
         | 1970-01-01 wrote:
         | Weird hallucination artifacts are still giving it all away.
         | Look closely at the train and viaduct rendering, and you can't
         | unsee windows morphing into each other.
        
         | losvedir wrote:
         | That's interesting. It made me think of a potential feature for
         | upcoming cameras that essentially cryptographically sign their
         | videos. If this became a real issue in the future, I could see
         | Apple introducing it in a new model. "Now you can show you
         | really _did_ take that trip to Paris. When you send a message
         | to a friend that contains a video that you shot on iPhone, they
         | will see it in a gold bubble. "
        
       | reducesuffering wrote:
       | Apple Vision Pro VR + unlimited, addicting... I mean, engaging
       | video feed into your eyes. The machines will keep you tube fed
       | and your bowels emptied. Woe to the early 21st century techno-
       | optimism. An alien intelligence rules the galaxy now. Welcome to
       | the simulation.
        
         | m3kw9 wrote:
         | will be super depressing once you take off the helmet and feel
         | the reality
        
         | superconduct123 wrote:
         | Imagine that but the loss function is measuring how "good" you
         | feel via brain signals
         | 
         | And the AI is optimizing the video feed purely for that
         | 
         | What would it generate?
        
       | jonplackett wrote:
       | No mention of how much they had to cherry pick right?
       | 
       | Interested to know what the success rate of such amazingmess
       | 
       | Pika have really impressive videos on their homepage that are
       | borderline impossible to make for myself.
        
         | aaroninsf wrote:
         | Totally agree, they can pay a lot of monkeys at typewriters,
         | 
         | but also? https://openai.com/sora?video=big-sur
         | 
         | made me literally say, out loud, "doesnt-matter-had-sex"
        
         | kredd wrote:
         | There's an ongoing thread on Twitter where Sam takes
         | suggestions from replies and shares the output. E.g.
         | https://x.com/sama/status/1758200420344955288?s=46&t=VQo1eLU...
        
           | slekker wrote:
           | Is there any alternative to Nitter?
        
             | burkaman wrote:
             | I think Nitter may still work if you self-host it, but
             | otherwise no, they have made it impossible to read without
             | an account.
        
           | usaar333 wrote:
           | Just from a quick scan, those are a lot worse than the ones
           | on the marketing page.
        
             | burkaman wrote:
             | Definitely a lot worse, but still an order of magnitude
             | better than every other attempt at generative video.
             | 
             | Even these may be cherry-picked though, he's only posted a
             | few and I'm sure he's gotten thousands of requests already.
        
             | jonplackett wrote:
             | holy crap. these are still amazing though.
             | 
             | I guess he might be generating 50 for each response and
             | posting the best, but that would seem deliberately
             | disingenuous which hasn't been openai's style.
             | 
             | even the worst is still orders of magnitude better than
             | anything else.
        
             | Kiro wrote:
             | I don't think they are a lot worse:
             | 
             | https://twitter.com/sama/status/1758218059716939853
             | 
             | https://twitter.com/sama/status/1758218820542763012
             | 
             | https://twitter.com/sama/status/1758219575882301608
             | 
             | https://twitter.com/sama/status/1758220311735181384
        
               | usaar333 wrote:
               | Significantly simpler scenery. I'd put only the first at
               | good complexity/quality.
               | 
               | 2nd is quite simple, but still suffers from your typical
               | lighting issues that plague image gen. (shadows are
               | significantly off)
               | 
               | 3rd has magically appearing spoon and isn't that complex.
               | 
               | 4th has a lot of prompt following issues
               | 
               | Some others feel quite off -- wizard, flying dragon, etc.
               | 
               | Still impressive of course, but not to the degree of what
               | I saw on the marketing page.
        
       | nuz wrote:
       | This is the second time OpenAI has released something _right_ at
       | the same time as google did (Gemini 1.5 Pro with 10M token
       | context length just now). Can 't just be a coincidence
        
         | Zelphyr wrote:
         | Not to mention, the Gemini 1.5 Pro announcement was almost all
         | technical talk whereas Sora is light on text and heavy on
         | demonstration.
         | 
         | I'm actually worried about the future of Google at this point.
         | They really seem to be struggling under their own weight.
        
           | a_vanderbilt wrote:
           | And the tech demo of GPT-4 was Sam interacting with the thing
           | and showing what it did well and where it faltered. We could
           | also access the thing soon after. Not so with Gemini. Hell
           | even Mixtral got me more excited.
        
         | nopinsight wrote:
         | What was released during the first time?
        
           | nuz wrote:
           | GPT-4 was released at the same time as Bard was announced I
           | believe (same day, same hour basically).
        
         | DylanBohlender wrote:
         | They absolutely sat on this and waited until a competitor
         | announced something, so they could suck the air out of the
         | room.
        
         | a_vanderbilt wrote:
         | I too noticed the coincidence. Not to be a conspiracy theorist
         | but part of me wonders if they share this information with each
         | other, or if OpenAI has advancements like these sitting in the
         | chamber and they are willing wait a few weeks before they
         | release them to maximize the impact of the timing.
        
       | fardinahsan146 wrote:
       | This is insane.
        
       | sabzetro wrote:
       | Can't wait until we can generate feature length films with a
       | prompt.
        
       | rambambram wrote:
       | I like how the dalmatian puppy moves like a cat.
        
       | sebnun wrote:
       | This is amazing. My first thought was about the potential for
       | abuse. Deepfakes will be more realistic than ever.
       | 
       | Also, nicely timed to overshadow the Google Gemini 1.5
       | announcement.
        
       | aantix wrote:
       | This the killer feature.
       | 
       | " Sora can also create multiple shots within a single generated
       | video that accurately persist characters and visual style."
       | 
       | To create a movie I need character visual consistency across
       | scenes.
       | 
       | Getting that right is the hardest part of all the existing
       | text->video tools out there.
        
       | dom96 wrote:
       | This is going to make the latest election really interesting (and
       | scary). Is anyone working to ensure a faked video of Biden that
       | looks plausible but is AI generated doesn't get significant
       | traction at a critical moment of the election?
        
         | airstrike wrote:
         | They've released it but not made it GA
        
         | duderific wrote:
         | That just doesn't seem like a plausible scenario to me.
         | Obviously, if such thing happened, Biden would have an alibi,
         | since it's known where he is at all times.
         | 
         | The people who already hate Biden, probably already think he's
         | doing some weird shady stuff, and would point to some
         | conspiracy. The people who like Biden, would accept the alibi.
         | 
         | Ultimately it wouldn't move the needle.
         | 
         | What is concerning, is the technology being used against a
         | regular person, who may not have an alibi.
        
         | superconduct123 wrote:
         | Media outlets are not going to just publish a random video with
         | sketchy provenance
        
       | drcwpl wrote:
       | Wow - "All videos on this page were generated directly by Sora
       | without modification."
       | 
       | The prompts - incredible and such quality - amazing. "Prompt: An
       | extreme close-up of an gray-haired man with a beard in his 60s,
       | he is deep in thought pondering the history of the universe as he
       | sits at a cafe in Paris, his eyes focus on people offscreen as
       | they walk as he sits mostly motionless, he is dressed in a wool
       | coat suit coat with a button-down shirt , he wears a brown beret
       | and glasses and has a very professorial appearance, and the end
       | he offers a subtle closed-mouth smile as if he found the answer
       | to the mystery of life, the lighting is very cinematic with the
       | golden light and the Parisian streets and city in the background,
       | depth of field, cinematic 35mm film."
        
       | bogwog wrote:
       | My AI idea: Civil war as a service (CWaaS)
       | 
       | Prompt: poll worker sneakily taking ballots labeled <INSERT
       | POLITICAL PARTY HERE>, and throwing them in the trash.
        
         | aaroninsf wrote:
         | Srsly.
         | 
         | We were not able to handle applications of preexisting tools
         | for steering public sentiment, limited to static text and
         | puppet account generation etc.
         | 
         | We are not handling the current generation of text and image
         | generation, or, deepfake style transfer, or, voice cloning, etc
         | ad nauseum.
         | 
         | We will not be able to handle this.
         | 
         | GOOD. TIMES. AHEAD.
         | 
         | but oh that Spatial Video NeRF generated pr0n with biometric
         | feedback autotuning and a million token memory for what. I.
         | like.
        
         | rightbyte wrote:
         | You realize how easy it is to do that with actors, right?
        
           | bogwog wrote:
           | It's not easy to do that with actors. It costs money, you
           | need to get props, find a location, schedule the shoot, etc.
           | People who lose their minds over petty grievances will _sober
           | up_ long before their video is produced.
           | 
           | With AI video generation you could produce multiple videos
           | per day, each one customized to be highly targeted for a
           | local market. Actors can be generated to represent a local
           | minority that is villainized by politicians and the clothing
           | and set customized for the locale.
           | 
           | Then you can automate posting it all over social media with
           | fake AI generated discussions calling for a revolution. Even
           | if the video gets flagged as fake, you can upload a thousand
           | more. As a bonus, add comments along the lines of "of course
           | THEY want you to think this is fake! Don't be fooled!" in
           | order to appeal to the paranoid lunatics who are most likely
           | to get the ball rolling.
           | 
           | In conclusion, I believe this is a solid startup idea. Thank
           | you all for coming.
        
           | hackerlight wrote:
           | At least 1000x more effort than typing a sentence into your
           | keyboard. Hence less likely to happen at the same frequency
           | and scale.
        
           | dorkwood wrote:
           | If it's so easy can you do it right now and show me the
           | result?
        
       | wouldbecouldbe wrote:
       | It looks beautiful, however I thought openai's mission was
       | creating AGI, not become a generative ai content supplier.
        
       | thepasswordis wrote:
       | OpenAI demonstrating the size of their moat. How many multi-
       | million-dollar funded startups did this just absolutely obsolete?
       | This is so, so, so much better than every other generative video
       | AI we've seen. Most of those were basically a still image with a
       | very slowly moving background. This is not that.
       | 
       | Sam is probably going to get his $7T if he keeps this up, and
       | when he does everybody else will be locked out forever.
       | 
       | I already know people who have basically opted out of life.
       | They're addicted to porn, addicted to podcasts where it's just
       | dudes chatting as if they're all hanging out together, and
       | addicted to instagram influencers.
       | 
       | 100% they would pay a lot of money to be able to hang out with
       | Joe Rogan, or some only fans person, and those pornstars or
       | podcasts hosts will never disagree with them, never get mad at
       | them, never get bored of them, never thing they're a loser, etc.
       | 
       | These videos are crazy. Highly suggest anybody who was playing
       | with Dall-E a couple of years ago, and being mindblown by "an
       | astronaut riding a horse in space" or whatever go back and look
       | at the images they were creating then, and compare that to this.
        
         | aantix wrote:
         | That's an interesting take - podcasts have become a replacement
         | for companionship and conversation.
        
           | testfrequency wrote:
           | It's also more fuel for brain rot and toxic personalities to
           | spread.
           | 
           | Most podcasters are narcissists
        
           | zamfi wrote:
           | Same with TV decades years ago, and radio before that. Just a
           | different generation.
        
           | ggregoire wrote:
           | That's what Twitch has become too. The most popular Twitch
           | streamers do nothing other than watching YouTube videos and
           | providing a fake relationship to their 50,000 live viewers.
        
           | throw4847285 wrote:
           | I don't buy that. People form fan communities around these
           | podcasts where they talk with real people about how much they
           | love listening to minor internet celebrities talk about
           | nothing. Why would they do that if the podcasts served that
           | purpose already?
           | 
           | I think rather than replace real human contact, the internet
           | has created an increased demand for it. People need every
           | moment of their lives to be filled with human speech or
           | images.
           | 
           | If I were to take off my "reasonable point" hat and put on my
           | "grandiose bullshit" hat I'd say that in the same way drugs
           | can artificially stimulate various "feel good" parts of your
           | brain, we have found a way to artificially stimulate the
           | "social animal" instinct until we're numb.
           | 
           | I think the real risk of this kind of AI is not that people
           | live in a world of fake videos of their favorite celebrities
           | talking to them, but that entire fake social media ecosystems
           | are created for each individual filled with the content they
           | want to see and fake people commenting on it so they can
           | argue with them about it.
           | 
           | Everybody needs to read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
           | by Philip K Dick.
        
             | throw4847285 wrote:
             | I may be having a hypomanic episode, but I've been thinking
             | about it more, and it seems like the entire Internet Age
             | has been an attempt to more precisely synthesize the
             | substance which sates human social needs artificially, and
             | that when they perfect it, it's all over.
        
               | awfulneutral wrote:
               | I've been thinking along those lines too, but more from
               | the angle that our goal is to eliminate any need to rely
               | on other humans for anything. We consider the need for
               | interacting with other humans as a burden and an
               | inconvenience, and we're going to get rid of it, at the
               | cost of all the indirect benefits we got from being
               | forced to do it.
        
           | nomel wrote:
           | It looks like some people are just learning that introverts
           | exist. Maybe there's something interesting about how more
           | common it is, but none of this is _new_.
        
         | zer0tonin wrote:
         | $7T is more than the budget of the US federal government, a
         | third of the NASDAQ, or 2,3x AAPL market cap. Sam getting his
         | 7T is not actually possible.
        
           | justrealist wrote:
           | > or 2300x AAPL market cap
           | 
           | It's only 2x the AAPL market cap.
        
             | zer0tonin wrote:
             | Oops, you're right on that one
        
             | guywithabowtie wrote:
             | It is a future projected value of a company. You can not
             | realize it. If you start selling stocks, they will drop at
             | a rapid pace. The entire stock market is in a way
             | projection of all future money the stocks will potentially
             | make for a long time. This is not liquid cash that can be
             | injected for any other purpose.
        
               | justrealist wrote:
               | Cool.
               | 
               | However, the OP was incorrect, it's 2x the AAPL market
               | cap.
        
           | synergy20 wrote:
           | AAPL is 2.8T now, how is it 2300x AAPL equals to 7T.
           | 
           | 7T is actually possible, but yes it's huge.
        
             | timdiggerm wrote:
             | In some places, usage of , and . within numbers is revered
             | from what you use
        
               | Ukv wrote:
               | The comment they're replying to initially said "2300x",
               | but was fixed after it was pointed out
               | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39386997).
               | 
               | IMO HN should have an edit indicator, at least after
               | others have already replied.
        
               | kilbuz wrote:
               | I can respect that.
        
             | dilyevsky wrote:
             | You're comparing cash flow to a static pile of money spent
             | over decades
        
           | m3kw9 wrote:
           | is 7T over a period of maybe 20 years. 1T is enough to buy
           | out most engineers from TSMC, or maybe even buy out TSMC
        
           | figassis wrote:
           | Have you considered that he might not actually expect $7T,
           | but this ask makes us think $1T is relatively reasonable and
           | so he gets it?
        
             | Xirgil wrote:
             | It's called anchoring
        
             | ed_balls wrote:
             | yes, he is expanding his own personal Overton window.
        
           | jstummbillig wrote:
           | The current world economy is $85T/anno
           | 
           | If (the best) AI adds 10% to that, $7T is not only possible
           | but a bargain.
        
             | schoen wrote:
             | Per annum (the preposition per governs the accusation case
             | rather than the ablative case).
        
             | cabalamat wrote:
             | $100T in 2022 according to the World Bank.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nom
             | i...
        
             | windexh8er wrote:
             | AI is more akin to a zero sum game. It won't add 10% to the
             | global economy (and if it did - it would be around "peak of
             | inflated expectations" and, likely, have a corollary slide
             | down into the "trough of disillusionment") because it will
             | both distract budgets and/or redirect budgets. That
             | hypothetical $7T is not coming out of thin air. I'd even go
             | as far to argue that this hype cycle will ultimately
             | detract from global economy over time as it's a significant
             | draw on resources that could have been / would have been
             | used on more productive efforts long term.
        
               | jstummbillig wrote:
               | This reads like it could be used to reason against the
               | industrial revolution or the first computer revolution or
               | any other significant advance in human history. Am I
               | missing something?
        
               | zer0tonin wrote:
               | James Watt didn't ask for 10% of the global GDP
        
               | educaysean wrote:
               | I assume his objection was regarding the AI being a
               | "zero-sum game", whatever that was supposed to convey
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | If he had, it would've been a bargain for the impact of
               | the industrial revolution.
               | 
               | Watt couldn't have asked, his engines specifically
               | weren't enough of a difference by themselves even though
               | the revolution as a whole was, and I strongly suspect
               | this is also going to be true for any single AI
               | developer; _however_ a $7T investment in _many unrelated
               | chip factories owned by different people and invested
               | over a decade_ , is something I can believe happening.
        
           | cabalamat wrote:
           | Or to put it another way, one month's worth of world GDP.
        
         | croes wrote:
         | He never mentioned $7T.
        
         | ren_engineer wrote:
         | seems like a significant chunk of the population may opt in to
         | the Matrix voluntarily.
         | 
         | on another note I find it funny they released this right after
         | Google announced their new model. Bad luck for Google or did
         | OpenAI just decide to move up their announcement date to steal
         | their thunder?
        
           | throwup238 wrote:
           | Only those that can afford it. The rest will be forced to
           | live in the real world, like 20th century peasants.
        
             | ren_engineer wrote:
             | actually the opposite imo, this stuff is the ultimate bread
             | and circus to distract poor people from worsening living
             | conditions. Much cheaper to provide VR goggles with AI
             | model access than housing and healthcare
        
               | throwup238 wrote:
               | As long as sex is the competition, I don't think that's
               | likely. Simulating orgasms will require the Apple
               | iPleasure Maxxx implant and expensive brain surgery &
               | recovery.
        
               | emmo wrote:
               | I'm not sure sex _is_ always going to be the competition.
               | More and more people are sexless (by choice or not).
               | 
               | There are already sex toys that you.. insert yourself in,
               | and then have scripts that sync up movements with VR
               | videos you are watching.
               | 
               | Crazy times coming in the next few decades.
        
           | IncreasePosts wrote:
           | If there is a high fidelity nice simulation of a pleasant
           | world, and the actual real world is a hellscape, what is the
           | problem with that?
           | 
           | If you were presented with the fact that whatever your life
           | is is just an illusion, and you are actually a starving slave
           | in North Korea, you would choose to "wake up"?
        
             | tmaly wrote:
             | This is like something out of Ready Player One
        
               | globular-toast wrote:
               | More like _The Matrix_ , which was originally referenced.
        
               | tmaly wrote:
               | The Matrix is like the next step. Ready Player One,
               | people were mostly on VR. Ready Player Two is where they
               | became sort of jacked in.
        
             | tomp wrote:
             | Why not just take cocaine to fake good feelings, instead of
             | seeking real-life experiences that generate good feelings?
             | 
             | (I mean, a lot of people do do that!)
        
               | thepasswordis wrote:
               | A lot more people would do that if cocaine was legal, I
               | suspect.
        
               | IncreasePosts wrote:
               | Well, there are huge downsides to using cocaine, whether
               | it is undesired health impacts, or addiction, or threat
               | of arrest, or mere cost, or even just social stigma.
               | 
               | I'm not sure there are downsides to living out your life
               | in a simulation while robots take care of your physical
               | form.
        
         | swalsh wrote:
         | "How many multi-million-dollar funded startups did this just
         | absolutely obsolete?"
         | 
         | The play with AI isn't to build the tools to help businesses
         | make money, the play is to directly build the businesses that
         | makes the money.
         | 
         | In practice this means, don't focus your business model on
         | building the AI to make text to video happen. Your business
         | model should be an AI studio, if the tech you need doesn't
         | exist, build it.... but if you get beat by someone with more
         | GPU's and more data, cool use the better models. Your business
         | model should focus on using the capability not building it.
         | It's proving quite hard to beat someone with more GPU's, more
         | data, more brain power.
        
           | loceng wrote:
           | Indeed, they're letting all of these businesses and
           | professionals subscribe to the gold mining equipment - but
           | retaining ownership of it, and they'll be able to undercut
           | those services and cut people off as they please.
        
             | shostack wrote:
             | This is effectively what Amazon does. Provide the
             | infrastructure to make money selling things, then let
             | merchants de-risk their R&D into what sells best and would
             | be most profitable, then sell their own version of it.
        
               | marvin wrote:
               | I don't see AWS fast-following the 1.5 million companies
               | that use AWS, not even the 0.1% most successful of them.
        
           | downWidOutaFite wrote:
           | But then you're stuck playing in the model owner's playground
           | and if you're too successful they can yank the rug from under
           | you and steal your business any time they want.
        
         | dheera wrote:
         | OpenAI's moat is (a) talent (b) access to compute (c) no fear
         | of using whatever data they can get.
         | 
         | On the other hand, I think these moats will be destroyed as
         | soon as anyone finds a drastically more efficient (compute- and
         | data-wise) way to train LLMs. Biology would suggest that it
         | doesn't take $100 million worth of GPUs and exaflops of compute
         | to achieve the intelligence of a human.
         | 
         | (Of course it is possible that at that point, OpenAI may then
         | be able to achieve something far superior to human
         | intelligence, but there is a LOT of $$$ out there that only
         | needs human levels of intelligence.)
        
           | golol wrote:
           | Biology literally took a planet sized genetic algorithm with
           | nanomachines a couple Billion years to get to this point.
        
           | Eisenstein wrote:
           | > Biology would suggest that it doesn't take $100 million
           | worth of GPUs and exaflops of compute to achieve the
           | intelligence of a human.
           | 
           | Biology suggests that a self-replicating machine can exist by
           | ingesting other machines, turning them into energy and then
           | using that energy to power themselves. Biology suggests that
           | these machines can be so small that we cannot even see them.
           | 
           | How close are we to making one of those?
        
             | PeterisP wrote:
             | I believe that synthetic biology had succeeded already a
             | few years ago in making artificial cells with a fully
             | synthetic genome designed by us with what is sufficient for
             | the cell to eat, grow and replicate, se we already can
             | design and make such 'machines'.
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | So make a biological AI then. What the parent was saying
               | is that 'biology can do it with organic materials, so we
               | should be able to do it with electronics".
        
               | PeterisP wrote:
               | There's nothing obviously wrong with assuming that
               | "biology can do it with organic materials, so we should
               | be able to do it with electronics" - while it's
               | theoretically possible that we'll eventually identify
               | some fundamental obstacle preventing that, as far as we
               | currently know, computation is universal and the only
               | thing that depends on the substrate is efficiency.
               | 
               | Since we have a much, much better industrial process for
               | manufacturing electronic components, why attempt to make
               | a biological AI if there's no current reason to believe
               | that it being biological is somehow necessary or even
               | beneficial?
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | I love it when people completely pivot what they say just
               | to keep arguing.
        
         | Alifatisk wrote:
         | We say 7T$ as if it's nothing, am I the only one shocked by the
         | sum we are talking about?
         | 
         | This is close to what BlackRock is managing!
        
           | ben_w wrote:
           | I'm fairly sure $7T is a speculation bubble, and that's going
           | to pop like all bubbles pop. It's the combined GDP of Japan
           | and Canada. It's too big _for an investment_.
           | 
           | It's _not_ necessarily too big for a valuation, as a
           | sufficiently capable AI is an economic power in its own
           | right: I previously guessed, and even despite its flaws would
           | continue to guess within the domain of software development
           | at least, that the initial ChatGPT model was about as
           | economically valuable to each user as an industrial placement
           | student, and when I was one of those I was earning about
           | PS1.7k /month when adjusted for inflation, US$2.1k at current
           | nominal exchange rates. 100 million users at that rate is
           | $2.52e+12/year in economic productivity, and that's with the
           | current chip supply and (my estimate of) the productivity of
           | a year-old model -- and everyone knows that this sector is
           | limited by the chips, and that $7T investment story is
           | supposed to be about improving the supply of those chips.
        
         | ericzawo wrote:
         | I hate that this is true.
        
         | cabalamat wrote:
         | > 100% they would pay a lot of money to be able to hang out
         | with Joe Rogan, or some only fans person, and those pornstars
         | or podcasts hosts will never disagree with them, never get mad
         | at them, never get bored of them, never thing they're a loser,
         | etc.
         | 
         | I think immersive games will also be a big application. Games
         | AI will also benefit from being more strategically intelligent
         | and from being able to negotiate, in a human-like fashion, with
         | human and other AI players. The latter will not only make games
         | better, it will also improve the intelligence of AIs.
        
           | downWidOutaFite wrote:
           | Yep, since at least World of Warcraft millions of people have
           | already "opted out of life" to live in game worlds.
           | 
           | The thing that "The Matrix" style plots get wrong is that the
           | machines don't need to coerce us into their virtual prisons,
           | we will submit willingly.
        
         | minimaxir wrote:
         | > OpenAI demonstrating the size of their moat. How many multi-
         | million-dollar funded startups did this just absolutely
         | obsolete?
         | 
         | For posterity since the term has been misused lately, having a
         | very good product isn't a moat in the business sense. There's
         | nothing stopping a competitor from creating a similar product
         | (even if it's difficult), and there's nothing currently
         | stopping OpenAI's users from switching from using Sora to a
         | sufficient competitor if it exists.
         | 
         | Sora is more akin to a company like Apple/Google a decade ago
         | using their vast resources to do what a third-party does, but
         | better (e.g. the Sherlocked incident:
         | https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-
         | co...).
        
           | coffeemug wrote:
           | Being (a) first and (b) good enough is a moat. Nothing
           | stopped people from switching from google to bing all these
           | years other than not having any reason to.
        
             | sdenton4 wrote:
             | Google wasn't the first, as all those altavista investors
             | will unhappily attest.
        
               | ericd wrote:
               | They were the first to "good enough", which is what the
               | GP is talking about.
        
           | thepasswordis wrote:
           | OpenAIs moat is their massive access to capital and compute.
           | That's what I mean.
        
             | minimaxir wrote:
             | Again, that's not a moat.
             | 
             | The original "We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI"
             | leaked memo from Google that memefied the term focuses
             | explicitly on the increasing ease of competitors
             | (especially open-source) entering the ecosystem:
             | https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat-and-
             | ne...
        
               | thepasswordis wrote:
               | First of all, the term moat comes from Warren Buffet, and
               | has to do with his investment strategy:
               | https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-explains-
               | moat-...
               | 
               | Second: Massive capital expenditure, specifically in this
               | case the huge cost of building or leasing enormous GPU
               | clusters, is *exactly* what he means by this.
        
               | rvnx wrote:
               | Exactly, to create larger and better performing models,
               | there is no lack of ideas or techniques. The real problem
               | is to have the GPUs for that.
        
               | declaredapple wrote:
               | I disagree mainly because google, aws, apple, etc. All
               | have similar, or even more access to GPU compute and
               | funding for it, and in google's case also has been one of
               | the main research contributers, yet they still struggle
               | to touch GPT4's performance in practice.
               | 
               | If it was as simple as dropping 10's millions on compute
               | they could do that, yet google's bard/gemini have been a
               | year behind GPT4's performance.
               | 
               | That said I do agree that it's a moat for the startups
               | like stability/mistral, etc. They also have access to
               | $/compute, albiet a lot less. And you can see this in
               | their research, as they've been focused on methods to
               | lower the training/inference costs.
               | 
               | *I'm measuring performance by the chatbot arena's elo
               | system and r/locallama
        
               | declaredapple wrote:
               | > What we're trying to find is a business that, for one
               | reason or another -- it can be because it's the low-cost
               | producer in some area, it can be because it has a natural
               | franchise because of surface capabilities, it could be
               | because of its position in the consumers' mind, it can be
               | because of a technological advantage, or any kind of
               | reason at all, that it has this moat around it.
               | 
               | He didn't seem to have specific definition at all really.
               | 
               | I think most people attribute it to a "secret sauce
               | technology" in the case of OpenAI, I'm not sure if
               | "finances to lease a huge cluster of GPUs" makes sense
               | here because the main competitors (Google, AWS, Apple,
               | etc) also have access to insane compute as well yet have
               | struggled to get close to GPT4's performance in practice.
               | 
               | That said I do agree that it's a moat for the startups
               | like stability/mistral, etc. They also have access to
               | $/compute, albiet a lot less. And you can see this in
               | their research, as they've been focused on methods to
               | lower the training/inference costs.
        
               | Workaccount2 wrote:
               | I believe that Google actually has more AI compute at
               | their disposal than OpenAI. They have been building out
               | their TPU infrastructure for a while now. OpenAI is
               | reliant on Azure obtaining nvidia GPUs.
               | 
               | So at least in the battle between OpenAI and Google,
               | their moat right now are their models.
        
               | ericd wrote:
               | Moats have never been uncrossable, they just make it
               | harder to get to the walls.
        
               | frabcus wrote:
               | I agree it isn't a moat in the business sense - that
               | would be some kind of lock in network effect.
               | 
               | e.g. If ChatGPT being popular gives OpenAI enough extra
               | training data, they're locked in forever having the best
               | model, and it is impossible for anyone - even with
               | unlimited money, and the same technology - to beat them.
               | Because they don't have that critical data.
               | 
               | Yes, Google had the best search product, and got a huge
               | market share simply by being better. Their moat however
               | is that their search rankings are based off the click
               | data of which search results people use and cause them to
               | stop their search because they've found a solution.
               | 
               | They also have a moat to do with advertising pricing,
               | based on volume of advertising customers.
               | 
               | Bing spend a lot of capital, and had the tech ability,
               | but those two moats blocked them gaining more than a tiny
               | market share.
               | 
               | In this case, maybe OpenAI will have a video business
               | moat, maybe they don't...
        
             | PunchTornado wrote:
             | Google, Microsoft and Facebook have capital and compute.
             | That is not an OpenAI moat.
             | 
             | Facebook has Moat because of their social network. It is
             | very hard to switch to another network. Google with search
             | has no moat because it is easy to switch to a new search
             | engine. OpenAI has no moat because it is easy to switch to
             | a new AI chat once a better product becomes available. AWS
             | has moat because it is hard to switch cloud providers.
             | Apple has moat because people want to buy apple products.
             | etc.
             | 
             | A moat can be seen where even if you have a worse product
             | than the competition, or users hate you, they still use
             | your products because the cost to switch is immense.
        
           | neosat wrote:
           | "having a very good product isn't a moat"
           | 
           | It definitely is. Having the best product and being able to
           | maintain that best-in-class product status over time through
           | a firm's 'internal capabilities' is very much _a_ moat and a
           | strong one at that. A moat is the business strategy sense is
           | anything that enables a firm to maintain competitive
           | advantage. Having the best product in a category, and being
           | able to maintain that over releases is a strong competitive
           | advantage (especially when there is high willingness to pay
           | or price is a strong competitive dimension compared to the
           | value created).
        
             | cma wrote:
             | That's not a real moat except in one sense: if it is really
             | expensive to get to the level to compete, and you know a
             | competitive market would bring margins near zero, then no
             | competitor may actually step up. We see this in off-patent
             | drugs, where it may have 200X margins but no competitor
             | will go through the FDA manufacturing reapproval process
             | because they won't actually get those margins if they begin
             | competing on price, and then the sunk cost of getting to
             | the competitive level isn't worth anything for them.
             | 
             | I think OpenAI's big moats are in userbase feedback and
             | just proprietary trade knowledge after they stopped sharing
             | model details. They may have made some exclusive data
             | source deals with book/textbook and other publishers,
             | though it isn't clear a license is actually needed for that
             | until things work through the courts.
        
               | ij09j901023123 wrote:
               | Nah, this is gonna be the next big thing since the
               | Iphone. You're gonna see Sam surpass Elon in the next
               | decade
        
           | tomp wrote:
           | There is nothing stopping Wolkswagen from creating a product
           | similar to Tesla.
           | 
           | There is nothing stoping Microsoft from creating a search
           | engine as good as Google's.
           | 
           | There is nothing stopping Facebook from creating an iPhone
           | alternative, after all it's just engineering!
           | 
           | There is nothing stopping Google from beating GPT-4.
           | 
           | Shall I go on?
        
             | jstummbillig wrote:
             | To what end?
             | 
             | The point is that "moat" gets conflated with just being
             | ahead in the game. I don't find it a super interesting
             | point of contention, but there is a distinction alright.
        
           | TulliusCicero wrote:
           | Having a very good product can be a moat if it takes enormous
           | resources and skill to create said product.
        
           | janalsncm wrote:
           | > There's nothing stopping a competitor from creating a
           | similar product
           | 
           | This is like saying there's nothing stopping a competitor
           | from launching reusable rockets into space. Of course there
           | isn't, but it's hard and won't happen for the foreseeable
           | future.
           | 
           | Similarly with a physical moat, it's not impossible to cross,
           | but it's hard to do.
        
             | kortilla wrote:
             | It's not the same because there is basically no cost to
             | trying an OpenAI competitor. Betting your payload on an up
             | and coming rocket company is a major business risk.
        
         | superjared wrote:
         | > 100% they would pay a lot of money to be able to hang out
         | with Joe Rogan, or some only fans person, and those pornstars
         | or podcasts hosts will never disagree with them, never get mad
         | at them, never get bored of them, never thing they're a loser,
         | etc.
         | 
         | This is the stuff of Brave New World. It's happening to us in
         | real time.
        
         | tmaly wrote:
         | Even with 7 trillion, he is still going to need a national grid
         | that can supply the power for the compute.
         | 
         | There is a lot that has to planned and put in place now to get
         | there.
         | 
         | As for people that have opted out of life. We would have a
         | better world if we started encouraging more dreamers/doers like
         | out of the movie Tomorrowland.
        
         | carbine wrote:
         | I agree with much of what you say, but I'm not sure the
         | dystopian conclusion is the main one I'd draw.
         | 
         | Improving your ability to connect with and enjoy/learn from
         | people all around the world is one of the main value props of
         | the internet, and tech like this just deepens that potential.
         | Will some people take this to an unhealthy degree that pulls
         | them too far out of reality? Yes. But others will use it to
         | level up their abilities, enrich their lives, create beautiful
         | things, and reduce loneliness.
        
         | zitterbewegung wrote:
         | Looks like they have made large progress in hand generation.
         | They still look like claws a bit but you didn't have to add a
         | workaround for the query to render correctly and I had to zoom
         | in to verify . When I was watching it the first time I didn't
         | even notice hand issues.
        
         | advael wrote:
         | I think there are people for whom the fundamental assumption
         | that someone will want "more" of stuff they already like does
         | not hold, and that while those people are a minority, recent
         | developments in the media landscape toward a constant stream of
         | increasingly similarity-curated media has caused them to
         | increasingly disengage from media consumption
         | 
         | That said, those people are by definition less relevant to
         | internet consumption metrics
        
         | jijijijij wrote:
         | I predict, this "AI" content generation will eat itself at
         | last. It will outcompete the low-effort "content" industry as
         | is. Then inevitably completely devalue this sort of "product".
         | Because it will never get to 100% of the real thing, the "AI"
         | content craze will ultimately implode.
         | 
         | I bet we won't get AGI as a progression of this very
         | technology. The impression of "usefulness" will end when "AI"
         | is starting to drink its own Koolaid on a large scale (copilot
         | lol), and when everyone starts using it as super inefficient
         | business interface. Overfitted mediocre mediocrity, on
         | steroids.
         | 
         | Hopefully, this sobriety happens before the economy collapses,
         | as a consequence of all dem bullshit jobs cleansed.
        
           | visarga wrote:
           | Funny you chose the day of a huge leap in generative video to
           | proclaim generative model limitations.
        
             | jijijijij wrote:
             | I know, right? Incidentally, even in the same HN thread,
             | too!
        
           | neilk wrote:
           | I think this analysis is flawed. New technologies are usually
           | bad at substituting for things that already exist. It's 100%
           | true this will not substitute for the existing genre of film
           | and video.
           | 
           | New technologies change the economics of how we satisfy our
           | needs.
           | 
           | When search engines became good, many pundits confidently
           | predicted Google would never replace librarians or libraries.
           | It didn't. It shifted our relationship to knowledge; instead
           | of having to employ an expert in looking things up, we all
           | had to become experts at sifting through a flood of info.
           | 
           | When the cost of producing art-directed and realistic video
           | goes to zero it's hard to predict what's going to happen.
           | Obviously the era of video = veracity is now over. And you
           | can get the equivalent of Martin Scorsese and a million
           | dollar budget to do the video instructions for a hair dryer.
           | Instead of hunting for a gif to express how you feel,
           | captured from an existing TV show or something, you could
           | create a scene on the fly and attach it to a text message. Or
           | maybe you dispense with text messages altogether. Maybe text
           | is only for talking to computers now.
           | 
           | My personal prediction is that the value of a degree in art
           | history is going to go way, way up, because they'll be the
           | best prompt engineers. And just like desktop publishing
           | spawned legions of amateur typesetters, it will create lots
           | of lore among amateur video creators.
        
             | jijijijij wrote:
             | I didn't analyze anything.
             | 
             | I haven't seen a lot of use cases outside of productions
             | and businesses, which shouldn't exist in the first place
             | (at least to this extent).
             | 
             | Some of our "needs" are flawed, since "content" speaks to
             | evolutionary relicts developed in times of scarcity and
             | life in small groups. In the unbounded production of "AI",
             | there is no way to keep up the sense of _newness_ of input
             | indefinitely. I am already fatigued by  "AI" """art""". It
             | has no real relevancy. You can't trust any of it.
             | 
             | Every medium where "AI" content becomes prevalent, will
             | lose it's appeal. E.g. if I get the impression a
             | significant proportion of comments here were "AI"
             | generated, I will leave HN. Thing is, all these open
             | platforms can't prevent "AI" spam. So they will die. Look
             | at the frontpage of Reddit... it's _almost all_ reposts, by
             | karma farming bots. Youtube  "AI" spam already drowning
             | real content. This is what's going to happen to everything.
             | User content will die. "Content" will die. The web will
             | die. You won't even try, because of "AI" generated fatigue.
             | 
             | > My personal prediction is that the value of a degree in
             | art history is going to go way, way up, because they'll be
             | the best prompt engineers.
             | 
             | Lol. Yeah, "best prompt engineer" in the infinitely
             | abundant production economy...
             | 
             | You people really need to iterate the world you are
             | imagining a few times more and maybe think about some
             | fundamentals a bit.
             | 
             |  _If_ I am wrong, life will be hell.
        
               | theshackleford wrote:
               | > I am already fatigued by "AI" """art""".
               | 
               | "I'm bored of it, everyone must felt the same way as me."
               | 
               | Ok
        
               | darkwater wrote:
               | At least in the HN bubble, you can see a lot of similar
               | comments in every blog post featuring (useless?) AI
               | generated images.
        
           | zuminator wrote:
           | Do people care about 100% of the real thing though? Phone
           | photos are oversaturated and over-sharpened. TikTok and other
           | social media videos are more often then not run through
           | filters giving their creators impossibly smooth skin and slim
           | waists along with other effects not intended to look in any
           | way realistic. Almost every major motion picture has tons of
           | visual effects that defy physical reality. Nature
           | documentaries have for decades faked or sweetened their sound
           | production, staged their encounters with wildlife, etc.
           | 
           | People are more concerned about being stimulated than they
           | are about verisimilitude.
        
             | jes5199 wrote:
             | perhaps film photos are undersaturated and blurry
        
         | macrolime wrote:
         | >100% they would pay a lot of money to be able to hang out with
         | Joe Rogan, or some only fans person, and those pornstars or
         | podcasts hosts will never disagree with them, never get mad at
         | them, never get bored of them, never thing they're a loser,
         | etc.
         | 
         | All of these things are against the terms of service and
         | attempting them may result in a ban.
        
           | resolutebat wrote:
           | There are no terms of service for the open-source clone of
           | this that we'll have in 6 months.
        
             | raydev wrote:
             | Is there an open-source GPT4 equivalent right now? Doesn't
             | seem like anything has taken off and gotten rave reviews on
             | the level of OpenAI's offering yet.
        
               | resolutebat wrote:
               | Equivalent, no. Close enough for many uses, sure, and
               | it's getting better all the time.
        
         | treprinum wrote:
         | It's going to take a while to make this realtime as you
         | suggest. The lower the latency, the more $$$ it costs
         | (exponentially).
        
         | karmasimida wrote:
         | This is very impressive
         | 
         | But VFX isn't that big of a market by itself: Global visual
         | effects (VFX) market size was US$ 10.0 Billion in 2023
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | > Sam is probably going to get his $7T if he keeps this up, and
         | when he does everybody else will be locked out forever.
         | 
         | I would be extremely surprised if he could get past the market
         | cap of all current corporations as an investment. That doesn't
         | mean "no, never"[0], but I would be extremely surprised.
         | 
         | $7T in one go would be 6.7% of global GDP, and is approximately
         | the combined GDP of Japan and Canada.
         | 
         | > These videos are crazy. Highly suggest anybody who was
         | playing with Dall-E a couple of years ago, and being mindblown
         | by "an astronaut riding a horse in space" or whatever go back
         | and look at the images they were creating then, and compare
         | that to this.
         | 
         | Indeed, though I will moderate that by analogy: it's been just
         | over 30 years since DOOM was released, and that was followed by
         | a large number of breathless announcements about how each game
         | had "amazing photorealistic graphics that beat everything else"
         | while forgetting that the same people had said the same things
         | about all the other games released since DOOM.
         | 
         | Don't get me wrong: these clips are amazing. They may not be
         | perfect, but it took me a few loops to notice the errors.
         | 
         | I'm sure there are people with better eyes for details than me,
         | who will spot more errors, spot them sooner, and keep noticing
         | them long after GenAI seems perfect to me.
         | 
         | But I also expect that, just as 3D games' journalism spent a
         | long time convinced the products were perfect when they
         | weren't, so too will GenAI journalism spend a long time
         | convinced the products are perfect before they actually are.
         | 
         | [0] a sufficiently capable AI _is an economic power in its own
         | right_. I previously guessed, and even with it 's flaws would
         | continue to guess, that the initial ChatGPT model was about as
         | economically valuable to each user as an industrial placement
         | student, and when I was one of those I was earning PS1k/month
         | (about PS1.7k/month when adjusted for inflation).
        
           | gwern wrote:
           | Yes, the 'special effects' effect will kick in. Within a year
           | or so, you'll spot this easily, quite aside from the more
           | obvious issues. (That Landrover captioned 'DANDOVER' - is
           | this _still_ using BPEs?!)
           | 
           | Aside from visual plausibility, there's also the issue of
           | physics: one of the things you would like to use video models
           | for is understanding real-world physics and cause-and-effect
           | for planning or learning _in silico_. Something may _look_
           | good but get key physics wrong and be useless for, say,
           | robotics.
        
         | patrickwalton wrote:
         | This comment just hit the charts of the black mirror scoreboard
        
         | t0lo wrote:
         | it wouldn't be too difficult to make a tiktok like app that
         | created tailored prompts for sora based on the user and
         | tracking data. Question is whether it is profitable
         | 
         | Hopefully, the line between the real world and virtual world
         | gets stronger once again.
        
       | IceHegel wrote:
       | Those samples are incredibly impressive. It blows RunwayML out of
       | the water.
       | 
       | As a layman watching the space, I didn't expect this level of
       | quality for two or three more years. Pretty blown away, the
       | puppies in the snow were really impressive.
        
         | m3kw9 wrote:
         | i'm not surprised given what was there before, the stills from
         | stability was really good, and it's "just" generating new
         | frames.
        
           | Xirgil wrote:
           | Maintaining continuity of appearance, motion, etc does not
           | seem like a "just" to me
        
       | drcongo wrote:
       | This is actually mind-blowing.
        
       | smusamashah wrote:
       | Did anyone else feel motion sickness or nausea watching some of
       | these videos? In some of the videos with some panning or rotating
       | motion, i felt some nausea like sickness effect. I guess its
       | because some details were changing while in motion and I was
       | unable to keep track or focus anything in particular.
       | 
       | Effect was stronger in some videos.
        
         | _bramses wrote:
         | I do. My hypothesis is that there isn't really good bokeh yet
         | in the videos, and our brains get motion sick trying to decide
         | what to focus on. I.e. _too much_ movement and *too much
         | detail* spread out throughout the frame. Add motion to that and
         | you have a recipe for nausea (at least for now)
        
           | throwanem wrote:
           | You can shoot with high depth of field and not cause motion
           | sickness. Aerial videography does that every day, and it's no
           | more difficult in general to parse than looking out an
           | airliner window or at a distant horizon would be.
           | 
           | I suspect GP is closer to on the money here, in suspecting
           | the issue lies with a semblance of movement that _isn 't_
           | like what we see when we look at something a long way away.
           | 
           | I didn't notice such an effect myself, but I also haven't yet
           | inspected the videos in much detail, so I doubt I'd have
           | noticed it in any case.
        
         | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
         | I think part of it might be the slow motion / high frame rate
         | effect. I get this too sometimes with the Apple TV backgrounds.
        
         | charlotte-fyi wrote:
         | Yeah, these all made me feel incredibly nauseous. I was trying
         | to figure out what aspect of the motion was triggering this
         | (bad parallax?) but couldn't. The results are impressive but
         | it's still amazing to me how little defects like this can
         | trigger our sense of not just uncanniness but actual sickness.
        
         | hbn wrote:
         | I think I feel a bit of queasiness but more from the fact that
         | I'm looking at what I recognize as actual humans, and I'm
         | making judgements about what kinds of people they are as I do
         | with any other human, but it's actually not a human. It's not a
         | person that exists.
        
         | timeon wrote:
         | Perfect fit for VR.
        
         | EMBSee wrote:
         | Yes, I felt seriously nauseous. I feel like I just took off
         | early gen VR goggles. Still feeling gross after 30 minutes.
        
       | DeathArrow wrote:
       | Goodbye, Hollywood!
        
       | idiliv wrote:
       | People here seem mostly impressed by the high resolution of these
       | examples.
       | 
       | Based on my experience doing research on Stable Diffusion,
       | scaling up the resolution is the conceptually easy part that only
       | requires larger models and more high-resolution training data.
       | 
       | The hard part is semantic alignment with the prompt. Attempts to
       | scale Stable Diffusion, like SDXL, have resulted only in
       | marginally better prompt understanding (likely due to the
       | continued reliance on CLIP prompt embeddings).
       | 
       | So, the key question here is how well Sora does prompt alignment.
        
         | golol wrote:
         | The real advancement is the consistency of character, scene,
         | and movement!
        
         | kolja005 wrote:
         | There needs to be an updated CLIP-like model in the open-source
         | community. The model is almost three years old now and is still
         | the backbone of a lot of multimodal models. It's not a sexy
         | problem to take on since it isn't especially useful in and of
         | itself, but so many downstream foundation models (LLaVA, etc.)
         | would benefit immensely from it. Is there anything out there
         | that I'm just not aware of, other than SigLIP?
        
         | nimbleal wrote:
         | I agree.
         | 
         | I think one part of the problem is using English (or whatever
         | natural language) for the prompts/training. Too much inherent
         | ambiguity. I'm interested to see what tools (like control nets
         | with SD) are developed to overcome this.
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | It really makes me wonder if something like this is running
       | inside my head.
       | 
       | The prompt tho. Probably not text. Probably a stream of vibes or
       | something.
        
         | ta8645 wrote:
         | You're lucky if so. I have something closer to pong running
         | inside my head.
        
       | ummonk wrote:
       | Looked at the first clip and immediately noticed the woman's feet
       | swap at ~15 seconds in. My eyes were drawn to the feet because of
       | the extreme supination in her steps.
       | 
       | Looks like a dramatic improvement in video generation but still a
       | miss in terms of realism unless one can apply pose control to the
       | generated videos.
        
       | tzm wrote:
       | "so far ahead" "leaps and bounds beyond anything out there" "This
       | is insane"
       | 
       | Let's temper the emotions for a second. Sora is great, but it's
       | not ready for prime time. Many people are working on this problem
       | that haven't shared their results yet. The speed of refinement is
       | what's more interesting to me.
        
       | kevingadd wrote:
       | It's interesting how a lot of the higher frequency detail is
       | obviously quantized. The motion of humans in the drone shots for
       | example is very 'low frequency' or 'low framerate', and things
       | like flowing ocean water also appears to be quantized. I assume
       | this is because of the internal precision of these models not
       | being very high?
        
       | ugh123 wrote:
       | Imagine a movie script, but with more detail of the scenes and
       | actors, plugged into this.
       | 
       | The killer app for this is being able to give a prompt of a
       | detailed description of a scene, with actor movements and all
       | detail of environment, structure, furniture, etc. Add to that
       | camera views/angles/movement specified in the prompt along with
       | text for actors.
        
         | PepGuardiola wrote:
         | In the future, you won't need to do any of that. Your own AI
         | will generate a movie for you and ask you if you feel like
         | watching a movie. You will love it. Because it will know your
         | taste, your hobbies, your friends, ads, chat history, website
         | you visited, ..everything.
        
           | ugh123 wrote:
           | I am a huge proponent for AI, especially in film making. But
           | I hope that real people have the opportunity to write, act,
           | and direct themselves, or with a small group of semi-
           | professionals or even amateurs, their own blockbuster big-
           | budget-looking movies.
        
       | jk_tech wrote:
       | This is bananas. This is ahead of anything else I've seen. The
       | entire stock footage industry may be shut down over night because
       | of something like this.
       | 
       | And it is still not perfect. Looking at the example of the
       | plastic chair being dug up in the desert[1] is frankly a bit...
       | funky. But imagine in 5 or even 10 years.
       | 
       | 1. https://openai.com/sora?video=chair-archaeology
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | Impressive actually, i can actually see UI being real time
       | generated one day now.
       | 
       | You give it data like real time stock data, feed it into Sora,
       | the prompt is "I need a chart based on the data, show me
       | different time ranges"
       | 
       | As you move the cursor, it feeds into sora again, generating the
       | next frame in real time.
        
       | m3kw9 wrote:
       | How many of the video startups are shtting their pants right now?
        
       | break_the_bank wrote:
       | In less than a few hours Gemini 1.5 is old news. Sam is doing
       | live demos on Twitter while Google just released a blog.
       | 
       | Didn't think Google would be the first of the Facebook, Apple,
       | Google and Microsoft to get disrupted.
        
         | Alifatisk wrote:
         | I disagree, Gemini 1.5 is still impressive (if true) with the
         | 10 million context size!
        
           | umeshunni wrote:
           | It'll be impressive when I can use it.
        
             | alooPotato wrote:
             | you can't use sora either
        
               | joshua11 wrote:
               | At least you can see the demos. Google released a blog
               | post and was like, keep waiting
        
               | Alifatisk wrote:
               | There's also videos showcasing Gemini Pro 1.5, but
               | historically speaking, Google hasn't been fully truthful
               | with their demos.
               | 
               | Can't you access Gemini Pro 1.5 through Vertex Ai?
        
               | htrp wrote:
               | Whitelist only (talk to your GCP account rep)
        
             | joshua11 wrote:
             | Welp, I can't upvote. But this ^^^
        
             | JoshGlazebrook wrote:
             | This is my only gripe with these announcements. When will
             | us plebs paying $20/month for chatgpt get to use it?
        
               | system2 wrote:
               | Yet rate blocked every few hours with it too.
        
           | vitorgrs wrote:
           | The context size is 1 million... They said "they tested up to
           | 10".
        
         | minimaxir wrote:
         | There's not really too much to talk about Gemini 1.5 as it's an
         | iteration and there's not much to test around the new context
         | length.
         | 
         | The Sora demos are more interesting.
        
         | matsemann wrote:
         | Did they have this ready to go to upstage whatever Google would
         | release? Or just coincidental both things announced today?
        
           | Palmik wrote:
           | It's just as likely that Google knew OpenAI has their
           | announcement planned for today and wanted to preempt it.
           | Happens all the time.
        
         | thepasswordis wrote:
         | The fact that SamA just seems to go off the cuff on twitter
         | pretty frequently is such a breath of fresh air.
        
           | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
           | Hes a real CEO, Sundar is just a political appointment
        
             | Xenoamorphous wrote:
             | As someone who just skims Hacker News and little else and
             | no skin in the game, I always get the impression that
             | Pichai is the weakest of the big tech CEOs, compared to
             | Satya, Cook, etc.
             | 
             | Is my impression correct? Or it's just that the anti-Google
             | sentiment is strong in HN?
        
               | ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
               | No hes bad. Very good politician at Google, did some
               | interesting moves with Chrome a long time back. Not a
               | visionary, and they are afraid of ai overtaking google
        
             | huytersd wrote:
             | Sundar is a profitability machine. Google is also an order
             | of magnitude larger than OpenAI. I don't want all my orders
             | drunk tweeting their thoughts to me. Apple doesn't say shit
             | but look at what they have achieved.
        
               | superhumanuser wrote:
               | Apple hits home runs though. Google, correct me if I'm
               | wrong, hasn't had a strong hit for a while!
        
               | huytersd wrote:
               | It depends. Microsoft is the most valuable company in the
               | world and they don't have any recent "hits". They just
               | keep doing their core business well just like Google
               | does. That being said, all the research for all of this
               | AI renaissance has come directly out of Google.
        
               | sumedh wrote:
               | > That being said, all the research for all of this AI
               | renaissance has come directly out of Google.
               | 
               | Wasnt SQL some IBM research paper yet it was Oracle who
               | got famous and rich for creating a database?
        
         | overstay8930 wrote:
         | I'm pretty sure everyone saw Google as a directionless pile of
         | money, there's a reason killedbygoogle exists.
        
         | karmasimida wrote:
         | I mean, why would this make google look bad?
         | 
         | Gemini is catching up, so OpenAI needs a new venue to market
         | itself to the investors. It is doing a soft pivoting if you ask
         | me, now GPT4 is like not that special anymore.
        
           | Oras wrote:
           | That's the point I guess. They are just catching up, not
           | really making leaps.
        
             | karmasimida wrote:
             | Fair
             | 
             | On the other hand, Video to google is much less relevant
             | than text. But if OpenAI figuring out something from it to
             | AGI, that would be a different story.
        
               | cma wrote:
               | Youtube? Someone's going to make a tiktok like quick-
               | feedback thing of purely generated stuff that learns what
               | you like and tailors the generations to you, and, despite
               | Google owning Youtube, OpenAI looks far closer to it than
               | them.
        
               | karmasimida wrote:
               | Youtube is a video hosting platform, its advantage is in
               | video delivery and ads. Why would a video generation
               | software disrupts business?
               | 
               | Creating _realistic_ video isn 't hard even today, you
               | can just do it on your phone and creating hours, hours of
               | cat/dog videos. The hard part is to find a story to make
               | it interesting. It could be possible in the future, like
               | automatic film making, from script to realization, but
               | that doesn't make YouTube's business go away either.
        
               | digging wrote:
               | > Why would a video generation software disrupts
               | business?
               | 
               | If those videos aren't hosted on YouTube.
        
               | karmasimida wrote:
               | How? Not hosting on the planets largest video platform
               | because it is generated by OpenAI?
        
               | pama wrote:
               | I would much rather pay to generate my own realistic
               | videos based on my prompts than watch other people's
               | random creations (possibly filled with ads). When
               | generation becomes great the motivation and need to
               | store, retrieve and serve becomes less relevant.
        
               | hcks wrote:
               | Why would you give free money to YouTube if you control
               | the content
        
               | rvz wrote:
               | YouTube is just another moat for Google to catch up to
               | Sora.
               | 
               | But this time, Google is finally showing their war face
               | instead of not trying hard to compete against Microsoft
               | and OpenAI.
        
             | huytersd wrote:
             | I would call 10 million tokens mopping the floor (if true).
        
         | VeejayRampay wrote:
         | it's not old news and it's actually way more impressive
         | 
         | it's just that people want to root for OpenAI more because hype
        
         | bamboozled wrote:
         | This is a really silly take isn't it?
        
         | huytersd wrote:
         | Gargantuan achievements in two different spaces. 10 million
         | tokens means insane things. Things like feeding the entire
         | codebase of a massive site and saying make a copy of this with
         | these changes.
        
       | VladimirGolovin wrote:
       | I did not expect this level of quality in the beginning of 2024.
       | Makes me think that we may see AGI by the end of this decade.
        
       | tropdrop wrote:
       | I see many possibilities for commercials, demos... not to mention
       | kids' animations, of course.
       | 
       | Actually, thinking of this from the perspective of a start-up, it
       | could be cool to instantly demonstrate a use-case of a product
       | (with just a little light editing of a phone screen in post). We
       | spent a lot of money on our product demo videos and now this
       | would basically be free.
        
         | unleaded wrote:
         | how will the AI know what your product looks like? You probably
         | already have CAD models, couldn't you import those into blender
         | and make something in an afternoon or two?
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | > how will the AI know what your product looks like?
           | 
           | Training an embedding/LoRA on the product and using it with
           | the base model, same as is done for image-generation models
           | (video generation models usually often use very similar
           | architecture to image generation models -- e.g., SVD is a
           | Stable Diffusion 2.x family model with some tweaks.)
           | 
           | Now, you may not be be able to do this with Sora when OpenAI
           | releases it as a public product, just like you can't with
           | DALL-E. But that's a limitation of OpenAI's decisions around
           | what to expose, not the underlying technology.
        
       | AbuAssar wrote:
       | Sora means picture or image in Arabic language
        
       | ilteris wrote:
       | Where is the tool that we can try?
        
       | OscarTheGrinch wrote:
       | How is this done technically? So many moving parts and the
       | tracking on each is exquisite.
       | 
       | My initial observation is that the camera moves are very similar
       | to a camera in a 3D modeling program: on an inhuman dolly flying
       | through space on a impossibly smooth path / bezier curve. Makes
       | me wonder if there is actually a something like 3D simulation at
       | the root here, or maybe a 3D unsupervised training loop, and they
       | are somehow mapping persistent AI textures onto it?
        
       | peterisza wrote:
       | holy ....
        
       | doakes wrote:
       | This is super cool. So many innovations come to mind. But it
       | makes me wonder what will come from having the ability to
       | virtually experience anything we want. It'll take a while, but
       | I'm hoping we'll eventually want to go outside more instead of
       | less.
        
       | thomastraum wrote:
       | I am a CG artist and Director and this made me so sad. I am
       | watching in horror and amazement. I am not anti AI at all, but
       | being on the wrong side of efficiency, for the individual this is
       | heartbreaking. its so much fun to make CG and create shots and
       | the reason its hard (just like anything) makes it rewarding.
        
         | superconduct123 wrote:
         | I'm conflicted though because on the flip side it could open up
         | filmmaking to way more people who don't have the
         | skills/money/time
         | 
         | Like what if any artist could make a whole movie by themself
         | without needing millions of dollars or hundreds of people
         | 
         | Similar to how you used to need a huge studio full of equipment
         | to record music and now someone in their bedroom with a DAW can
         | do it
        
           | Zelphyr wrote:
           | I can't help but worry that this will make it too easy to
           | create movies and the product will be of much lower quality.
           | There is precedence here in the music industry. A recent
           | report came out that said that about 70% of music sales was
           | catalog music, implying that people are buying less new music
           | than old. I personally feel that's because the new music just
           | isn't very good and one of the reasons is, it's too easy to
           | make and distribute music now.
        
             | Solvency wrote:
             | That is a ridiculous take. Look at the absolute SEA of
             | bottom-barrel content flooding every single streaming
             | platform. For people at the top of the studio system, they
             | are already living out their AI power trips, just in the
             | meatspace.
             | 
             | The entire industry is already turning out terrible shit,
             | but doing it by wasting hundreds of thousands of actors,
             | production teams, and studio dollars in order to churn out
             | that nonsense.
             | 
             | Meanwhile, there are millions of latent storytellers, who,
             | for whatever reason (but primarily: not born into extreme
             | wealth and nepotistic connections) could never express
             | their ideas in motion/cinema at such ambitious scales.
             | 
             | By putting this power in the hands of actually talented
             | writers and storytellers, you create a completely new
             | market of potentially incredible works of art.
        
               | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
               | Sure. But you have to admit that you also create a new
               | market of low effort garbage art. The question is which
               | is bigger, and where the money will ultimately go.
        
               | chefandy wrote:
               | "Things are already bad. How could you be mad about
               | making it much easier to make things worse? Quality isn't
               | compatible with today's business ambitions."
        
           | gcanko wrote:
           | I think an important skill in the future would be just having
           | good ideas. That's going to differentiate the winners from
           | the losers
        
           | thomastraum wrote:
           | The point is by doing you become really good in creative
           | fields. in any field. Prompting is not doing. What makes you
           | a really good programmer? Writing code.
           | 
           | the pursuit of mastery is at the essence of any craft.
        
         | manuka wrote:
         | Why the terror? Your job will change a bit but won't be gone.
         | You would guide the output and make prompts not with text but
         | your own video CGI shorts to make things 100% to your liking
         | and the AI will do the rest of the dirty work. You productivity
         | will grow and quality of your work too. You would be able to
         | make an AAA movie all by yourself on a laptop. Since everyone
         | would be able to do the same, the fight for the imagination and
         | inginuity in scripting and artists view would skyroket. :) IMHO
        
           | tasty_freeze wrote:
           | You are rather cavalier about other people's livelihoods.
           | There will be budget for maybe 10% of the people currently
           | employed, and yes, they will be making use of the new tools
           | and they'll adapt. The other 90% are going to be doing
           | doordash until they can figure out a new career.
        
             | okrad wrote:
             | Initial displacement will happen and it will require time
             | for society to adapt and new industries to mature. The
             | printing press significantly reduced the cost of producing
             | books and other printed materials, which led to a dramatic
             | increase in the availability of books, literacy rates, and
             | the spread of knowledge. This technological advancement
             | didn't just replace the scribes; it created new jobs in
             | printing, publishing, book selling, and eventually led to
             | the creation of new genres of literature.
        
               | tasty_freeze wrote:
               | Yes, in the long term the printing press brought many
               | benefits. In the short term, a lot of people were out of
               | work.
        
               | manuka wrote:
               | Who lost their jobs to the printing press? The monks who
               | were the only scribes back then? They got their time
               | freed to spend it on other duties in the monasteries and
               | mayhaps even more time to read other books rather that to
               | scribe them. So the level of education grew even for
               | them.
               | 
               | The same will be for the FX artist and 3D artists etc.
               | The level of their work will grow, they will spend less
               | time on dull work and more on tinkering with tiny but
               | more important things like ideas, emotions, art overall
               | etc.
        
           | ihumanable wrote:
           | The terror is because companies want to maximize profits and
           | a great way to do that is to minimize costs.
           | 
           | If you have a team of X people producing Y pieces, and now X
           | people can produce 10Y pieces, everything is fine as long as
           | the demand for pieces keeps up. But if your company really
           | only needs Y pieces or really any amount less than 10Y then
           | the easiest thing for a company to do is go, "We don't really
           | need X people, let's fire some"
           | 
           | Getting fired, in America at least, means loss of healthcare,
           | income, and if it persists long enough housing. Most people
           | are terrified of being homeless, broke, and without access to
           | medicine.
        
             | manuka wrote:
             | > as long as the demand for pieces keeps up
             | 
             | So the problem not in the AI but in demand...
        
               | ihumanable wrote:
               | AI causes the supply and demand to change by creating
               | additional supply of pieces through increased
               | productivity.
               | 
               | It's cold comfort to someone getting fired to tell them
               | "If demand had also increased 10 fold you wouldn't have
               | to sleep on the street."
               | 
               | The actual living human being who has had their
               | livelihood destroyed probably isn't any less scared of
               | their fate because you cleverly tut at them and go, "In
               | actuality the AI didn't do anything bad to you, it just
               | created a glut of supply and the market demand didn't
               | keep up."
        
           | avisser wrote:
           | > Your job will change a bit but won't be gone. > You[r]
           | productivity will grow
           | 
           | This aren't compatible at scale. If productivity grows, there
           | will be less people doing the job.
        
             | VMG wrote:
             | Programmers are more productive than years ago and there
             | are many more of them
        
               | timeon wrote:
               | Sometimes it looks like the peek is ending. Who knows.
        
           | charlotte-fyi wrote:
           | Many people consider what you refer to as "the dirty work" as
           | precisely the point of creative practices.
        
             | manuka wrote:
             | Depends on what you think is "dull work". I think there are
             | many artist who could welcome some of the "creating work"
             | to be automated. What part? Depends on the artists and his
             | preferences. AI can take the burden of any type of work and
             | leave those parts which are needed for the human to do.
             | Human can choose what parts he will work on. That's the
             | point.
        
         | __loam wrote:
         | I think it's okay to be a bit anti ai lol.
        
         | Keyframe wrote:
         | Ex colleague then! I'm kind of glad I went out of it all now
         | that I see all of this, but on the other hand it's also an
         | amazing opportunity unfolding, as long as it's directable. What
         | a great toolset! For what you've had to have army of people,
         | freezing ass on location, working with actors.. soon gone.
         | Well, if you want it to. On the other hand, look at what
         | happened to imagery, concept art in general. For the better
         | part it cheapened it. Turned it into this mass produced, easily
         | available thing that it's not special anymore. Skills are still
         | needed to produce exactly what you want, but the special flair
         | is kind of gone. It will need way more energy and creativity
         | now to stand out.
        
       | gigatexal wrote:
       | I am genuinely impressed.
        
       | crazygringo wrote:
       | This is insane. But I'm impressed most of all by the quality of
       | _motion_. I 've quite simply _never seen convincing computer-
       | generated motion before_. Just look at the way the wooly mammoths
       | connect with the ground, and their lumbering mass feels real.
       | 
       | Motion-capture works fine because that's real motion, but every
       | time people try to animate humans and animals, even in big-budget
       | CGI movies, it's always ultimately obviously fake. There are so
       | many subtle things that happen in terms of acceleration and
       | deceleration of all of the different parts of an organism, that
       | no animator ever gets it 100% right. No animation _algorithm_
       | gets it to a point where it 's believable, just where it's "less
       | bad".
       | 
       | But these videos seem to be getting it entirely believable for
       | both people and animals. Which is _wild_.
       | 
       | And then of course, not to mention that these are entirely
       | believable 3D spaces, with seemingly full object permanence. As
       | opposed to other efforts I've seen which are basically briefly
       | animating a 2D scene to make it seem vaguely 3D.
        
         | swamp40 wrote:
         | It's been trained on videos exclusively. Then GPT-4 interprets
         | your prompt for it.
        
         | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
         | > Motion-capture works fine because that's real motion
         | 
         | Except in games where they mo-cap at a frame rate less than
         | what it will be rendered at and just interpolate between mo-cap
         | samples, which makes snappy movements turn into smooth
         | movements and motions end up in the uncanny valley.
         | 
         | It's especially noticeable when a character is talking and
         | makes a "P" sound. In a "P", your lips basically "pop" open.
         | But if the motion is smoothed out, it gives the lips the look
         | of making an "mm" sound. The lips of someone saying "post"
         | looks like "most".
         | 
         | At 30 fps, it's unnoticeable. At 144 fps, it's jarring once you
         | see it and can't unsee it.
        
         | isthispermanent wrote:
         | Pixar is computer generated motion, no?
        
           | minimaxir wrote:
           | With extreme amounts of man-hours to do so.
        
           | viewtransform wrote:
           | Main Pixar characters are all computer animated by humans.
           | Physics effects like water, hair, clothing, smoke and
           | background crowds use computer physics simulation but there
           | are handles allowing an animator to direct the motion as per
           | the directors wishes.
        
         | gerash wrote:
         | When others create text to video systems (eg. Lumiere from
         | Google) they publish the research (eg.
         | https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.12945.pdf). Open AI is all about
         | commercialization. I don't like their attitude
        
           | y_gy wrote:
           | Ironic, isn't it! OpenAI started out "open," publishing
           | research, and now "ClosedAI" would be a much better name.
        
             | ionwake wrote:
             | TBH they should just rename to ClosedAI and run with it, I
             | and others would appreciate the honesty plus it would be
             | amusing.
        
               | polygamous_bat wrote:
               | However if you are playing for the regulatory capture
               | route (which Sam Altman seems to be angling for) it's
               | much easier if your name is "OpenAI".
        
               | tavavex wrote:
               | If you go full regulatory capture, you might as well name
               | it "AI", The AI Company.
        
               | ionwake wrote:
               | You never go "full" regulatory capture.
        
             | efrank3 wrote:
             | gottem
        
             | ShamelessC wrote:
             | Sick burn!
        
           | mtillman wrote:
           | OAI requires a real mobile phone number to signup and are
           | therefore an adtech company.
        
             | BadHumans wrote:
             | Might be one of the most absurd things said on here.
             | Requiring a phone number for sign up does not automatically
             | mean you are selling ads.
        
               | polygamous_bat wrote:
               | When the time for making money comes, if you don't think
               | OpenAI will sell every drop of information they have on
               | you, then you are incredibly naive. Why would they leave
               | money on the table when everyone else has been doing it
               | for forever without any adverse effects?
        
               | jstummbillig wrote:
               | If Google Workspace was selling my or any customers
               | information, at all or "forever", it would not be called
               | Google Workspace, it would be called Google We-died-in-
               | the-most-expensive-lawsuit-of-all-time.
        
               | 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
               | There's a difference. Open AI essentially has 2 products.
               | The chat bot $20 a month thing for Joe shmoe which they
               | admit to training on your prompts, and the API for
               | businesses. Workspace is like the latter. The former is
               | closer to Google search.
        
               | jstummbillig wrote:
               | Sure, but there is no ambiguity about that, is there? You
               | know that, because they tell you (and, sure, maybe they
               | only tell you, because they have to, by law - but they do
               | and you know)
               | 
               | How do we get from there to "just assume every company in
               | the world will sell your data in wildly and obviously
               | illegal ways", I don't know.
        
               | Zacharias030 wrote:
               | They are currently hiring people with Adtech experience.
               | 
               | The most simple version would be an ad-supported ChatGPT
               | experience. Anyone thinking that an internet consumer
               | company with 100m weekly active users (I'm citing from
               | their job ad) is not going to sell ads is lacking
               | imagination.
        
             | esafak wrote:
             | We're face to face with AGI and you're worried about ads??
             | Get your risks in order!!
        
               | 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
               | We're still nowhere near AGI.
        
               | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
               | The day the AI stops listening to prompts instead of
               | following them is the day I will worry about AGI.
        
           | jstummbillig wrote:
           | Not to be overly cute, but if the cutting edge research you
           | do is maybe changing the world fundamentally, forever,
           | guarding that tech should be really, really, really far up
           | your list of priorities and everyone else should be really
           | happy about your priorities.
           | 
           | And that should probably take precedence over the semantics
           | of your moniker, every single time (even if hn continues to
           | be super sour about it)
        
             | cloogshicer wrote:
             | I'd much rather this tech be open - better for everyone to
             | have it than a select few.
             | 
             | The more powerful, the more important it is that everyone
             | has access.
        
               | crazygringo wrote:
               | Do you feel the same way about nuclear weapons tech?
               | 
               | That "the more powerful, the more important it is that
               | everyone has access"?
               | 
               | Especially considering that the biggest killer app for AI
               | could very well be smart weapons like we've never seen
               | before.
        
               | spdustin wrote:
               | I feel this is a false equivalence.
               | 
               | Nukes aren't even close to being commodities, cannot be
               | targeted at a class of people (or a single person), and
               | have a minutely small number of users. (Don't argue
               | semantics with "class of people" when you know what I
               | mean, btw)
               | 
               | On the other hand, tech like this can easily become as
               | common as photoshop, can cause harm to a class of people,
               | and be deployed on a whim by an untrained army of
               | malevolent individuals or groups.
        
               | nearbuy wrote:
               | So if someone discovered a weapon of mass destruction
               | (say some kind of supervirus) that could be produced and
               | bought cheaply and could be programmed to only kill a
               | certain class of people, then you'd want the recipe to be
               | freely available?
        
               | lastdong wrote:
               | I understand your perspective regarding the potential
               | risks associated with freely available research,
               | particularly when it comes to illegal weapons and
               | dangerous viruses. However, it's worth considering that
               | by making research available to the world, we enable a
               | collaborative effort in finding solutions and antidotes
               | to such threats. In the case of Covid, the open sharing
               | of information led to the development of vaccines in
               | record time.
               | 
               | It's important to weigh the benefits of diversity and
               | open competition against the risks of bad actors misusing
               | the tools. Ultimately, finding a balance between
               | accessibility and responsible use is key.
               | 
               | What guarantee do we have that OpenAI won't become an
               | evil actor like Skynet?
        
               | nearbuy wrote:
               | I'm not advocating for or against secrecy. I'm just not
               | understanding the parent comment I replied to. They said
               | nukes are different than AI because they aren't
               | commodities and can't target specific classes of people,
               | and presumably that's why nukes should be kept secret and
               | AI should be open. Why? That makes no sense to me. If
               | nukes had those qualities, I'd definitely want them kept
               | secret and controlled.
        
               | sanitycheck wrote:
               | This poses no direct threat to human life though.
               | (Unlike, say, guns - which are totally fine for everyone
               | in the US!)
               | 
               | The direct threat to society is actually this kind of
               | secrecy.
               | 
               | If ordinary people don't have access to the technology
               | they don't really know what it can do, so they can't
               | develop a good sense of what could now be fake that only
               | a couple of years ago must have been real.
               | 
               | Imagine if image editing technology (Photoshop etc) had
               | been restricted to nation states and large powerful
               | corporations. The general public would be so easy to fool
               | with mere photographs - and of course more openly
               | nefarious groups would have found ways to use it anyway.
               | Instead everybody now knows how easily we can edit an
               | image and if we see a shot of Mr Trump apparently sharing
               | a loving embrace with Mr Putin we can make the correct
               | judgement regarding a probable origin.
        
               | war321 wrote:
               | The bottleneck for bioterrorism isn't AI telling you how
               | to do something, it's producing the final result. You
               | wanna curtail bioweapons, monitor the BSL labs,
               | biowarfare labs, bioreactors, and organic 3D printers.
               | ChatGPT telling me how to shoot someone isn't gonna help
               | me if I can't get a gun.
        
               | nearbuy wrote:
               | This isn't related to my comment. I wasn't asking what if
               | an AI invents a supervirus. I was asking what if someone
               | invents a supervirus. AI isn't involved in this
               | hypothetical in any way.
               | 
               | I was replying to a comment saying that nukes aren't
               | commodities and can't target specific classes of people,
               | and I don't understand why those properties in particular
               | mean access to nukes should be kept secret and
               | controlled.
        
               | tavavex wrote:
               | An AI video generator can't kill billions of people, for
               | one. I'd prefer it if access wasn't limited to a single
               | corporation that's accountable to no one and is
               | incentivized to use it for their benefits only.
        
               | jstummbillig wrote:
               | > accountable to no one
               | 
               | What do you mean? Are you being dramatic or do you
               | actually believe that the US government will/can not
               | _absolutely_ shut OpenAI down, if they feel it was
               | required to guarantee state order?
        
               | tavavex wrote:
               | For the US government to step in, they'd have to do
               | something extremely dangerous (and refuse to share with
               | the government). If we're talking about video generation,
               | the benefits they have are financial, and the lack of
               | accountability is in that they can do things no one else
               | can. I'm not saying they'll be allowed to break the law,
               | there's plenty of space between the two extremes. Though,
               | given how things were going, I can also see OpenAI
               | teaming up with the US government and receiving exclusive
               | privileges to run certain technologies for the sake of
               | "safety". It's what Altman has already been pushing for.
        
               | huytersd wrote:
               | I think it could. The right sequence of videos sent to
               | the right people could definitely set something
               | catastrophic off.
        
               | czl wrote:
               | > The right sequence of videos sent to the right people
               | could definitely set something catastrophic off.
               | 
               | ...after amazing public world wide demos that show how
               | real the AI generated videos can be? How long has
               | Hollywood had similar "fictional videos" powers?
        
               | huytersd wrote:
               | Flat earth Billy can now make videos with a $20
               | subscription.
        
               | 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
               | I think that's great. Billy will feed his flat earther
               | friends for a few weeks or months and pretty soon the
               | entire world will wise up and be highly skeptical of any
               | new such videos. The _more_ of this that gets out there,
               | the quicker people will learn. If it 's 1 or 2 videos to
               | spin an election... People might not get wise to it.
        
               | huytersd wrote:
               | Given the last 10 years I have no such faith in the
               | common person.
        
               | WhrRTheBaboons wrote:
               | which will only continue to convince people _if_ the
               | technology stays safely locked away in possession of a
               | single corp.
               | 
               | if it were opened to public faking such videos would lose
               | (nearly) all of its power
        
               | NoGravitas wrote:
               | > ...after amazing public world wide demos that show how
               | real the AI generated videos can be?
               | 
               | How quickly do you think our gerontocracy will adapt to
               | the new reality?
        
               | ngcazz wrote:
               | Make it high-enough fidelity, and it will be used to
               | convince people to kill billions.
        
               | jiggawatts wrote:
               | Video can convince people to kill each other now because
               | it is assumed to show real things. Show people a Jew
               | killing a Palestinian, and that will rile up the Muslims,
               | or vice versa.
               | 
               | When a significant fraction of video is generated content
               | spat out by a bored teenager on 4chan, then _people will
               | stop trusting it_ , and hence it will no longer have the
               | power to convince people to kill.
        
               | mengibar10 wrote:
               | You don't need to generate fake videos for that example.
               | State of Isreal have been killing Palestinians en masse
               | for a long time and intensified the effort for the last 4
               | months. The death toll is 29,000+ and counting. Two
               | thirds are children and women.
               | 
               | Isreal media machinery parading photographs of damaged
               | houses that could only be done by heavy artillery or tank
               | shells blaming on rebels carrying infantry rifles.
               | 
               | But I agree, as if the current tools were not enough to
               | sway people they will have more means to sway public
               | opinion.
        
               | ardaoweo wrote:
               | Hamas has similarly been shooting rockets into Israel for
               | a long time. Eventually people get tired and stop caring
               | about long-lasting conflicts, just like we don't care
               | about concentration camps in North Korea and China, or
               | various deadly civil wars in Sub-Saharan Africa, some of
               | which have killed way more civilians than all wars in
               | Palestinian history. One can already see support towards
               | Ukraine fading as well, even though there Western
               | countries would have a real geopolitical interest.
        
               | NoGravitas wrote:
               | > An AI video generator can't kill billions of people,
               | for one.
               | 
               | Not directly. But I won't be surprised if AI video
               | generators aren't somewhere in the chain of causes of
               | gigadeaths this century.
        
               | Vinnl wrote:
               | Oof, imagine if our safeguard for nuclear weapons was
               | that a private company kept it safe.
        
               | lagrange77 wrote:
               | On a geopolitical level 'everyone' does have access.
        
               | solardev wrote:
               | > Especially considering that the biggest killer app for
               | AI could very well be smart weapons like we've never seen
               | before.
               | 
               | A homing missile that chases you across continents and
               | shows you disturbing deepfakes of yourself until you lose
               | your mind and ask it to kill you. At that point it
               | switches to encourage mode, rebuilds your ego, and
               | becomes your lifelong friend.
        
               | bb88 wrote:
               | I don't think it's really that hard to make a nuclear
               | weapon, honestly. Just because you have the plans for
               | one, doesn't mean you have the uranium/plutonium to make
               | one. Weapons-grade uranium doesn't fall into your lap.
               | 
               | The ideas of critical mass, prompt fission, and uranium
               | purification, along with the design of the simplest
               | nuclear weapon possible has been out in the public domain
               | for a long time.
        
               | nlnn wrote:
               | While it's probably too idealistic to be possible, I'd
               | rather try and focus on getting people/society/the world
               | to a state where it doesn't matter if everyone has access
               | (i.e. getting to a place where it doesn't matter if
               | everyone has access to nuclear weapons, guns, chemical
               | weapons, etc., because no-one would have the slightest
               | desire to use them).
               | 
               | As things are at the moment, while supression of a
               | technology has benefits, it seems like a risky long-term
               | solution. All it takes is for a single world-altering
               | technology to slip through the cracks, and a bad actor
               | could then forever change the world with it.
        
               | Fidelix wrote:
               | Do you feel the same way about electricity?
        
               | iwsk wrote:
               | Should nukes be open source?
        
               | spdustin wrote:
               | I humbly refer you to this comment:
               | 
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39389262
        
               | esafak wrote:
               | ML models of this complexity are just as accessible as
               | nuclear weapons. How many nations possess a GPT-4? The
               | only reason nuclear weapons are not more common is
               | because their proliferation is strictly controlled by
               | conventions and covert action.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | The basic designs for workable (although inefficient)
               | nuclear weapons have been published in open sources for
               | decades. The hard part is obtaining enough uranium and
               | then refining it.
        
               | baq wrote:
               | If you have two pieces of plutonium and put them too
               | close together you have accidentally created a nuclear
               | weapon... so yeah nukes are open source, plutonium
               | breeding isn't.
        
               | extheat wrote:
               | I love it when people make this "nuke" argument because
               | it tells you a lot more about them than it does about
               | anything else. There are so many low information people
               | out there, it's a bit sad the state of education even in
               | developed countries. There's people trotting around the
               | word "chemical" at things that are scary without
               | understanding what exactly the word means, how it differs
               | from the word mixture or anything like that. I don't
               | expect most people to understand the difference between a
               | proton and a quark but at least a general understanding
               | of physics and chemistry would save a lot of people from
               | falling into the "world is magic and information is
               | hidden away inside geniuses" mentality.
        
               | Fidelix wrote:
               | Should electricity?
        
               | jstummbillig wrote:
               | As long as destroying things remains at least two
               | magnitudes easier than building things and defending
               | against attacks, this take (as a blanket statement) will
               | continue to be indefensible and irresponsible.
        
             | creatonez wrote:
             | This is meaningless until you've defined "world changing".
             | It's possible that open sourcing AIs will be world-changing
             | in a good way and developing closed source AIs will be
             | world-changing in a bad way.
             | 
             | If I engineered the tech I would be much more fearful of
             | the possibility of malice in the future leadership of the
             | organization I'm under if they continue to keep it closed,
             | than I would be fearful of the whole world getting the
             | capability if they decide to open source.
             | 
             | I feel that, like with Yellow Journalism of the 1920s, much
             | of the misinformation problem with generative AI will only
             | be mitigated during widespread proliferation, wherein
             | people become immune to new tactics and gain a new
             | skepticism of the media. I've always thought it strange
             | when news outlets discuss new deepfakes but refuse to show
             | it, even with a watermark indicating it is fake.
             | Misinformation research shows that people become more
             | skeptical once they learn about the technological measures
             | (e.g. buying karma-farmed Reddit accounts, or in the 1920s,
             | taking advantage of dramatically lower newspaper printing
             | costs to print sensationalism) through which misinformation
             | is manufactured.
        
               | towelpluswater wrote:
               | This is a fantastic write up and great parallel to the
               | state of where we're headed.
        
               | grotorea wrote:
               | The problem is when we start to run out of reliable
               | sources after becoming sceptical of everything.
        
             | bamboozled wrote:
             | What a load...image if everyone else guarded all their
             | discoveries, there'd be no text to video would there?
        
               | andrepd wrote:
               | People defending this need to meditate on the meaning of
               | the phrase "shoulders of giants".
        
               | clayhacks wrote:
               | New technology will always be new giants to see from, but
               | open source really is a nice ladder up to the shoulders
               | of giants. So many benefits from sharing the tech
        
               | spookie wrote:
               | This reminded me of a conversation with a historian. He
               | requested the reconstruction of a monument in France that
               | a game studio had already made.
               | 
               | The studio told him the model was their property, and
               | they wouldn't share it.
               | 
               | Peculiar reasoning, isn't it?
        
             | andrepd wrote:
             | >If you have world-changing technology it's better for a
             | megacorp to control it.
             | 
             | You need to watch more dystopian movies.
        
             | opportune wrote:
             | How convenient for all the OpenAI employees trying to make
             | millions of dollars by commercializing their technology.
             | Surely this technology won't be well-understood and easily
             | replicable in a few years as FOSS
        
               | spookie wrote:
               | It'll, even if they guard their secret sauce. Let's not
               | be naive about this, obfuscation is and always will be a
               | minor nuisance.
        
             | RandomLensman wrote:
             | The wheel should have been a tightly controlled technology?
        
           | disillusioned wrote:
           | More like ClosedAI, amirite?
        
           | comex wrote:
           | Google is hardly a good actor here. They just announced
           | Gemini 1.5 along with a "technical report" [1] whose entire
           | description of the model architecture is: "Gemini 1.5 Pro is
           | a sparse mixture-of-expert (MoE) Transformer-based model".
           | Followed by a list of papers that it "builds on", followed by
           | a definition of MoE. I suppose that's more than OpenAI gave
           | in their GPT-4 technical report. But not by much!
           | 
           | [1] https://storage.googleapis.com/deepmind-
           | media/gemini/gemini_...
        
             | cubefox wrote:
             | The report and the previous one for 1.0 definitely contain
             | much more information than the GPT-4 whitepaper. And Google
             | regularly publishes technical details on other models, like
             | Lumiere, things that OpenAI stopped doing after their
             | InstructGPT paper.
        
               | cchance wrote:
               | Maybe because GPT3.5 is closer to what Gemini 1.0 was...
               | GPT4 and Gemini 1.5 are similarly sparse in their "how we
               | did it and what we used" when it comes to papers
        
           | neya wrote:
           | When has OpenAI - for a company named "Open" AI ever released
           | any of their stuff into anything open?
        
             | hnben wrote:
             | They stopped releasing their stuff openly around the time
             | GPT3 came to be.
        
               | sebzim4500 wrote:
               | Whisper was after GPT3 and that was fully open.
        
             | sebzim4500 wrote:
             | They actually did a few years ago, but that's ancient
             | history in AI terms.
             | 
             | The most recent thing they released was Whisper, which to
             | be fair is the only model with absolutely no safety
             | implications.
        
             | ambrose2 wrote:
             | From what I remember reading, Open was never supposed to be
             | like open source with the internals freely available, but
             | Open as in available for the public to use, as opposed to a
             | technology only for the company to wield and create content
             | with.
        
         | omega3 wrote:
         | Out of all the examples, the wooly mammoths one actually feels
         | like CGI the most to me, the other ones are much more
         | believable than this one.
        
           | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
           | Possibly because there are no videos or even photos of live
           | wooly mammoths, but loads and loads of CG recreations in
           | various documentaries.
        
           | mikeInAlaska wrote:
           | I saw the cat in the bed grows an extra limb...
        
             | krapp wrote:
             | Cats are weird sometimes.
        
         | patall wrote:
         | I disagree, just look at the legs of the woman in the first
         | video. First she seems to be limping, than the legs rotate. The
         | mammoth are totally uncanny for me as its both running and
         | walking at the same time.
         | 
         | Don't get me wrong, it is impressive. But I think many people
         | will be very uncomfortable with such motion very quickly. Same
         | story as the fingers before.
        
           | Hoasi wrote:
           | > I disagree, just look at the legs of the woman in the first
           | video.
           | 
           | The people behind her all walk at the same pace and seem like
           | floating. The moving reflections, on the other hand, are
           | impressive make-believe.
        
             | kyrra wrote:
             | If you watch the background, you'll see one guy has hits
             | pants change color. And also, some of the guys are absolute
             | giants compared to people around them.
        
             | b1gnasty wrote:
             | Really makes me think of The Matrix scene with the woman in
             | the red dress. Can't tell if they did this on purpose to
             | freak us all out? Are we all just prompts?
        
               | grotorea wrote:
               | I'm 99% sure this is supposed to invoke cyberpunk but not
               | sure about The Matrix.
        
           | lukan wrote:
           | Yeah, it looks good at first glance. Also the fingers are
           | still weird. And I suppose for every somewhat working vid,
           | there were dozens of garbage. At least that was my experience
           | with image generation.
           | 
           | I don't believe, movie makers are out of buisness any time
           | soon. They will have to incorporate it though. So far this
           | can make convincing background scenery.
        
             | Solvency wrote:
             | I love these hot takes based on profoundly incredible tech
             | that literally just launched. Acting like 2030 isn't around
             | the corner.
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | We're glad you love them.
        
               | andrepd wrote:
               | Anything less than absolute enrapture is a "hot take"...
               | :)
        
               | chefandy wrote:
               | > I love these hot takes based on profoundly incredible
               | tech that literally just launched. Acting like 2030 isn't
               | around the corner.
               | 
               | It seems bizarre to think the _gee whiz_ factor in a new
               | commercial creative product makes critiquing its output
               | out-of-bounds. This isn 't a university research team:
               | they're charging money for this. Most people have to
               | determine if something is useful before they pay for it.
        
               | goatlover wrote:
               | Let me guess, hard singularity take-off in 2030? Does the
               | hype cycle not exist for techno-optimists? Just one
               | breathless prediction after another?
        
             | anoopelias wrote:
             | > I don't believe, movie makers are out of business any
             | time soon
             | 
             | My son was learning how to play keyboard and he started
             | practicing based on metronome. At some point, I was
             | thinking, why is he learning it at all? We can program
             | which key to be pressed at what point in time, and then a
             | software can play itself! Why bother?
             | 
             | Then it hit me! Musicians could automate all the
             | instruments with incredible accuracy since a long time. But
             | they never do that. For some reason, they still want a
             | person behind the piano / guitar / drums.
        
               | czl wrote:
               | > Musicians could automate all the instruments with
               | incredible accuracy since a long time. But they never do
               | that.
               | 
               | What do you judge was the ratio of automated music
               | (recordings played back) to live music played in the last
               | year?
        
               | anoopelias wrote:
               | Just to be clear, I was talking about the original sound
               | produced by a person (vs. a machine). Of course it was
               | recorded and played back a _lot_ more than folks
               | listening live.
               | 
               | But I take it, maybe I'm not so familiar with world
               | music, I was talking more about Indian music. While the
               | music is recorded and mixed across several tracks
               | electronically, I think most of it is played (or sang)
               | originally by a person.
        
               | Larrikin wrote:
               | His point still stands.
               | 
               | In the US atleast there's the occasional acoustic song
               | that becomes a hit, but rock music is obviously on its
               | way to slowly becoming jazz status. It and country are
               | really the last genres where live traditional instruments
               | are common during live performances. Pop, Hip Hop, and
               | EDM basically all are put together as being nearly
               | computer perfect.
               | 
               | All the great producers can play instruments, and that's
               | often times the best way to get a section out initially.
               | But what you hear on Spotify is more and more
               | meticulously put together note by note on a computer
               | after the fact.
               | 
               | Live instruments on stage are now often for spectacle or
               | worse a gimmick, and it's not the song people came to
               | love. I think the future will have people like
               | Lionclad[1] in it pushing what it means to perform live,
               | but I expect them to become fewer and fewer as music just
               | gets more complex to produce overall.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuBas80oGEU
        
               | Tainnor wrote:
               | Thankfully, art is not about the least common denominator
               | and I'm confident that there will continue to be music
               | played live as long as humanity exists.
        
               | Larrikin wrote:
               | Music has a lot of people who believe that not only is
               | their favorite genre the best but that they must tear
               | down people who don't appreciate it.
               | 
               | You aren't better because you prefer live music, you just
               | have a preference. Music wasn't better some arbitrary
               | number of years ago, you just have a preference.
               | 
               | Nobody said one form is objectively better, just that
               | there is a form that is becoming more popular.
               | 
               | But to state my opinion, I can't imagine something more
               | boring than thinking the best of music, performance, TV,
               | or media in general was done best and created in the
               | past.
        
               | picklesman wrote:
               | When I was studying music technology and using state of
               | the art software synthesizers and sequencers, I got more
               | and more into playing my acoustic guitar. There's a deep
               | and direct connection and a pleasure that comes with it
               | that computers (and now/eventually AI) will never be able
               | to match.
               | 
               | (That being said, a realtime AI-based bandmate could be
               | interesting...)
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | My son is an interesting example of this, I can play all
               | the best guitar music on earth via the speakers, but when
               | I physically get the guitar out and strum it, he sits up
               | like he has just seen god, and is total awe of the sounds
               | of it, the feel of the guitar and the site of it. It's
               | like nothing else can compare. Even if he is hysterically
               | crying, the physical isntrument and the sound of it just
               | makes him calm right down.
               | 
               | I wonder if something is lost in the recording process
               | that just cannot be replicated? A live instrument is
               | something that you can actually feel the sound of IMO,
               | I've never felt the same with recorded music even though
               | I of course enjoy it.
               | 
               | I wonder if when we get older we just get kind of "bored"
               | (sadly) and it doesn't mean as much to us as it probably
               | should.
        
               | vczf wrote:
               | Mirror neurons?
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | What does this have to do with it?
        
               | vczf wrote:
               | I'm speculating that one would have more mirror neuron
               | activation watching a person perform live, compared to
               | listening to a recording or watching a video. Thus the
               | missing component that makes live performance special.
        
               | rightbyte wrote:
               | The sound feels present with live music. Speakers have
               | this synthetic far away feel no matter how good they are.
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | My son isn't even a toddler so I don't think it would
               | possibly be "mirror neurons".
        
               | throwaway14356 wrote:
               | I really briefly looked at AI in music, lots of wild
               | things are made. It is hard to explain, one was
               | generating a bunch of sliders after mimicking a sample
               | from sine waves (quite accurately)
        
               | _glass wrote:
               | For me the guitar is like the keyboard I am writing on
               | right now. It will never be replaced, because that is how
               | I input music into the world. I could not program that, I
               | was doing tracker music as a teenager, and all of the
               | songs sounded weird, because the timing, and so on is not
               | right. And now when I transcribe demos, and put them into
               | a DAW, there seem to be the milliseconds off, that are
               | not quite right. I still play the piano parts live,
               | because we don't have the technology right now to make it
               | sound better than a human, and even if we had, it would
               | not be my music, but what an AI performed.
        
               | sdrothrock wrote:
               | > Musicians could automate all the instruments with
               | incredible accuracy since a long time. But they never do
               | that. For some reason, they still want a person behind
               | the piano / guitar / drums.
               | 
               | This actually happened on a recent hit, too -- Dua Lipa's
               | Break My Heart. They originally had a drum machine, but
               | then brought in Chad Smith to actually play the drums for
               | it.
               | 
               | Edit: I'm not claiming this was new or unusual, just
               | providing a recent example.
        
               | shon wrote:
               | This goes way back. Nine Inch Nails was a synth-first
               | band with the music being written by Trent in a studio on
               | a DAW. That worked but what really made the bad was live
               | shows so they found ways even using 2 drummers to
               | translate the synths and machines into human-plated
               | instruments.
               | 
               | Also way before that back in the early 80'a Depeche Mode
               | displayed the recorded drumb-reel onstage so everyone
               | knew what it was, but when the got big enough they also
               | transitioned into an epic live show with guitars and live
               | drum a as well as synth-hooked drums devices they could
               | bag on in addition to keyboards.
               | 
               | We are human. We want humans. Same reason I want a
               | hipster barista to pour my coffee when a machine could do
               | it just as well.
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | _Same reason I want a hipster barista to pour my coffee
               | when a machine could do it just as well._
               | 
               | I've wondered about this for a long time too, why on
               | earth is anyone still able to be a barista, it turns out,
               | people actually like the community around cafes and often
               | that means interacting with the staff on a personal
               | level.
               | 
               | Some of my best friends have been barista's I've gone to
               | over several years.
        
               | baq wrote:
               | Back before Twitter was born, or perhaps tv, cafes were
               | just that - a place to spend evenings (...just don't ask
               | who watched over the kids)
        
               | lox wrote:
               | It's more than that, doing it well is still beyond
               | sophisticated automation. Many variables that need do be
               | constantly adjusted for. Humans are still much better at
               | it than machines, regardless of the social element.
        
               | lukan wrote:
               | A good live performance is intentionally not 100% the
               | same as in the studio, but there can and should be
               | variations. A refrain repeated another time, some
               | improvisation here. Playing with the tempo there. It
               | takes a good band, who know each other intimately, to
               | make that work, though. (a good DJ can also do this with
               | electronic music)
               | 
               | A recorded studio version, I can also listen to at home.
               | But a full band performing in this very moment is a
               | different experience to me.
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | Isn't it obvious? Life is about experiences and
               | enjoyment, all of this tech is fun and novel and
               | interesting but realistically, it's really exciting for
               | tech people because it's going to be used to make more
               | computer games, social media posts and advertisements,
               | essentially, it's exciting because it's going to "make
               | money".
               | 
               | Outside of that, people just want to know what it feels
               | like to be able to play their favorite song on guitar and
               | to go skiing etc.
               | 
               | Being perfect at everything would be honestly boring as
               | shit.
        
               | bruce511 wrote:
               | I completely agree. There is more to a product than the
               | final result. People who don't play an instrument see
               | music I terms of money. (Hint: there's no money in
               | music). But those who play know that the pleasure is in
               | the playing, and jamming with your mates. Recording and
               | selling are work, not pleasure.
               | 
               | This is true for literally every hobby people do for fun.
               | I am learning ceramics. Everything I've ever made could
               | be bought in a shop for a 100th of the cost, and would be
               | 100 times "better". But I enjoy making the pot, and it's
               | worth more to me than some factory item.
               | 
               | Sona will allow a new hobby, and lots will have fun with
               | it. Pros will still need to fo Pro things. Not everything
               | has to be viewed through the lens of money.
        
               | disqard wrote:
               | You articulated what I wanted to add to this thread --
               | thank you!
               | 
               | I play the piano, and even though MIDI exists, I still
               | derive a lot of enjoyment from playing an acoustic
               | instrument.
        
               | vitro wrote:
               | I like this saying: "The woods would be very silent if no
               | birds sang except those who sang the best." It's fun
               | learning to play the instrument.
        
               | numpad0 wrote:
               | I think it's not. If musicians and only musicians wanted
               | themselves behind instruments, for the sake of being,
               | there should be a market for autogenerated self-playing
               | music machines for their former patrons who wouldn't
               | care. And that's not the case; the market for ambient
               | sound machines is small. It takes equal or more insanity
               | to have one at home than, say, having a military armored
               | car in the garage.
               | 
               | On the other hand you've probably heard of an iPod, which
               | I think I could describe as a device dedicated to give
               | false sense of an ever-present musician, so to speak.
               | 
               | So, "they" in "they still want a person behind the piano"
               | is not just limited to hobbyists and enthusiasts. People
               | wants people behind an instrument, for some reason.
               | People pays for others' suffering, not for a thing's
               | peculiarity.
        
               | alisonatwork wrote:
               | I don't think this is entirely accurate. There are entire
               | genres of music where the audience does not want a person
               | behind the piano/guitar/drums. Plenty of electronic
               | artists have tried the live band gimmick and while it
               | goes down well with a certain segment of the audience, it
               | turns off another segment that doesn't want to hear
               | "humanized" cover versions of the material. But the point
               | is that both of those audiences exist, and they both have
               | lots of opportunity to hear the music they want to hear.
               | The same will be true of visual art created by computers.
               | Some people will prefer a stronger machine element, other
               | people will prefer a stronger human element, and there is
               | room for us all.
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | _I don 't think this is entirely accurate. There are
               | entire genres of music where the audience does not want a
               | person behind the piano/guitar/drums._
               | 
               | Hilariously, nearly every electronic artist I can think
               | of, stands in front of a crowd and "plays "live" by
               | twisting dials etc, so I think it's fairly accurate.
               | 
               | Carl Cox, Tycho, Aphex Twin, Chemical Brothers,
               | Underworld, to name a few.
        
               | alisonatwork wrote:
               | DJ performances far outnumber "live" performances in the
               | electronic scene. Perhaps you can cherry-pick certain DJs
               | and make a point that they are creating a new musical
               | composition by live-remixing the tracks they play, but
               | even then a significant number of clubbers don't care,
               | they just want to dance to the music. There are venues
               | where a bunch of the audience can't even see the DJ and
               | they still dance because they are enjoying the music on
               | its own merits.
               | 
               | I stand by my original point. There are plenty of people
               | who really do not care if there is a human somewhere
               | "performing" the music or not. And that's totally fine.
        
               | taylorius wrote:
               | Why does the DJ need to be there, in such a case?
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | _Musicians could automate all the instruments with
               | incredible accuracy since a long time. But they never do
               | that. For some reason, they still want a person behind
               | the piano / guitar / drums._
               | 
               | You've never been to a rave, huh? For that matter,
               | there's a lot of pop artists that use sequencers and
               | dispense with the traditional band on stage.
        
               | code51 wrote:
               | The real dilemma is with composition/song-writing.
               | 
               | Ability to create live experiences can still be a
               | motivating factor for musicians (aside from the love of
               | learning). Yet, when AI does the song-writing far more
               | effectively, then will the musician ignore this?
               | 
               | It's like Brave New World. Musicians who don't use these
               | AI tools for song-writing will be like a tribe outside
               | modern world. That's a tough future to prepare for. We
               | won't know whether a song was actually the experience and
               | emotions of a person or not.
        
               | palmfacehn wrote:
               | Even if we assume that people want fully automated music,
               | the process of learning to play educates the musician.
               | Similarly, you'd still need a director/auteur, editors,
               | writers and other roles I have no appreciation or
               | knowledge of to create a film from AI models.
               | 
               | Steam shovels and modern excavators didn't remove our
               | need for shovels or more importantly, the know-how to
               | properly apply these tools. Naturally, most people use a
               | shovel before they operate an excavator.
        
               | Avicebron wrote:
               | It's interesting though, the question really becomes, if
               | 10 people used to shovel manually to feed their family.
               | And now it takes 1 person and an excavater, what in good
               | faith do you tell those other 9..."don't worry you can
               | always be a hobby shovelist?"
        
               | palmfacehn wrote:
               | They can apply their labor wherever it is valued. Perhaps
               | they will become more productive excavator operators. By
               | creating value in a specialized field their income would
               | increase. Technology does not decrease the need for
               | labor. Rather it increases the productivity of the
               | laborer.
               | 
               | Human ingenuity always finds a need for value creation.
               | Greater abundance creates new opportunities.
               | 
               | Take the inverse position. Should we go back to reading
               | by candlelight to increase employment in candle making?
               | 
               | No, electric lighting allowed peopled to become
               | productive during night hours. A market was created for
               | electricity producers, which allowed additional products
               | which consume electricity to be marketed. Technological
               | increases in productivity cascade into all areas of life,
               | increasing our living standards.
               | 
               | A more interesting, if not controversial line of inquiry
               | might start with: If technology is constantly advancing
               | human productivity, why do modern economies consistently
               | experience price inflation?
        
               | stevesimmons wrote:
               | You miss the important point, which is the productivity
               | gain means the average living standard of society as a
               | whole increases. A chunk of what is now regarded as
               | 'toil' work disappears, and the time freed up is able to
               | be deployed more productively in other areas.
               | 
               | Of course, this change is dislocating for the particular
               | people whose toil disappeared. They need support to
               | retrain to new occupations.
               | 
               | The alternative is to cling to a past where everyone - on
               | average - is poorer, less healthy, and works in more
               | dangerous jobs.
        
               | Avicebron wrote:
               | That's awesome, sign me up for retraining. Where do I go
               | and who can I talk to so I can be retrained into a less
               | drudgery filled position?
               | 
               | Clearly if there are ways out of being displaced, please
               | share them
        
               | Someone wrote:
               | The 'augmented singer' is very popular, though.
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune: _"Auto-Tune has
               | been widely criticized as indicative of an inability to
               | sing on key."_
        
               | zogrodea wrote:
               | Regarding your point about music:
               | 
               | There are subtle and deliberate deviations in timing and
               | elements like vibrato when a human plays the same song on
               | an instrument twice, which is partly why (aside from
               | recording tech) people prefer live or human musicians.
               | 
               | Think about how precise and exacting a computer can be.
               | It can play the same notes in a MIDI editor with exact
               | timing, always playing note B after 18 seconds of playing
               | note A. Human musicians can't always be that precise in
               | timing, but we seem to prefer how human musicians sound
               | with all of the variations they make. We seem to dislike
               | the precise mechanical repetition of music playback on a
               | computer comparatively.
               | 
               | I think the same point generalises into a general dislike
               | on the part of humans of sensory repetition. We want
               | variety. (Compare the first and second grass pictures at
               | [0] and you will probably find that the second which has
               | more "dirt" and variety looks better.) "Semantic
               | satiation" seems to be a specific case of the same
               | tendency.
               | 
               | I'm not saying that's something a computer can't achieve
               | eventually but it's something that will need to be done
               | before machines can replace musicians.
               | 
               | [0]
               | http://gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/sywtbapa_gradient_tool.php
        
               | grotorea wrote:
               | Live play is what, 1% of all music heard in the world?
               | Computers, radios, iPods and phones all play automated
               | reproductions.
        
             | dugite-code wrote:
             | > fingers are still weird
             | 
             | Also keep an eye on teeth and high contrast text. Anything
             | small and prone to distortion in low resolution video and
             | images used to train this stuff.
        
             | itronitron wrote:
             | I can see this being used extensively for short
             | commercials, as the uncanny aspect of a lot of the figures
             | will help to capture people's attention. I don't
             | necessarily believe it will be less expensive than hiring a
             | director and film crew however.
        
           | bamboozled wrote:
           | Agreed and these are the cherry picked examples of course.
        
           | justworkout wrote:
           | I think a lot of these issues could be "solved" by lowering
           | the resolution, using a low quality compression algorithm,
           | and trimming clips down to under 10 seconds.
           | 
           | And by solved, I mean they'll create convincing clips that'll
           | be hard for people to dismiss unless they're really looking
           | closely. I think it's only a matter of time until fake video
           | clips lead to real life outrage and violence. This tech is
           | going to be militarized before we know it.
        
             | OscarTheGrinch wrote:
             | Yeah, we are very close to losing video as a source of
             | truth.
             | 
             | I showed these demos to my partner yesterday and she was
             | upset about how real AI has become, how little we will be
             | able to trust what we see in the future. Authoritative
             | sources will be more valuable, but they themselves may
             | struggle to publish only the facts and none of the fiction.
             | 
             | Here's one possible military / political use:
             | 
             | The commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, Viktor Sokolov,
             | is widely believed to have been killed by a missile strike
             | on 22 September 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_
             | Sokolov_(naval_officer)
             | 
             | Russian authorities refute his death and have released
             | proof of life footage, which may be doctored or taken
             | before his death. Authoritative source Wikipedia is not
             | much help in establishing truth here, because without proof
             | of death they must default to toeing the official line.
             | 
             | I predict that in the coming months Sokolov (who just
             | yesterday was removed from his post) will re-emerge in the
             | video realm, and go on to have a glorious career.
             | Resurrecting dead heroes is a perfect use of this tech, for
             | states where feeding people lies is preferable to arming
             | them with the truth.
             | 
             | Sokolov may even go on to be the next Russian President.
        
               | antris wrote:
               | _> Yeah, we are very close to losing video as a source of
               | truth._
               | 
               | I think this way of thinking is distracted. No type of
               | media has ever been a source of truth in itself. Videos
               | have been edited convincingly for a long time, and people
               | can lie about their context or cut them in a way that
               | flips their meaning.
               | 
               | Text is the easiest media to lie on, you can freely just
               | make stuff up as you go, yet we don't say "we cannot
               | trust written text anymore".
               | 
               | Well yeah duh, you can trust _no_ type of media just
               | because it is formatted in a certain way. We arrive at
               | the truth by using multiple sources and judging the
               | sources ' track records of the past. AI is not going to
               | change how sourcing works. It might be easier to fool
               | people who have no media literacy, but those people have
               | always been a problem for society.
        
               | victor106 wrote:
               | > Videos have been edited convincingly for a long time,
               | 
               | You are right but the thing with this is the speed and
               | ease with which you can generate something completely
               | fake.
        
               | subtra3t wrote:
               | Text was never looked at a source of truth like video
               | was. If you messaged someone something, they wouldn't
               | necessarily believe it. But if you sent them a video of
               | that something, they would feel that they would have no
               | choice but to believe that something.
               | 
               | > Well yeah duh, you can trust no type of media just
               | because it is formatted in a certain way
               | 
               | Maybe you wouldn't, but the layperson probably would.
               | 
               | > We arrive at the truth by using multiple sources and
               | judging the sources' track records of the past
               | 
               | Again, this is something that the ideal person would, not
               | the average layperson. Almost nobody would go through all
               | that to decide if they want to believe something or not.
               | Presenting them a video of this sometjing would've been a
               | surefire way to force them to believe it though, at least
               | before Sora.
               | 
               | > people have always been a problem for society
               | 
               | Unrelated, but I think this attitude is by far the bigger
               | "problem for society". It encourages us to look down on
               | some people even when we do not know their circumstances
               | or reasons, all for an extremely trivial matter. It
               | encourages gatekeeping and hostility, and I think that
               | kind of attitude is at least as detrimental to society as
               | people with no media literacy.
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | > No type of media has ever been a source of truth in
               | itself.
               | 
               | 'pics or it didn't happen' has been a thing (possibly)
               | until very recently for good reason.
        
               | throwup238 wrote:
               | And they've been doctored almost as long as photography
               | has been around: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
               | _of_images_in_the_So...
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | As has been pointed ad nauseam by now, no one's
               | suggesting that AI unlocks the ability to doctor images;
               | they're suggesting that it makes it trivially easy for
               | anyone, no matter how unskilled, to do so.
               | 
               | I really find this constant back and forth exhausting.
               | It's always the same conversation: '(gen)AI makes it easy
               | to create lots of fake news and disinformation etc.' -->
               | 'but we've always been able to do that. have you not guys
               | not heard of photoshop?' --> 'yes, but not on this scale
               | this quickly. can you not see the difference?'
               | 
               | Anyway, my original point was simply to say that a lot of
               | people _have_ (rightly or wrongly) indeed taken
               | photographic evidence seriously, even in the age of
               | photographic manipulation (which as you point out, pretty
               | much coincides with the age of photography itself).
        
               | rightbyte wrote:
               | > Yeah, we are very close to losing video as a source of
               | truth.
               | 
               | Why have you been trusting videos? The only difference is
               | that the cost will decrease.
               | 
               | Haven't you seen Holywood movies? CGI has been convincing
               | enough for a decade. Just add some compression and shaky
               | mobile cam and it would be impossible to tell the
               | difference on anything.
        
               | snowram wrote:
               | Hell, some people have been doubting moon landing videos
               | for even longer now. Video wasn't a reliable source since
               | its inception.
        
               | taylorius wrote:
               | Of course, any video _could_ be a fake, it 's a question
               | of the cost, and corresponding likelihood of that being
               | the case.
        
               | scotty79 wrote:
               | The truth is to be found in sources not the content
               | itself.
               | 
               | Every piece of information should have "how do you know?"
               | question attached.
        
               | cruffle_duffle wrote:
               | > Yeah, we are very close to losing video as a source of
               | truth.
               | 
               | We've been living in a post-truth society for a while
               | now. Thanks to "the algorithm" interacting with basic
               | human behavior, you can find something somewhere that
               | will tell you anything is true. You'll even find a
               | community of people who'll be more than happy to feed
               | your personal echo chamber -- downvoting & blocking any
               | objections and upvoting and encouraging anything that
               | feeds the beast.
               | 
               | And this doesn't just apply to "dumb people" or "the
               | others", it applies to the very people reading this forum
               | right now. You and me and everybody here lives in their
               | safe, sound truth bubble. Don't like what people tell
               | you? Just find somebody or something that will assure you
               | that whatever it is you think, you are thinking the
               | truth. No, everybody is the asshole who is wrong. Fuck
               | those pond scum spreaders of "misinformation".
               | 
               | It could be a blog, it could be some AI generated video,
               | it could even be "esteemed" newspapers like the New York
               | Times or NPR. Everybody thinks their truth is the correct
               | one and thanks to the selective power of the internet, we
               | can all believe whatever truth we want. And honestly, at
               | this point, I am suspecting there might not be any kind
               | of ground truth. It's bullshit all the way down.
        
             | geysersam wrote:
             | I've always found that take quite ridiculous. Fake videos
             | have existed for a long time. This technology reduces the
             | effort required but if we're talking about state actors
             | that was never an issue to begin with.
             | 
             | People already know that video cannot be taken at face
             | value. Lord of the rings didn't make anyone belive orcs
             | really exist.
        
               | yurishimo wrote:
               | It's funny you mention LotR, because the vast vast vast
               | majority of the character effects were practical (at
               | least in the original trilogy). They were in fact,
               | entirely real, even if they were not true to life.
        
               | ksangeelee wrote:
               | You can still be enraged by things you know are not real.
               | You can reason about your emotional response, but it's
               | much harder to prevent an emotional response from
               | happening in the first place.
        
               | tomaskafka wrote:
               | ... and learning to prevent emotional response means
               | unlearning to be human, like burnt out people.
               | 
               | The only winning move is to not watch.
        
               | geysersam wrote:
               | You can have an emotional response and still act
               | rationally.
        
               | _kb wrote:
               | A key difference in the current trajectory is its
               | becoming feasible to generate highly targeted content
               | down to an individual level. This can also be achieved
               | without state actor level resources or the time delays
               | needed to traditionally implement, regardless of budget.
               | The fact it could also be automated is mildly terrifying.
        
               | roenxi wrote:
               | Coordinated campaigns of hate through the mass media -
               | like kicking up war fever before any major war you care
               | to name - is far more concerning and has already been
               | with us for about a century. Look at WWII and what Hitler
               | was doing with it for a clearest example; propaganda was
               | the name of the game. The techniques haven't gone
               | anywhere.
               | 
               | If anything, making it cheap enough that people _have_ to
               | dismiss video footage might soften the impact. It is
               | interesting how the internet is making it much harder for
               | the mass media to peddle unchallenged lies or slanted
               | perspectives. This tech might counter-intuitively make it
               | harder again.
        
               | _kb wrote:
               | I have no doubt trust levels will adjust, eventually. The
               | challenge is that takes a non-trivial amount of time.
               | 
               | It's still an issue with traditional mass media. See
               | basically any political environment where the Murdoch
               | media empire is active. The long tail of (I hate myself
               | for this terminology, but hey, it's HN) 'legacy humans'
               | still vote and have a very real affect on society.
        
               | galdauts wrote:
               | The issue is not even so much generating fake videos as
               | creating plausible deniability. Now everything can be
               | questioned for the pure reason of seeming AI-generated.
        
               | latexr wrote:
               | > This technology reduces the effort required
               | 
               | Which is a huge deal. It's absurd to brush that off.
               | 
               | > People already know that video cannot be taken at face
               | value.
               | 
               | No, no they do not. People don't even know to not take
               | _photos_ at face value, let alone video.
               | 
               | https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/03/26/that-
               | viral...
        
               | justworkout wrote:
               | Lord of the Rings had a budget in the high millions and
               | took years to make with a massive advertising campaign.
               | 
               | Riots happen due to out of context video clips. Violence
               | happens due to people seeing grainy phone videos and
               | acting on it immediately. We're reaching a point where
               | these videos can be automatically generated instantly by
               | anyone. If you can't see the difference between anyone
               | with a grudge generating a video that looks realistic
               | enough, and something that requires hundreds of millions
               | of dollars and hundreds of employees to attain similar
               | quality, then you're simply lying.
        
           | samstave wrote:
           | >>> _just look at the legs of the woman_
           | 
           | Denise Richards hard sharp knees in '97
           | 
           | --
           | 
           | these infant tech are already insanely good... just wait and
           | rahter try to focus on the "what should I be betting on in 5
           | years from now?
           | 
           | I suggest 'invisibility cloaks' (ghosts in machines?)
        
           | sinuhe69 wrote:
           | Yeah. I think people nowadays are in a kind of AI-euphoria
           | and they took every advancement in AI for more than what they
           | really are. The realization of their limitations will set in
           | once people have been working long enough on the stuff. The
           | capacity of the newfangled AIs are impressive. But even more
           | impressive are their mimicry capabilities.
        
             | Qwero wrote:
             | Are you joking?
             | 
             | We were not even able to just create random videos by just
             | text promoting a few years back and now this.
             | 
             | The progress is crazy.
             | 
             | Why do you dismiss this?
        
               | cezart wrote:
               | Not dismissing, but being realistic. I observed all the
               | AI tools, usually amaze most people initially by showing
               | capabilities never seen before. Then people realise their
               | limitations, ie what capabilities are still missing. And
               | they're like: "oh, this is no genie in a bottle capable
               | of satisfying every wish. We'll still have to work to
               | obtain our vision..." So the magic fades away, and the
               | world returns to normal, but now with an additional tool
               | very useful in some situations :)
        
               | Qwero wrote:
               | I'm still amazed.
               | 
               | The progress doesn't slow down right now at all.
               | 
               | This is probably one of the most exciting developments in
               | the world besides the Internet.
               | 
               | And Geminis news regarding the 1 million token window
               | shows were we are going.
               | 
               | This will impact a lot of people faster than a lot of
               | people realize
        
               | attilakun wrote:
               | I agree. Skepticism usually serves people well as a lot
               | of new tech turns out to be just hype. Except when it is
               | not and I think this is one of those few cases.
        
               | MSFT_Edging wrote:
               | Not who you're replying to but this is a toy.
               | 
               | AI won't make artistic decisions that wow an audience.
               | 
               | AI won't teach you something about the human condition.
               | 
               | AI will only enable higher quarterly profits from layoffs
               | until GPU costs catch up.
               | 
               | What the fuck is the point of AI automating away jobs
               | when the only people who benefit are the already
               | enormously wealthy? AI won't be providing time to relax
               | for the average worker, it will induce starvation.
               | Anything to prevent will be stopped via lobbying to
               | ensure taxes don't rise.
               | 
               | Seriously, what is the point? What is the point? What the
               | fuck is there to live for when art and humanities is
               | undermined by the MBA class and all you fucking have is 3
               | gig jobs to prevent starvation?
        
             | bowsamic wrote:
             | Sure there are limitations but this is still absurdly
             | impressive.
             | 
             | My benchmark is the following: imagine if someone 5 years
             | ago told you that in 5 years we could do this, you would
             | think they were crazy.
        
               | patall wrote:
               | I would not. Five (six, seven?) years ago, we had style
               | transfer with video and everyone was also super euphoric
               | about that. If I compare to those videos, there is
               | clearly progress but it is not like we started from zero
               | 2 years ago.
        
               | bowsamic wrote:
               | I don't really know what you mean by "euphoric", this is
               | a term I only know from drugs. Can you define it?
        
               | npinsker wrote:
               | It means "extremely happy", but it's usually used to
               | refer to a particular moment in time (rather than a
               | general sentiment), and so the word sounds a bit out of
               | place here, to me.
        
               | Avicebron wrote:
               | "Blissful/happy", which is why the word euphoria is often
               | abused to be sinister
        
           | anigbrowl wrote:
           | _Same story as the fingers before._
           | 
           | This is weird to me considering how much better this is than
           | the SOTA still images 2 years ago. Even though there's weirdo
           | artefacts in several of their example videos (indeed
           | including migrating fingers), that stuff will be super easy
           | to clean up, just as it is now for stills. And it's not going
           | to stop improving.
        
           | dugite-code wrote:
           | And further down the page the:
           | 
           | "The camera follows behind a white vintage SUV with a black
           | roof": The letters clearly wobble inconsistently.
           | 
           | "A drone camera circles around a beautiful historic church
           | built on a rocky outcropping along the Amalfi Coast": The
           | woman in the white dress in the bottom left suddenly splits
           | into multiple people like she was a single cell microbe
           | multiplying.
        
             | Yiin wrote:
             | Sure, but think what it will be capable of two papers ahead
             | :)
        
               | csomar wrote:
               | Progress is this field has not been linear, though. So
               | it's quite possible that two papers ahead we are still in
               | the same place.
        
               | dr_dshiv wrote:
               | On the other hand, this is the first convincing use of a
               | "diffusion transformer" [1]. My understanding is that
               | videos and images are tokenized into patches, through a
               | process that compresses the video/images into abstracted
               | concepts in latent space. Those patches (image/video
               | concepts in latent space) can then be used with
               | transformers (because patches are the tokens). The point
               | is that there is plenty of room for optimization
               | following the first demonstration of a new architecture.
               | 
               | Edit: sorry, it's not the first diffusion transformer.
               | That would be [2]
               | 
               | [1] https://openai.com/research/video-generation-models-
               | as-world...
               | 
               | [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.09748
        
               | koconder wrote:
               | Here is an explainer
               | https://towardsdatascience.com/explaining-openai-soras-
               | space...
        
             | brookst wrote:
             | It's not perfect, for sure. But maybe this isn't the final
             | pinnacle of the tech?
        
           | matt_s wrote:
           | Yep. If you look at the detail you can find obvious things
           | wrong and these are limited to 60s in length with zero audio
           | so I doubt full motion picture movies are going to be
           | replaced anytime soon. B-roll background video or AI
           | generated backgrounds for a green screen sure.
           | 
           | I would expect any subscription to use this service when it
           | comes out to be very expensive. At some point I have to
           | imagine the GPU/CPU horsepower needed will outweigh the
           | monetary costs that could be recovered. Storage costs too.
           | Its much easier to tinker with generating text or static
           | images in that regard.
           | 
           | Of note: NVDA's quarterly results come out next week.
        
           | netcan wrote:
           | > I think many people will be very uncomfortable with such
           | motion very quickly
           | 
           | So... I think OP's point stands. (impressive, surpasses
           | human/algorithmic animation thus far).
           | 
           | You're also right. There are "tells." But, a tell isn't a
           | tell until we've seen it a few times.
           | 
           | Jaron Lanier makes a point about novel technology. The first
           | gramophone users thought it sounded identical to live
           | orchestra. When very early films depicting a train coming
           | towards a camera, and people fell out of their chairs...
           | Blurry black and white, super slow frame rate projected on a
           | bedsheet.
           | 
           | Early 3d animation was _mindblowing_ in the 90s. Now it seems
           | like a marionette show. Well... I suppose there was a time
           | when marionette shows were not campy. They probably looked
           | magic.
           | 
           | It seems we need some experience before we internalize the
           | tells and it starts to look fake. My own eye for CG images
           | seems to improving faster then the quality. We're all
           | learning to recognize GPT generated text. I'm sure these
           | motion captures will look more fake to us soon.
           | 
           | That said... the fact that we're having this discussion
           | proves that what we have here is "novel." We're looking at a
           | breakthrough in motion/animation.
           | 
           | Also, I'm not sure "real" is necessary. For games or film
           | what we need is rich and believable, not real.
        
             | Jensson wrote:
             | > You're also right. There are "tells." But, a tell isn't a
             | tell until we've seen it a few times.
             | 
             | Once you have seen a few you can tell instantly. They all
             | move at 2 keyframes per second, that makes all movements
             | seem alien and everything in an image moves strangely in
             | sync. The dog moves in slow motion since they need more
             | keyframes etc. That street some looks like they move in
             | slow motion and others not.
             | 
             | People will quickly learn to notice those issues, they
             | aren't even subtle once you are aware of them, not to
             | mention the disappearing things etc.
             | 
             | And that wouldn't be very easy to fix, they need to train
             | it on keyframes because training frame by frame is too
             | much.
             | 
             | But that should make this really easy for others to
             | replicate. You just train on keyframes and then train a
             | model to fill in between keyframes, and you get this. It
             | has some limitations as we see with movement keeping the
             | same pace in every video, but there are a lot of cool
             | results from it anyway.
        
           | 4b11b4 wrote:
           | The left and right side of her face are almost... a different
           | person.
        
           | jstummbillig wrote:
           | > But I think many people will be very uncomfortable with
           | such motion very quickly.
           | 
           | Given the momentum in this space, I think you will have get
           | very uncomfortable _super quick_ about any of the
           | shortcomings of any particular model.
        
           | josemanuel wrote:
           | At second 15, of the woman video, the legs switch sides!!
           | Definitely there are some glitches :)
        
         | djmips wrote:
         | I'm not sure I feel the same way about the mammoths - and the
         | billowing snow makes no sense as someone who grew up in a snowy
         | area. If the snow was powder maybe but that's not what's
         | depicted on the ground.
        
         | bamboozled wrote:
         | I'm a bit thrown off by the fact the mammoths are steaming, is
         | that normal for mammoths ?
        
           | throw310822 wrote:
           | Good question :)
        
         | geor9e wrote:
         | It's possible that through sheer volume of training, the neural
         | network essentially has a 3D engine going on, or at least
         | picked up enough of the rules of light and shape and physics to
         | look the same as unreal or unity
        
           | samsullivan wrote:
           | It would have to in order to produce the outputs, our brains
           | have crazy physics engines though, F1 drivers can simulate an
           | entire race in their heads.
        
             | staticautomatic wrote:
             | I wonder if they could theoretically race multiple people
             | at once like chess masters.
        
         | colordrops wrote:
         | You might just be subject to confirmation bias here. Perhaps
         | there were scenes and entities you didn't realize were CGI due
         | to high quality animation, and thus didn't account for them in
         | your assessment.
        
         | samstave wrote:
         | Serious: Can one just pipe an SRT (subtitle file) and then tell
         | it to compare its version to the mp4 and then be able to
         | command it to zoom, enhance, edit, and basically use it to
         | remould content. I think this sounds great!
        
         | windowshopping wrote:
         | Huh, strong disagree. I've seen realistic CGI motion many times
         | and I don't consider this to feel realistic at all.
        
         | lastdong wrote:
         | Regarding CGI, I think it has became so good that you don't
         | know it's CGI. Look at the dog in Guardians of the Galaxy 3.
         | There's a whole series on YouTube called "no cgi is really just
         | invisible cgi" that I recommend watching.
         | 
         | And as with cgi, models like SORA will get better until you
         | can't tell reality apart. It's not there Yet, but an immense
         | astonishingly breakthrough.
        
         | unsigner wrote:
         | Don't think of them as "computer-generated" any more than your
         | phone's heavily processed pictures are "computer-generated", or
         | JWST's false color, IR-to-visible pictures are "computer-
         | generated".
         | 
         | This article makes a convincing argument:
         | https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/a-camera-not-an-engine
        
           | lynguist wrote:
           | That is such a gem of an article that looks at AI with a new
           | lens I haven't encountered before:
           | 
           | - AI sees and doesn't generate
           | 
           | - It is dual to economics that pretends to describe but
           | actually generates
        
         | globular-toast wrote:
         | Nah this still has the problem with connecting surfaces that
         | never seems to look right in any CGI. It's actually interesting
         | that it doesn't look right here as well considering they are
         | completely different techniques.
        
         | kitd wrote:
         | Maybe it's my anthropocentric brain, but the animals move
         | realistically while the people still look quite off.
         | 
         | It's still an unbelievable achievement though. I love the paper
         | seahorse whose tail is made (realistically) using the paper
         | folds.
        
         | belter wrote:
         | Just setup a family password last week...Now it seems every
         | member of the family will have to become their own certificate
         | authority and carry an MFA device.
         | 
         | "Worried About AI Voice Clone Scams? Create a Family Password"
         | - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/worried-about-ai-
         | voice...
        
       | golol wrote:
       | This does put a smile on my face
        
       | beders wrote:
       | Finally, a true Star Wars prequel is in reach. Everybody gets
       | their own :)
        
       | rafaelero wrote:
       | holy shit
        
       | kweingar wrote:
       | Obviously incredibly cool, but it seems that people are
       | _incredibly_ overstating the applications of this.
       | 
       | Realistically, how do you fit this into a movie, a TV show, or a
       | game? You write a text prompt, get a scene, and then everything
       | is gone--the characters, props, rooms, buildings, environments,
       | etc. won't carry over to the next prompt.
        
         | fassssst wrote:
         | It generates up to 1 minute videos which is like what all the
         | kids are watching on TikTok and YouTube Shorts, right? And most
         | ads are shorter than 1 minute.
        
           | Janicc wrote:
           | A few months ago ai generated videos of people getting
           | arrested for wearing big boots went viral on TikTok. I think
           | this sort of silly "interdimensional cable" stuff will be
           | really big on these short form video type sites once this
           | level of quality becomes available to everyone.
        
             | JamesSwift wrote:
             | Robot chicken, but full motion video
        
         | dragonwriter wrote:
         | > You write a text prompt, get a scene, and then everything is
         | gone--the characters, props, rooms, buildings, environments,
         | etc. won't carry over to the next prompt.
         | 
         | Sure, you can't use the text-to-video frontend for that
         | purpose. But if you've got a t2v model as good as Sora clearly
         | is, you've got the infrastructure for a lot more, as the
         | ecosystem around the open-source models in the space has shown.
         | The same techniques that allow character, object, etc.,
         | consistency in text-to-image models can be applied to text-to-
         | video models.
        
         | matsemann wrote:
         | It also seems hard to control exactly what you get. Like you'd
         | want a specific pan, focus etc. to realize your vision. The
         | examples here look good, but they aren't very specific.
         | 
         | But it was the same with Dall-E and others in the beginning,
         | and there's now lots of ways to control image generators. Same
         | will probably happen here. This was a huge leap just in how
         | coherent the frames are.
        
         | wilg wrote:
         | You wait a year and they'll figure it out.
        
         | superconduct123 wrote:
         | It doesn't need to replace the whole movie
         | 
         | You could use it for stuff like wide shots, close ups, random
         | CG shots, rapid cut shots, stuff where you just cut to it once
         | and don't need multiple angles
         | 
         | To me it seem most useful for advertising where a lot of times
         | they only show something once, like a montage
        
           | Boss0565 wrote:
           | I also see advertising (especially lower-budget productions,
           | such as dropshipping or local TV commercials) being early
           | adopters of this technology once businesses have access to
           | this at an affordable price.
        
           | planckscnst wrote:
           | And it would be magic for storyboarding. This would be such a
           | useful tool for a director to iterate on a shot and then
           | communicate that to the team
        
             | _sys49152 wrote:
             | i could arrange in frameforge 3d shot by shot, even
             | adjusting for motion in between, then export to an AI
             | solution. that to me would be everything. of course then
             | comes issues of consistency, adjustments & tweaks, etc
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | You could use it to storyboard right now. Continuity of
         | characters/wardrobe, etc. is not that important in
         | storyboarding.
        
         | seydor wrote:
         | tiktok
        
         | nprateem wrote:
         | It's pretty obvious they just need to add the ability to prompt
         | it with an image saying "continue in this style and make the
         | character..."
        
         | barbarr wrote:
         | Explicit video clips? 4chan is gonna have a field day with
         | this.
        
           | matheusmoreira wrote:
           | Not necessarily explicit. Maybe just deliberately offensive.
           | Maybe just weirdly specific.
           | 
           | It's gonna be great.
        
         | sethammons wrote:
         | What came to mind is what is right around the corner: you
         | create segments and stitch them together.
         | 
         | "ok, continue from the context on the last scene. Great. Ok,
         | move the bookshelf. I want that cat to be more furry. Cool.
         | Save this as scene 34."
         | 
         | As clip sizes grow and context can be inferred from a previous
         | scene, and a library of scenes can be made, boom, you can now
         | create full feature length films, easy enough that elementary
         | school kids will be able to craft up their imaginations.
        
         | al_borland wrote:
         | Family Guy is built on out of context clips.
         | 
         | It could also fill it for background videos in scenes, instead
         | of getting real content they'd have to pay for, or making their
         | own. The gangster movie Kevin was playing in Home Alone was
         | specifically shot for that movie, from what I remember.
        
         | dogcomplex wrote:
         | What? You're serious?
         | 
         | Script => Video baseline. Take a frame of any
         | character/prop/room/etc you want to remain consistent, and one
         | shitty photoshop and it's part of the new scene.
         | 
         |  _Incredibly overstating_. That is an _incredible_ lack of
         | imagination buddy. Or even just basic craftsmanship.
        
         | padolsey wrote:
         | Nah just fine-tune the model to a specific set of characters or
         | aesthetic. It's not hard, already done with SDXL LoRAs. You can
         | definitely generate a whole movie from just a storyboard.. if
         | not now, then in maybe five yrs.
        
         | TrackerFF wrote:
         | lots and lots and lots of b-roll and stock footage is about to
         | get cheaper.
         | 
         | Also, using this kind of footage is the bread and butter for a
         | lot of marketers for their content.
         | 
         | Imagine never having to pay stock footage companies
        
       | void-pointer wrote:
       | This is the beginning of the end, folks
        
       | SushiHippie wrote:
       | I find the watermark at the bottom right really interesting at
       | first it looks like random movement and then in the end it
       | transforms into the OpenAI logo
        
       | M4v3R wrote:
       | > The model can also take an existing video and extend it or fill
       | in missing frames
       | 
       | I wonder if it could be used as a replacement for optical flow to
       | create slow motion videos out of normal speed ones.
        
       | mushufasa wrote:
       | Do you think they announced this today to steal attention from
       | Google/Gemini annuncement?
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | No, corporate announcements are very much planned in advance.
         | There's a lot of coordination that has to happen. This is just
         | coincidence, unless one of the companies had inside information
         | about the other's announcement and timing. But that's pretty
         | unlikely.
        
       | sorokod wrote:
       | Just in time for the election season. Also "A cat waking up its
       | sleeping owner demanding breakfast" has too many paws - yes I do
       | feel petty saying this.
        
         | matsemann wrote:
         | And the sleeper's shoulder gets converted to the duvet? And a
         | strange extra hand somewhere. It was also the one that to me
         | stood out as the worst. The quality was good, but it had the
         | same artifacts as previous generations of ai videoes where
         | thing morphs.
        
       | birriel wrote:
       | With the third and last videos (space men, and man reading in the
       | clouds), this is the first time I have found the resolution
       | indistinguishable from real life. Even with SOTA stills from
       | Midjourney and Stable Diffusion I was not entirely convinced.
       | This is incredible.
        
       | corobo wrote:
       | Oooh this is gonna usher in a new wave of GPT wrappers!
       | 
       | If anyone's taking requests, could you do one that takes audio
       | clips from podcasts and turns them into animations? Ideally via
       | API rather than some PITA UI
       | 
       | Being able to keep the animation style between generations would
       | be the key feature for that kind of use-case I imagine.
        
       | sys32768 wrote:
       | Game of Thrones Season 8 will be great in a few years.
        
       | gondo wrote:
       | This might be amazing progress, but I would never know as the
       | website is consistently crashing Safari on my iPhone 13.
        
       | ulnarkressty wrote:
       | To put it into perspective, the Will Smith eating spaghetti video
       | came out not even a year ago --
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQr4Xklqzw8
        
         | 0x4164 wrote:
         | Now, we can make anyone eat spaghetti with this AGI model.
        
         | system2 wrote:
         | Extremely meme quality video made by a kid though.
        
         | ekms wrote:
         | You do know that video wasnt like... state of the art video
         | generation a year ago? It's an intentionally silly meme video
        
           | brandly wrote:
           | Link to state of the art at the time please!
        
             | marvin wrote:
             | The relevant state of the art here, is the state of "what
             | can an 8-year old kid who just learned how to type" create
             | videos of. That was even worse 12 months ago!
        
           | derac wrote:
           | It was state of the art "Will Smith eating spaghetti". The
           | idea being that it's a tough thing to generate.
        
         | maximus-decimus wrote:
         | And this was made over 3 years ago :
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WfZuNceFDM
        
       | khazhoux wrote:
       | The focus here is on video motion, but I'm very impressed by the
       | photorealistic humans.
        
       | kuprel wrote:
       | Next they have to add audio, then VideoChatGPT is possible
        
       | torginus wrote:
       | I'm not sure about others, but I'm extremely unnerved about how
       | OpenAI just throws these innovations out with zero foreshadowing
       | - it's crazy how the world's potentially most life-changing
       | company operates with the secrecy of a black military program.
       | 
       | I really wonder what's going to come out of the company and on
       | what timeline.
        
         | superconduct123 wrote:
         | That's what's mindblowing to me
         | 
         | It doesn't feel like a slow incremental progress, the last AI
         | videos I've seen were terrible
         | 
         | Its like suddenly a huge jump in quality
        
           | Jackson__ wrote:
           | It is a sudden jump in quality. A mere _month_ ago, this is
           | what googles SOTA was: https://lumiere-video.github.io/
        
         | marvin wrote:
         | OpenAI is the Manhattan Project of machine intelligence.
         | Private-sector.
        
       | throwitaway222 wrote:
       | What in the flying f just happened.
       | 
       | I guess we've all just been replaced.
        
       | partiallypro wrote:
       | These are insanely good, but there are still some things that
       | just give them away (which is good, imo.) Like the Tokyo video is
       | amazing, the reflections, etc are all great, but the gaits of
       | people in the background and how fast they are moving is clearly
       | off. It sticks out once you notice it. These things will
       | obviously improve as time marches on.
       | 
       | The fear I have has less to do with these taking jobs, but in
       | that eventually this is just going to be used by a foreign actor
       | and no one is going to know what is real anymore. This already
       | exists in new stories, now imagine that with actual AI videos
       | that are near indistinguishable from reality. It could get really
       | bad. Have an insane conspiracy theory? Well, now you can have
       | your belief validated by a completely fictional AI generated
       | video that even the most trained eyes have trouble debunking.
       | 
       | The jobs thing is also a concern, because if you have a bunch of
       | idle hands that suddenly aren't sure what to believe or just
       | believe lies, it can quickly turn into mass political violence.
       | Don't be naive to think this isn't already being thought of by
       | various national security services and militaries. We're already
       | on the precipice of it, this could eventually be a good shove
       | down the hill.
        
         | bottlepalm wrote:
         | Why aren't you more afraid of ASI? We're clearly just dancing
         | around it at this point.
        
           | partiallypro wrote:
           | Real AGI is farther away than I think people think, and the
           | tendency for mankind to destroy itself is much better
           | demonstrated than machines doing that even when that time
           | comes.
        
         | kilbuz wrote:
         | This is like seeing the first packets ever sent on the internet
         | and noting that latency is high, lol.
        
       | ulnarkressty wrote:
       | I do hope that they have a documentary team embedded in this
       | company, like DeepMind had. They're making historical
       | advancements on multiple fronts.
        
       | tehsauce wrote:
       | It's fascinating that it can model so much of the subtle
       | dynamics, structure, and appearance of the world in
       | photorealistic detail, and still have a relatively poor model of
       | things like object permanence:
       | 
       | https://cdn.openai.com/sora/videos/puppy-cloning.mp4
       | 
       | Perhaps there are particular aspects of our world that the human
       | mind has evolved to hyperfocus on.
       | 
       | Will we figure out an easy way make these models match humans in
       | those areas? Let's hope it takes some time.
        
       | ionwake wrote:
       | How long until there is an open source model for.... text to
       | video?
       | 
       | Genuine question I have no idea
        
       | jenny91 wrote:
       | Absolutely insane. It's very odd where the glitches happen. Did
       | anyone else notice in the "stylish woman ... Tokyo" clip how her
       | legs skip-hop and then cross at 0:30 in a physically impossible
       | way. Everything else about the clip seems so realistic, yet this
       | is where it _trips up_?
        
         | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
         | And the cat that wakes up the woman in bed, has three front
         | paws! And that woman seems to be wearing the blanket as though
         | they were pyjamas. Still, it's usually very hard to notice the
         | inconsistencies -- just like the subtle inconsistencies we
         | might see in our dreams.
        
           | jenny91 wrote:
           | Yes, there's some really weird hand-blanket morphing going on
           | in that cat shot. Similarly in the guy reading a book on a
           | cloud, the pages flip in a physically impossible way at one
           | point.
           | 
           | I just think it's perplexing how they got things so right,
           | yet so wrong. How did they implement this?!
        
         | psb217 wrote:
         | She's also wearing a different jacket at the end of the video.
         | Continuity is not maintained when the video zooms back out to a
         | wider shot after the close-up on her face. See, e.g., no zipper
         | on end jacket and obvious zipper on jacket earlier in the
         | video, or placement of the silver "buttons" and general
         | structure of the lapels.
         | 
         | The background details are particularly "slippery" in these
         | videos. E.g., in the initial video of walking along a snowy
         | street in Japan, characters on the left just sort of merge
         | into/out of existence. It's impressive locally, but the global
         | structure and ability to paint in finer-grained details in a
         | physically plausible way fails similarly to current image gen
         | models, but more noticeably with the added temporal dimension.
        
         | qiller wrote:
         | The construction scene has people appearing out of thin air,
         | changing jacket colors, and in general weird things happening
        
       | synapsomorphy wrote:
       | Holy cow, I've literally only looked at the first two videos so
       | far, and it's clear that this absolutely blows every other
       | generative video model out of the water, barely even worth
       | comparing. We immediately jumped from interesting toy models
       | where it was pretty easy to tell that the output was AI generated
       | to.. this.
        
       | nopinsight wrote:
       | Many might miss the key paragraph at the end:
       | "Sora serves as a foundation for models that can understand and
       | simulate the real world, a capability we believe will be an
       | important milestone for achieving AGI."
       | 
       | This also helps explain why the model is so good since it is
       | trained to simulate the real world, as opposed to imitate the
       | pixels.
       | 
       | More importantly, its capabilities suggest AGI and general
       | robotics could be closer than many think (even though some key
       | weaknesses remain and further improvements are necessary before
       | the goal is reached.)
       | 
       | EDIT: I just saw this relevant comment by an expert at Nvidia:
       | "If you think OpenAI Sora is a creative toy like DALLE, ... think
       | again. Sora is a data-driven physics engine. It is a simulation
       | of many worlds, real or fantastical. The simulator learns
       | intricate rendering, "intuitive" physics, long-horizon reasoning,
       | and semantic grounding, all by some denoising and gradient maths.
       | I won't be surprised if Sora is trained on lots of synthetic data
       | using Unreal Engine 5. It has to be!             Let's breakdown
       | the following video. Prompt: "Photorealistic closeup video of two
       | pirate ships battling each other as they sail inside a cup of
       | coffee." ...."
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/DrJimFan/status/1758210245799920123
        
         | lucisferre wrote:
         | > since it is trained to simulate the real world
         | 
         | Is it though? Or is this just marketing?
        
           | rdedev wrote:
           | If it is its not there yet. The snow in the mammoth video
           | kind of looks like smoke, the way it rises into the air
        
           | wilg wrote:
           | I think it's just inherent to the problem space. Obviously it
           | understands something about the world to be able to generate
           | convincing depictions of it.
        
             | lucisferre wrote:
             | It seems very dangerous to assume claims without evidence
             | are obvious.
        
               | wilg wrote:
               | I didn't do that.
        
           | nopinsight wrote:
           | What other likely reasons might explain the leap ahead of
           | other significant efforts?
           | 
           | See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39387333
        
             | lucisferre wrote:
             | Just having a better or bigger model? Better training data,
             | better feedback process, etc.
             | 
             | Seems more likely then "it can simulate reality".
             | 
             | Also I take anecdotal reviews like that with a grain of
             | salt. I follow numerous AI groups on Reddit and elsewhere
             | and many users seem to have strong opinions that their tool
             | of choice is the best. These reviews are highly biased.
             | 
             | Not to say I'm not impressed, but it's just been released.
        
               | nopinsight wrote:
               | Object persistence and consistency are not likely to
               | arise simply from a bigger model. A different approach or
               | architecture is needed.
               | 
               | Also, I just added a link to an expert's tweet above.
               | What do you think?
        
               | lucisferre wrote:
               | Others have provided explanations for things like object
               | persistence, for example keeping a memory of the
               | rendering outside of the frame.
               | 
               | The comment from the expert is definitely interesting and
               | compelling, but clearly still speculation based on the
               | following comment.
               | 
               | > I won't be surprised if Sora is trained on lots of
               | synthetic data using Unreal Engine 5. It has to be!
               | 
               | I like the speculation though, the comments provide some
               | convincing explanations for how this might work. For
               | example, the idea that it is trained using synthetic
               | 3-dimensional data from something like UE5 seems like a
               | brilliant idea. I love it.
               | 
               | Also in his example video the physics look very wrong to
               | me. The movement of the coffee waves are realistic-ish at
               | best. The boat motion also looks wrong and doesn't match
               | up with the liquid much of the time.
        
           | janalsncm wrote:
           | I was impressed with their video of a drone race on Mars
           | during a sunset. In part of the video, the sun is in view,
           | but then the camera turns so it's out of view. When the
           | camera turns back, the sun is where it's supposed to be.
        
             | djsavvy wrote:
             | there's mention of memory in the post -- the model can
             | remember where it put objects for a short while, so if it
             | pans away and pans back it should keep that object
             | "permanence".
        
           | hbn wrote:
           | Well the video in the weaknesses section with the
           | archeologists makes me think it's not just predicting pixels.
           | The fact that a second chair spawns out of nothing looks like
           | a typical AI uncanny valley mistake you'd expect, but then it
           | starts hovering which looks more like a video game physics
           | glitch than an incorrect interpretation of pixels on screen.
        
         | kevmo314 wrote:
         | What is latent space if not a representation of the real world?
        
           | nopinsight wrote:
           | Pretty sure many latent spaces are not trained to represent
           | 3D motions and some detailed physics of the real world. Those
           | in pure text LLMs, for example.
        
         | fasteddie31003 wrote:
         | Movie making is going to become fine-tuning these foundational
         | video models. For example, if you want Brad Pitt in your movie
         | you'll need to use his data to fine-tune his character.
        
         | mentalpiracy wrote:
         | > "understand... the real world"
         | 
         | doing a lot of heavy lifting in this statement
        
         | xtracto wrote:
         | What I want is an AI trained to simulate the human body,
         | allowing scientists to perform artificial human trials on all
         | kind of medicines. Cutting trial times from years to months.
        
           | delichon wrote:
           | Or to simulate the short or long term regret you'll feel for
           | eating the meal in the photo.
        
         | grbsh wrote:
         | I think you are reading too far into this. The title of the
         | technical paper is " Video generation models as world
         | simulators".
         | 
         | This is "just" a transformer that takes in a sequence of noisy
         | image (video frame) tokens + prompt, and produces a sequence of
         | less noisy video tokens. Repeat until noise gone.
         | 
         | The point they're making, which is totally valid, is that in
         | order for such a model to produce videos with realistic
         | physics, the underlying model is forced to learn a model of
         | physics (a "world simulation").
        
           | nopinsight wrote:
           | AlphaGo and AlphaZero were able to achieve superhuman
           | performance due to the availability of perfect simulators for
           | the game of Go. There is no such simulator for the real world
           | we live in. (Although pure LLMs sorta learn a rough, abstract
           | representation of the world as perceived by humans.) Sora is
           | an attempt to build such a simulator using deep learning.
           | 
           | This actually affirms my comment above.                 "Our
           | results suggest that scaling video generation models is a
           | promising path towards building general purpose simulators of
           | the physical world."
           | 
           | https://openai.com/research/video-generation-models-as-
           | world...
           | 
           | What part of my argument do you disagree about?
        
             | lanternfish wrote:
             | `since it is trained to simulate the real world, as opposed
             | to imitate the pixels.`
             | 
             | It's not that its learning a model of the world instead of
             | imitating pixels - the world model is just a necessary
             | emergent phenomenon from the pixel imitation. It's still
             | really impressive and very useful, but it's still 'pixel
             | imitation'
        
       | torginus wrote:
       | I wonder why the input is always text - can't it be text, as well
       | as a low quality blender scene with a camera rig flying through
       | space, a moodboard, sketches of the characters etc.?
        
         | thepasswordis wrote:
         | My guess is because the models were all trained on text. You
         | could do as you say, but I think it would go: blender video
         | {gets described by an AI into text}-> text prompt -> video.
        
       | cboswel1 wrote:
       | Who owns a person's likeness? Now that we're approaching text to
       | video of a quality that could fool an average person, won't this
       | just open a whole new can of worms if the training models are
       | replicating celebrities? The ambiguity around copyright when
       | something on paper is in the style of seems to fall into an
       | entirely separate category than making AI generated videos of
       | actual people without their consent. Will people of note have to
       | get a copyright of their likeness to fight its use in these
       | models?
        
         | Workaccount2 wrote:
         | $100 on the table that studios create new celebrities that they
         | own the rights too.
        
           | hyperion2010 wrote:
           | No need to take the bet, reality is already there. Miku is
           | the endgame for idols. Forever young. Will never have a
           | boyfriend. Always follows the script, or not when the team
           | managing her decides they need a little drama. etc. etc. etc.
        
       | danjoredd wrote:
       | Porn is about to get so much weirder
        
       | ed_balls wrote:
       | How to invest in OpenAI?
        
       | bilsbie wrote:
       | Could this same technology be used to make games? It seems like
       | it has a built in physics engine.
        
       | lairv wrote:
       | The 3D consistency of those videos is insane compared to what has
       | previously been done, they must have used some form of 3D
       | regularization with depth or flow I think
        
       | xyproto wrote:
       | The big question is if it will be able to create a video of
       | whisky without ice or a car without windows.
        
       | lacoolj wrote:
       | Total coincidence this comes out the day Google announces Gemini
       | 1.5 I'm sure
        
       | throwitaway222 wrote:
       | https://openai.com/sora?video=cat-on-bed
       | 
       | Even though many things are super impressive, there is a lot of
       | uncanny valley happening here.
        
         | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
         | Yes, the cat has three hands...
        
         | gwern wrote:
         | Cats are like hands: they are hilariously hard for generative
         | models and then after thinking about it, you realize that
         | cats/hands _really are_ hard. I mean, look at photos of a black
         | cat curled up where it might have its paws sticking out at any
         | angle from anywhere from a solid black void. How the heck do
         | you learn _that_?
        
       | vilius wrote:
       | The Lagos video (https://openai.com/sora?video=lagos) is very
       | much how my dreams unfold. One moment, I'm with my friends in a
       | bustling marketplace, then suddenly we are no longer at the
       | marketplace, but rather overlooking a sunset and a highway. I
       | wonder if there are some conceptual similarities how dreams and
       | AI video models work.
        
         | ladberg wrote:
         | Yeah that one has more surreal elements every time you watch
         | it: the people at the table are giants compared to everyone
         | else, someone is headless, the kid's hand warps around like
         | crazy.
        
       | ericzawo wrote:
       | Why can't AI take the non-fun jobs?
        
         | ta8645 wrote:
         | Why are you able to have a fun job, when another human has a
         | non-fun job? Because you're more talented and have skills they
         | lack. Same goes for AI versus you. You're just starting to feel
         | what billions of other people have felt, for a long time.
        
           | Pugpugpugs wrote:
           | Yeah but AI can't experience pleasure.
        
             | ta8645 wrote:
             | Customers care about results, not whatever pleasure it
             | creates for the vendor.
        
               | Pugpugpugs wrote:
               | Wow really? Thanks for your insight buddy.
        
               | ta8645 wrote:
               | Thanks, that means a lot, especially coming from someone
               | who was commenting on the ability of AI to feel pleasure.
        
               | Pugpugpugs wrote:
               | We're both saying "the current system is bad because the
               | way it works will interact with ai to create negative
               | outcomes" and you're saying "wow you're very stupid,
               | here's how the system works." We're aware friend, that's
               | the problem.
        
               | ta8645 wrote:
               | Wow really? Thanks for your insight buddy.
        
       | dsign wrote:
       | This is impressive and amazing. I can already see a press release
       | not too far down the road: "Our new model HoSapiens can do
       | everything humans can do, but better. It has been specifically
       | designed to deprecate humanity. We are working with red teamers
       | -- domain experts in areas like union busting, corporate law and
       | counterinsurgency, plus our habitual bias, misinformation, and
       | hateful content against AI orange team-- who will be
       | adversarially testing the model.
        
       | hooande wrote:
       | This really seems like "DALL-E", but for videos. I can make
       | cool/funny videos for my friends, but after a while the novelty
       | wears off.
       | 
       | All of the AI generated media has this quality where I can
       | immediately tell that it's ai, and that becomes my dominant
       | thought. I see these things on social media and think "oh,
       | another ai pic" and keep scrolling. I've yet to be confused about
       | whether something is ai generated or real for more than several
       | seconds.
       | 
       | Consistency and continuity still seem to be a major issues. It
       | would be very difficult to tell a story using Sora because
       | details and the overall style would change from scene to scene.
       | This is also true of the newest image models.
       | 
       | Many people think that Sora is the second coming, and I hope it
       | turns out to have a major impact on all of our lives. But right
       | now it's looking to have about the same impact that DALL-E has
       | had so far.
        
         | mbm wrote:
         | Yeah, you really have to fast-forward 5 to 10 years. The first
         | cars or airplanes didn't run particularly well either. Soon
         | enough, we won't be able to tell.
        
         | thorncorona wrote:
         | These limitations are fine for short form content ala reels /
         | tiktok. I think the younger generations will get used to how it
         | looks.
        
         | MrNeon wrote:
         | > I've yet to be confused about whether something is ai
         | generated or real for more than several seconds.
         | 
         | How did you rule out survivorship bias?
        
       | bilsbie wrote:
       | I wish this was connected to chatgpt4 such that it could directly
       | generate videos as part of its response.
       | 
       | The bottleneck of creating a separate prompt is very limiting.
       | 
       | Imagine asking for a recipe or car repair and it makes a video of
       | the exact steps. Or if you could upload a video and ask it to
       | make a new ending.
       | 
       | That's what I imagine multi modal models would be.
        
       | max_ wrote:
       | This is amazing!
       | 
       | 1. Why would Adrej Karpathy leave when he knows such an
       | impressive breakthrough is in the pipeline?
       | 
       | 2. Why hasn't Ilya Stuskever spoken about this?
        
         | taejavu wrote:
         | No idea for your first question, but wouldn't the answer to the
         | second be "NDA's and or other legal concerns"?
        
       | dwighttk wrote:
       | What do y'all think caused the weird smoke/cloud in the mammoth
       | video?
        
       | throwitaway222 wrote:
       | How many of you think YT is looking through their logs trying to
       | find a high burn rate of videos that might possibly be from Open
       | AI?
        
       | d--b wrote:
       | Jesus Christ.
       | 
       | AGI can't be far off, that stuff clearly understand a bunch of
       | high level concepts.
        
       | rareitem wrote:
       | I used to think a few years ago that virtual reality/ai projects
       | such as the mataverse wouldn't amount to anything big. I even
       | thought of them ridiculous. Even recently, I thought that GPT's
       | and ai generated images would be the pinnacle of what this new ai
       | wave would amount to. I just keep getting baffled.
        
       | Jeve11326gr6ed wrote:
       | How can I get started
        
       | helix278 wrote:
       | They're attaching metadata to the videos which can be easily
       | removed. Aren't there techniques to hash metadata into the
       | content itself? I.e. such that removing the data would alter the
       | image.
        
       | ericra wrote:
       | It's been said a thousand times, but the "open" in openai becomes
       | more comical every day. I can't imagine how much money they will
       | generate from such a tool, and I'm sure they will do everything
       | possible to keep a tight lid on all the implementation details.
       | 
       | This product looks incredible...
        
       | chrishare wrote:
       | I am very uncomfortable with this being released commercially
       | without the requisite defence against misuse being also
       | accessible. If we didn't have a problem with deepfakes, spam,
       | misleading media before, we surely are now. All leading AI
       | organisations are lacking here, benefiting from the tech but not
       | sufficiently attacking the external costs that society will pay.
        
         | wilg wrote:
         | What's "the requisite defence"?
        
           | __loam wrote:
           | Something like a watermark (doesn't necessarily have to be
           | visible to people) and a tool to detect that watermark might
           | be nice for example. Or alternatively we could stop
           | developing this hell technology and try to automate something
           | that isn't cultural expression.
        
             | wilg wrote:
             | Both of those are included and mentioned in the linked
             | article.
        
               | chrishare wrote:
               | Two things I would like - advances in detectors or
               | generative content that do not do c2pa, and more
               | transparency in what the usage policy means in practice.
        
               | __loam wrote:
               | Two things I would like - algorithmic disgorgement and an
               | apology to the human race.
        
         | Palmik wrote:
         | I'm very uncomfortable with this technology being accessible
         | only to a small and arbitrary subset of the population.
        
       | guybedo wrote:
       | Looks like OpenAI managed to burry Gemini 1.5 news.
       | 
       | I guess it was anticipated.
        
       | taejavu wrote:
       | Do we know anything yet about the maximum resolution of the
       | output, or how long it takes to generate these kind of examples?
        
         | zamadatix wrote:
         | The technical report mentions it the training data was fed at
         | up to 1920x1080 (allowing for a vertical 1080x1920 as well) so
         | I'd guess that's why all of these videos were 1080p or lower,
         | any larger and it probably gets wonky fast. I didn't see
         | anything on absolute compute requirements and their impact on
         | time to generate though.
        
       | karpour wrote:
       | Not a single line saying anything about training data.
        
       | hubraumhugo wrote:
       | The amount of VC money in the text-to-video space that just got
       | wiped out is impressive. Have we ever seen such fast market
       | moves?
       | 
       | Pika - $55M
       | 
       | Synthesia - $156M
       | 
       | Stability AI - $173M
        
         | guwop wrote:
         | Obviously they did not get "wiped" out. Where can i use Sora
         | right now ?
        
       | alex201 wrote:
       | It's a revolutionary thing, but I'll reserve my judgment until I
       | see if it can handle the real challenge: creating a video where
       | my code works perfectly on the first try.
        
       | cush wrote:
       | Does OpenAI hang out with these kinds of features in their back
       | pocket just waiting for a Gemeni announcement so they can wait an
       | hour and absolutely dunk on Google?
        
         | gigglesupstairs wrote:
         | Looking at the scale of this announcement, it's likelier that
         | Google just preempted their announcement with their own.
        
       | cfr2023 wrote:
       | I want to storyboard/pre-vis/mess around with this ASAP
        
       | sebastiennight wrote:
       | I think the implications go much further than just the
       | image/video considerations.
       | 
       | This model shows a very good (albeit not perfect) understanding
       | of the physics of objects and relationships between them. The
       | announcement mentions this several times.
       | 
       | The OpenAI blog post lists "Archeologists discover a generic
       | plastic chair in the desert, excavating and dusting it with great
       | care." as one of the "failed" cases. But this (and "Reflections
       | in the window of a train traveling through the Tokyo suburbs.")
       | seem to me to be 2 of the most important examples.
       | 
       | - In the Tokyo one, the model is smart enough to figure out that
       | on a train, the reflection would be of a passenger, and the
       | passenger has Asian traits since this is Tokyo. - In the chair
       | one, OpenAI says the model failed to model the physics of the
       | object (which hints that it did try to, which is not how the
       | early diffusion models worked ; they just tried to generate
       | "plausible" images). And we can see one of the archeologists
       | basically chasing the chair down to grab it, which does correctly
       | model the interaction with a floating object.
       | 
       | I think we can't underestimate how crucial that is to the
       | building of a general model that has a strong model of the world.
       | Not just a "theory of mind", but a litteral understanding of
       | "what will happen next", independently of "what would a human say
       | would happen next" (which is what the usual text-based models
       | seem to do).
       | 
       | This is going to be much more important, IMO, than the video
       | aspect.
        
         | seydor wrote:
         | Facebook released something in that direction today
         | https://ai.meta.com/blog/v-jepa-yann-lecun-ai-model-video-jo...
        
           | sebastiennight wrote:
           | Wow this is a huge announcement too, I can't believe this
           | hasn't made the front page yet.
        
         | gspetr wrote:
         | This seems to be completely in line with the previous "AI is
         | good when it's not news" type of work:
         | 
         | Non-news: Dog bites a man.
         | 
         | News: Man bites a dog.
         | 
         | Non-news: "People riding Tokyo train" - completely ordinary,
         | tons of similar content.
         | 
         | News: "Archaeologists dust off a plastic chair" - bizarre,
         | (virtually) no similar content exists.
        
         | RhysU wrote:
         | > very good... understanding of the physics of objects and
         | relationships between them
         | 
         | I am always torn here. A real physics engine has a better
         | "understanding" but I suspect that word applies to neither Sora
         | nor a physics engine:
         | https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
         | 
         | An understanding of physics would entail asking this generative
         | network to invert gravity, change the density or energy output
         | of something, or atypically reduce a coefficient of friction
         | partway through a video. Perhaps Sora can handle these, but I
         | suspect it is mimicking the usual world rather than
         | understanding physics in any strong sense.
         | 
         | None of which is to say their accomplishment isn't impressive.
         | Only that "understand" merits particularly careful use these
         | days.
        
           | mewpmewp2 wrote:
           | Question is - how much do you need to understand something in
           | order to mimick it?
           | 
           | The Chinese Room seems to however point to some sort of
           | prewritten if-else type of algorithm type of situation. E.g.
           | someone following scripted algorithmic procedures might not
           | understand the content, but obviously this simplification is
           | not the case with LLMs or this video generation, as the
           | algorithmic scripting requires pre-written scripts.
           | 
           | Chinese Room seems to more refer to cases like "if someone
           | tells me "xyz", then respond with "abc" - of course then you
           | don't understand what xyz or abc mean, but it's not referring
           | to neural networks training on ton of material to build this
           | model representation of things.
        
             | RhysU wrote:
             | Good points.
             | 
             | Perhaps building the representation is building
             | understanding. But humans did that for Sora and for all the
             | other architectures too (if you'll allow a little meta-
             | building).
             | 
             | But evaluation alone is not understanding. Evaluation is
             | merely following a rote sequence of operations, just like
             | the physics engine or the Chinese room.
             | 
             | People recognize this distinction all the time when kids
             | memorize mathematical steps in elementary school but they
             | do not yet know which specific steps to apply for a
             | particular problem. This kid does not yet understand
             | because this kid guesses. Sora just happens to guess with
             | an incredibly complicated set of steps.
             | 
             | (I guess.)
        
               | ketzo wrote:
               | I think this is a good insight. But if the kid gets
               | sufficiently good at guessing, does it matter anymore..?
               | 
               | I mean, at this point the question is so vague... maybe
               | it's kinda silly. But I do think that there's some point
               | of "good-at-guessing" that makes an LLM just as valuable
               | as humans for most things, honestly.
        
               | RhysU wrote:
               | Agreed.
               | 
               | For low-stakes interpolation, give me the guesser.
               | 
               | For high-stakes interpolation or any extrapolation, I
               | want someone who does not guess (any more than is
               | inherent to extrapolating).
        
             | jedharris wrote:
             | That matches how philosophers typically talk about the
             | Chinese room. However the Chinese room is supposed to
             | "behaves as if it understands Chinese" and can engage in a
             | conversation (let us assume via text). To do this the room
             | must "remember" previously mentioned facts, people, etc.
             | Furthermore it must line up ambiguous references correctly
             | (both in reading and writing).
             | 
             | As we now know from more than 60 years of good old
             | fashioned AI efforts, plus recent learning based AI, this
             | CAN be done using computers but CANNOT be done using just
             | ordinary if - then - else type rules no matter how
             | complicated. Searle wrote before we had any systems that
             | could actually (behave as if they) understood language and
             | could converse like humans, so he can be forgiven for
             | failing to understand this.
             | 
             | Now that we do know how to build these systems, we can
             | still imagine a Chinese room. The little guy in the room
             | will still be "following pre-written scripted algorithmic
             | procedures." He'll have archives of billions of weights for
             | his "dictionary". He will have to translate each character
             | he "reads" into one or more vectors of hundreds or
             | thousands of numbers, perform billions of matrix multiplies
             | on the results, and translate the output of the
             | calculations -- more vectors -- into characters to reply.
             | (We may come up with something better, but the brain can
             | clearly do something very much like this.)
             | 
             | Of course this will take the guy hundreds or thousands of
             | years from "reading" some Chinese to "writing" a reply.
             | Realistically if we use error correcting codes to handle
             | his inevitable mistakes that will increase the time
             | greatly.
             | 
             | Implication: Once we expand our image of the Chinese room
             | enough to actually fulfill Searle's requirements, I can no
             | longer imagine the actual system concretely, and I'm not
             | convinced that the ROOM ITSELF "doesn't have a mind" that
             | somehow emerges from the interaction of all these vectors
             | and weights.
             | 
             | Too bad Searle is dead, I'd love to have his reply to this.
        
         | sva_ wrote:
         | I found the one about the people in Lagos pretty funny. The
         | camera does about a 360deg spin in total, in the beginning
         | there are markets, then suddenly there are skyscrapers in the
         | background. So there's only very limited object permanence.
         | 
         | > A beautiful homemade video showing the people of Lagos,
         | Nigeria in the year 2056. Shot with a mobile phone camera.
         | 
         | > https://cdn.openai.com/sora/videos/lagos.mp4
        
           | PoignardAzur wrote:
           | Yeah, some of the continuity errors in that one feel
           | horrifying.
        
           | vingt_regards wrote:
           | There are also perspective issues: the relative sizes of the
           | foreground (the people sitting at the cafe) and the
           | background (the market) are incoherent. Same with the "snowy
           | Tokyo with cherry blossoms" video.
        
           | po wrote:
           | In the video of the girl walking down the Tokyo city street,
           | she's wearing a leather jacket. After the closeup on her face
           | they pull back and the leather jacket has hilariously large
           | lapels that weren't there before.
        
             | ketzo wrote:
             | Object permanence (just from images/video) seems like a
             | particularly hard problem for a super-smart prediction
             | engine. Is it the old thing, or a new thing?
        
           | bamboozled wrote:
           | Also the women in red next to the people is very tiny and the
           | market stall is also a mini market stall, and the table is
           | made out of a bike.
           | 
           | For everyone that's carrying on about this thing
           | understanding physics and has a model of the world...it's an
           | odd world.
        
             | lostemptations5 wrote:
             | The thing is -- over time I'm not sure people will care.
             | People will adapt to these kinds of strange things and
             | normalize them -- as long as they are compelling visually.
             | The thing about that scene is it looks weird only if you
             | think about it. Otherwise it seems like the sort of pan you
             | would see in some 30 second commercial for coffee or
             | something.
             | 
             | If anything it tells a story: going from market, to people
             | talking as friends, to the giant world (of Lagos).
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | I'm not so sure.
               | 
               | My instagram feed is full of AI people, I can tell with
               | pretty good accuracy when the image is "AI" or real, the
               | lighting and just the framing and the scene itself, just
               | something is off.
               | 
               | I think a similar thing will happen here, over the next
               | few months we'll adapt to these videos and the problems
               | will become very obvious.
               | 
               | When I first looked at the videos I was quite impressed,
               | but I looked again and I saw a bunch of werid stuff going
               | on. I think our brains are just wired to save energy, and
               | accepting whatever we see on a video or an image as being
               | good enough is pretty efficient / low risk thing.
        
               | ehnto wrote:
               | Agreed, at first glance of the woman walking I was so
               | focused on how well they were animating that the surreal
               | scene went unnoticed. Once I'd stopped noticing the
               | surreal scene, I started picking up on weird motion in
               | the walk too.
               | 
               | Where I think this will get used a lot is in advertising.
               | Short videos, lots going on, see it once and it's gone,
               | no time to inspect. Lady laughing with salad pans to a
               | beach scene, here's a product, buy and be as happy as
               | salad lady.
        
               | tuyiown wrote:
               | This will be classified unconsciously as cheap and
               | uninteresting by the brain real quick. It'll have its
               | place in the tides of cheap content, but if overall
               | quality was to be overlooked that easily, producers would
               | never have increased production budget that much, ever,
               | just for the sake of it.
        
           | lostemptations5 wrote:
           | Though I'm not sure your point here -- outside of America --
           | in Asia and Africa -- these sorts of markets mixed in with
           | skyscrapers are perfectly normal. There is nothing unusual
           | about it.
        
           | cruffle_duffle wrote:
           | > then suddenly there are skyscrapers in the background. So
           | there's only very limited object permanence.
           | 
           | Ah but you see that is artistic liberty. The director wanted
           | it shot that way.
        
         | XCSme wrote:
         | It doesn't understand physics.
         | 
         | It just computes next frame based on current one and what it
         | learned before, it's a plausible continuation.
         | 
         | In the same way, ChatGPT struggles with math without code
         | interpreter, Sora won't have accurate physics without a physics
         | engine and rendering 3d objects.
         | 
         | Now it's just a "what is the next frame of this 2D image" model
         | plus some textual context.
        
           | yberreby wrote:
           | > It just computes next frame based on current one and what
           | it learned before, it's a plausible continuation.
           | 
           | ...
           | 
           | > Now it's just a "what is the next frame of this 2D image"
           | model plus some textual context.
           | 
           | This is incorrect. Sora is not an autoregressive model like
           | GPT, but a diffusion transformer. From the technical
           | report[1], it is clear that it predicts the entire sequence
           | of spatiotemporal patches at once.
           | 
           | [1]: https://openai.com/research/video-generation-models-as-
           | world...
        
             | XCSme wrote:
             | Good link.
             | 
             | But, even there it says:
             | 
             | > Sora currently exhibits numerous limitations as a
             | simulator. For example, it does not accurately model the
             | physics of many basic interactions, like glass shattering.
             | Other interactions, like eating food, do not always yield
             | correct changes in object states
             | 
             | Regardless whether all the frames are generated at once, or
             | one by one, you can see in their examples it's still just
             | pixel based. See the first example with the dog with blue
             | hat, the woman has a blue thing suddenly spawn into her
             | hand because her hand went over another blue area of the
             | image.
        
               | yberreby wrote:
               | I'm not denying that there are obvious limitations.
               | However, attributing them to being "pixel-based" seems
               | misguided. First off, the model acts in latent space, not
               | directly on pixels. Secondly, there is no _fundamental_
               | limitation here. The model has already acquired limited-
               | yet-impressive ability to understand movement, texture,
               | social behavior, etc., just from watching videos.
               | 
               | I learned to understand reality by interpreting photons
               | and various sensory inputs. Does that make my model of
               | reality fundamentally flawed? In the sense that I only
               | have a partial intuitive understanding of it, yes. But I
               | don't need to know Maxwell's equations to get a sense of
               | what happens when I open the blinds or turn on my phone.
               | 
               | I think many of the limitations we are seeing here - poor
               | glass physics, flawed object permanence - will be
               | overcome given enough training data and compute.
               | 
               | We will most likely need to incorporate exploration, but
               | we can get really far with astute observation.
        
               | XCSme wrote:
               | This is an excellent comparison and I agree with you.
               | 
               | Unfortunately we are flawed. We do know how physics work
               | intuitively and can somewhat predict them, but not
               | perfectly. We can imagine how a ball will move, but the
               | image is blurry and trajectory only partially correct.
               | This is why we invented math and physics studies, to be
               | able to accurately calculate, predict and reproduce those
               | events.
               | 
               | We are far off from creating something as efficient as
               | the human brain. It will take insane amounts of compute
               | power to simply match our basic innacurate brains,
               | imagine how much will be needed to create something that
               | is factually accurate.
        
               | yberreby wrote:
               | Indeed. But a point that is often omitted from
               | comparisons with organic brains is how much "compute
               | equivalent" we spent through evolution. The brain is not
               | a blank slate; it has clear prior structure that is
               | genetically encoded. You can see this as a form of
               | pretraining through a RL process wherein reward ~=
               | surviving and procreating. If you see things this way,
               | data-efficiency comparisons are more appropriate in the
               | context of learning a new task or piece of information,
               | and foundation models tend to do this quite well.
               | 
               | Additionally, most of the energy cost comes from
               | pretraining, but once we have the resulting weights,
               | downstream fine-tuning or inference are comparatively
               | quite cheap. So even if the energy cost is high, it may
               | be worth it if we get powerful generalist models that we
               | can specialize in many different ways.
               | 
               | > This is why we invented math and physics studies, to be
               | able to accurately calculate, predict and reproduce those
               | events.
               | 
               | We won't do away without those, but an intuitive
               | understanding of the world can go a long way towards
               | knowing when and how to use precise quantitative methods.
        
           | og_kalu wrote:
           | GPT-4 doesn't "struggle with math". It does fine. Most humans
           | aren't any better.
           | 
           | Sora is not autoregressive anyway but there's nothing "just"
           | and next frame/token prediction.
        
             | 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
             | It absolutely struggles with math. It's not solving
             | anything. It sometimes gets the answer right only because
             | it's seen the question before. It's rote memorization at
             | best.
        
               | og_kalu wrote:
               | No it doesn't. I know because I've actually used the
               | thing and you clearly haven't.
               | 
               | And if Terence Tao finds some use for GPT-4 as well as
               | Khan Academy employing it as a Math tutor then I don't
               | think I have some wild opinion either.
               | 
               | Now Math isn't just Arithmetic but do you know easy it is
               | to go out of training for say Arithmetic ?
        
               | peebeebee wrote:
               | Yesterday, it failed to give me the correct answer to 4 +
               | 2 / 2. It said 3...
        
               | isaacfrond wrote:
               | Just tried in chatGpt-4. It gives the correct output (5),
               | along with a short explanations of the order of
               | operations (which you probably need to know, if you're
               | asking the question).
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | We shouldn't necessarily regard 5 as the _correct_
               | output. Sure, almost all of us choose to make division
               | higher precedence than addition, but there 's no reason
               | that has to be the case. I think a truly intelligent
               | system would reply with 5 (which follows the usual
               | convention, and would therefore mimic the standard human
               | response), but immediately ask if perhaps you had
               | intended a different order of operations (or even other
               | meanings for the symbols), and suggest other
               | possibilities and mention the fact that your question
               | could be considered not well-defined...which is basically
               | what it did.
        
               | pizzafeelsright wrote:
               | Correct based upon whom? If someone of authority asks the
               | question and receives a detailed response back that is
               | plausible but not necessarily correct, and that version
               | of authority says the answer is actually three, how would
               | you disagree?
               | 
               | In order to combat Authority you need to both appeal to a
               | higher authority, and that has been lost. One follows AI.
               | Another follows Old Men from long ago who's words
               | populated the AI.
        
               | XCSme wrote:
               | The TV show American Gods becoming reality...
        
             | xanderlewis wrote:
             | I guess you might think 'math' means arithmetic. It
             | definitely _does_ struggle with mathematical reasoning, and
             | I can tell you that because I and many others have tried
             | it.
             | 
             | Mind you, it's not brilliant at arithmetic either...
        
               | og_kalu wrote:
               | I'm not talking about Arithmetic
        
         | shostack wrote:
         | I'm hoping to see progress towards consistent characters,
         | objects, scenes etc. So much of what I'd want to do creatively
         | hinges on needing persisting characters who don't change
         | appearance/clothing/accessories from usage to usage. Or
         | creating a "set" for a scene to take place in repeatedly.
         | 
         | I know with stable diffusion there's things like lora and
         | controlnet, but they are clunky. We still seem to have a long
         | way to go towards scene and story composition.
         | 
         | Once we do, it will be a game changer for redefining how we
         | think about things like movies and television when you can
         | effectively have them created on demand.
        
         | bamboozled wrote:
         | Wouldn't having a good understanding of physics mean you know
         | that a women doesn't slide down the road when she walks?
         | Wouldn't it know that a woolly mammoth doesn't emit profuse
         | amounts steam when walking on frozen snow? Wouldn't the model
         | know that legs are solid objects in which other object cannot
         | pass through?
         | 
         | Maybe I'm missing the big picture here, but the above and all
         | the weird spatial errors, like miniaturization of people make
         | me think you're wrong.
         | 
         | Clearly the model is an achievement and doing something
         | interesting to produce these videos, and they are pretty cool,
         | but understanding physics seems like quite a stretch?
         | 
         | I also don't really get the excitement about the girl on the
         | train in Tokyo:
         | 
         |  _In the Tokyo one, the model is smart enough to figure out
         | that on a train, the reflection would be of a passenger, and
         | the passenger has Asian traits since this is Tokyo_
         | 
         | I don't know a lot about how this model works personally, but
         | I'm guessing in the training data the vast majority of people
         | riding trains in Tokyo featured asian people in them, assuming
         | this model works on statistics like all of the other models
         | I've seen recently from Open AI, then why is it interesting the
         | girl in the reflection was Asian? Did you not expect that?
        
           | pests wrote:
           | They could test this by trying to generate the same image but
           | set in New York, etc. I bet it would still be asain.
        
           | pera wrote:
           | I agree, to me the most clear example is how the rocks in the
           | sea vanish/transform after the wave: The generated frames are
           | hyperreal for sure, but the represented space looks as
           | consistent as a dream.
        
           | csomar wrote:
           | > Wouldn't having a good understanding of physics mean you
           | know that a women doesn't slide down the road when she walks?
           | Wouldn't it know that a woolly mammoth doesn't emit profuse
           | amounts steam when walking on frozen snow? Wouldn't the model
           | know that legs are solid objects in which other object cannot
           | pass through?
           | 
           | This just hit me but humans do not have a good understanding
           | of physics; or maybe most of humans have no understanding of
           | physics. We just observe and recognize whether it's familiar
           | or not.
           | 
           | AI will need to be, that being the case, way more powerful
           | than a human mind. Maybe orders of magnitude more "neural
           | networks" than a human brain has.
        
             | bamboozled wrote:
             | Well we _feel_ the world, it 's pretty wild when you think
             | about how much data the body must be receiving and
             | processing constantly.
             | 
             | I was watching my child in the bath the other day, they
             | were having the most incredible time splashing, feeling the
             | water, throwing balls up and down, and yes, they have
             | absolutely no knowledge of "physics" yet navigating and
             | interacting with it as if it was the best thing they've
             | ever done. Not even 12 months old yet.
             | 
             | It was all just happening on feel and yeah, I doubt they
             | could describe how to generate a movie.
        
             | ehnto wrote:
             | Operating a human takes an incredible intuition of physics,
             | just because you can't write or explain the math doesn't
             | mean your mind doesn't understand it. Further to that, we
             | are able to apply our patterns of physics to novel external
             | situations on the fly sometimes within miliseconds of
             | encountering the situation.
             | 
             | You only need to see a ball bounce once and your brain has
             | done some rough approximations of it's properties and will
             | calc both where it's going and how to get your gangly
             | menagerie pivots, levers, meat servos and sockets to
             | intercept them at just the right time.
             | 
             | Think also about how well people can come to understand the
             | physics of cars and bikes in motorsport and the like. The
             | internal model of a cars suspension in operation is non-
             | trivial but people can put it in their head.
        
             | nox101 wrote:
             | Humans have an intuitive understanding of physics, not a
             | mathy science one.
             | 
             | I know I can't put my hand through solid objects. I know
             | that if I drop my laptop from chest height it will likely
             | break it, the display will crack or shatter, the case will
             | get a dent. If it hits my foot it will hurt. Depending on
             | the angle it may break a bone. It may even draw blood. All
             | of that is from my intuitive knowledge of physics. No book
             | smarts needed.
        
           | barfingclouds wrote:
           | Give it a year
        
         | timdiggerm wrote:
         | > In the Tokyo one, the model is smart enough to figure out
         | that on a train, the reflection would be of a passenger, and
         | the passenger has Asian traits since this is Tokyo.
         | 
         | How is this any more accurate than saying that the model has
         | mostly seen Asian people in footage of Tokyo, and thus it is
         | most likely to generate Asian-features for a video labelled
         | "Tokyo"? Similarly, how many videos looking out a train window
         | do you think it's seen where there was not a reflection of a
         | person in the window when it's dark?
        
       | superconduct123 wrote:
       | So do we think this is the "breakthrough" that was mentioned back
       | when the Sam Altman stuff was going on?
        
       | internetter wrote:
       | The watermark is interesting. Looks like it's unique for every
       | video so they can trace it to the creator?
        
       | countmora wrote:
       | > We're also building tools to help detect misleading content
       | such as a detection classifier that can tell when a video was
       | generated by Sora.
       | 
       | I am curious of how optimised their approach is and what hardware
       | you would need to analyse videos at reasonable speed.
        
       | neutralx wrote:
       | Has anyone else noticed the leg swap in Tokyo video at 0:14. I
       | guess we are past uncanny, but I do wonder if these small
       | artifacts will always be present in generated content.
       | 
       | Also begs the question, if more and more children are introduced
       | to media from young age and they are fed more and more with
       | generated content, will they be able to feel "uncanniness" or
       | become completely blunt to it.
       | 
       | There's definitely interesting period ahead of us, not yet sure
       | how to feel about it...
        
         | Kydlaw wrote:
         | Yep, I noticed it immediately too. Yet it is subtle in reality.
         | I'm not that good to spot imperfections on picture but on the
         | video I immediately felt something was not quite right.
        
         | SirMaster wrote:
         | They swap multiple times lol. Not to mention it almost always
         | looks like the feet are slightly sliding on the ground with
         | every step.
         | 
         | I mean there are some impressive things there, but it looks
         | like there's a long ways to go yet.
         | 
         | They shouldn't have played it into the close up of the face.
         | The face is so dead and static looking.
        
           | micromacrofoot wrote:
           | certainly not perfect... but "some impressive things" is an
           | understatement, think of how long it took to get halfway
           | decent CGI... this AI thing is already better than clips I've
           | seen people spend _days_ building by hand
        
         | hank808 wrote:
         | Yep! Glad I wasn't the only one that saw that. I have a feeling
         | THEY didn't see it or they wouldn't have showcased it.
        
           | ryanisnan wrote:
           | I don't think that's the case. I think they're aware of the
           | limitations and problems. Several of the videos have obvious
           | problems, if you're looking - e.g. people vanishing entirely,
           | objects looking malformed in many frames, objects changing in
           | size incongruent with perspective, etc.
           | 
           | I think they just accept it as a limitation, because it's
           | still very technically impressive. And they hope they can
           | smooth out those limitations.
        
         | jrockway wrote:
         | I noticed at the beginning that cars are driving on the right
         | side of the road, but in Japan they drive on the left. The AI
         | misses little details like that.
         | 
         | (I'm also not sure they've ever had a couple inches of snow on
         | the ground while the cherry blossoms are in bloom in Tokyo, but
         | I guess it's possible.)
        
           | throw310822 wrote:
           | The cat in the "cat wakes up its owner" video has two left
           | front legs, apparently. There is _nothing_ that is true in
           | these videos. They can and do deviate from reality at any
           | place and time and at any level of detail.
        
         | elicksaur wrote:
         | Tangent to feeling numb to it - will it hinder children
         | developing the understanding of physics, object permanence,
         | etc. that our brains have?
        
           | dymk wrote:
           | Kids aren't supposed to have screen time until they're at
           | least a few years old anyways
        
           | lukan wrote:
           | There have been children, that reacted iritated, when they
           | cannot swipe away real life objects. The idea is, to give
           | kids enough real world experiences, so this does not happen.
        
         | snewman wrote:
         | There are definitely artifacts. Go to the 9th video in the
         | first batch, the one of the guy sitting on a cloud reading a
         | book. Watch the book; the pages are flapping in the wind in an
         | extremely strange way.
        
           | daxfohl wrote:
           | The third batch, the one with the cat, the guy in bed has
           | body parts all over, his face deforms, and the blanket is
           | partially alive.
        
             | quickthrower2 wrote:
             | When there is a dejavu cat, we know we are in trouble!
        
           | Crespyl wrote:
           | In the one with the cat waking up its owner, the owners
           | shoulder turns into a blanket corner when she rolls over.
        
         | hackerlight wrote:
         | These artefacts go down with more compute. In four years when
         | they attack it again with 100x compute and better algorithms I
         | think it'll be virtually flawless.
        
         | lostemptations5 wrote:
         | I had to go back several times to 0:14 to see if it was really
         | unusual. I get it of course, but probably watching 20 times I
         | would have never noticed it.
        
       | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
       | This is all very impressive. I can't help to wonder though. How
       | is text-to-video going to benefit humanity? That's what OpenAI is
       | supposedly about, right?
       | 
       | We'll get some groundbreaking film content out of this in the
       | hands of a few talented creatives, and a vast ocean of mediocre
       | content from the hands of talentless people who know how to type.
       | What's the benefit to humanity, concretely?
        
         | andai wrote:
         | That's exactly what we have now with YouTube.
        
         | dinobones wrote:
         | If a model can generate it, it can understand it.
         | 
         | They can probably reverse engineer this to build a multi-modal
         | GPT that is fed video and understands what is going on. That's
         | how you get "smart" robots. Active scene understanding via the
         | video modality + conversational capabilities via the text/audio
         | modality.
        
           | internetter wrote:
           | But we can already do this?
        
         | chidiw wrote:
         | > Sora serves as a foundation for models that can understand
         | and simulate the real world, a capability we believe will be an
         | important milestone for achieving AGI.
        
           | dorkwood wrote:
           | That struck me as a line they added to drum up more funding.
        
         | nycdatasci wrote:
         | For models to interact with real-world objects, they first need
         | to understand those objects. These videos demonstrate just how
         | advanced that awareness is. The goal is not to generate videos.
         | Of course, they could and likely will build products on this
         | capability, but the long-term goal is bigger.
        
           | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
           | Sure, if that's not just marketing. I haven't seen enough
           | evidence to conclude this will go towards that kind of thing
           | yet, but I'm open to the possibility.
        
         | sayagain wrote:
         | This vast amount of human talent and computational power could
         | be channeled into fighting disease and death.
        
           | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
           | I'm not quite sure what you mean, so I'll ask for
           | clarification. Are you saying this technology can be
           | channeled into fighting disease and death, or that the man
           | hours and computational freed up by this technology can be
           | channeled?
        
             | ij09j901023123 wrote:
             | Biologists, chemists, and researchers can be all automated
             | and trained on a very big LLM that OpenAI eventually
             | creates. Then, more cures to diseases and technological
             | advances can be invented. This technology can soon run
             | entire countries and emulate humanity / society.
        
               | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
               | If you assume the technology will be able to do arbitrary
               | things in the future then sure.
        
             | sayagain wrote:
             | I think that all this goodness was spent on entertainment
             | at a time when every second a catastrophe occurs - a human
             | dies.
        
               | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
               | Oh I see what you mean, thanks.
               | 
               | Yeah, this is a very real issue with a lot of Silicon
               | Valley tech, unfortunately. They're perfecting the art of
               | pretending everything is fine, I feel like.
        
         | BeFlatXIII wrote:
         | How else is the next generation of talented creatives
         | cultivated, if not out of the pool of the millions of
         | untalented typists?
        
       | Sxubas wrote:
       | I wonder what this tech would do using a descriptive fragment
       | from a book. I don't read many books at all but I would spend
       | some time feeding in fantasy fragments and see how much they
       | differ from what I imagined.
        
       | dartos wrote:
       | God the legs of the woman walking are horrifying.
        
       | tsunamifury wrote:
       | The film "The Congress" will end up being the most on point
       | prediction of our future in ever. I can't believe it. Im in
       | shock.
        
       | bscphil wrote:
       | Not that this isn't a leaps and bounds improvement over the state
       | of the art, but it's interesting to look at the mistakes it makes
       | - where do we still need improvements?
       | 
       | This video is pretty instructive:
       | https://cdn.openai.com/sora/videos/amalfi-coast.mp4
       | 
       | It "eats" several people with the wall part of the way through
       | the video, and the camera movements are odd. Strange camera
       | movements, in response to most of the prompts, seems like the
       | biggest problem. The model arbitrarily decides to change
       | direction on a dime - even a drone wouldn't behave quite like
       | that.
        
       | cyrialize wrote:
       | Does anyone know how to handle the depression/doom one feels with
       | these updates?
       | 
       | Yes, it's a great technical achievement, but I just worry for the
       | future. We don't have good social safety nets, and we aren't
       | close to UBI. It's difficult for me to see that happen unless
       | something drastic changes.
       | 
       | I'm also afraid of one company just having so much power. How
       | does anyone compete?
        
         | seydor wrote:
         | some light alcohol, relaxing and remembering life is beautiful
        
           | rpmisms wrote:
           | Be a human, basically? Very important to be human often. We
           | often forget in this sphere.
        
           | cyrialize wrote:
           | That is a good reminder.
           | 
           | My fear is the alternative reality that these tools could
           | provide. Given the power and output of the tooling, I could
           | see a future where the "normal" of a society is strategically
           | changed.
           | 
           | For example, many younger generations aren't getting a
           | license at 16. This is for a variety of reasons: you connect
           | with friends online, malls cost money, less walkable spaces,
           | less third places.
           | 
           | If I'm a company that makes money based off of subscription
           | services to my tools, wouldn't it be in my best interest to
           | influence each coming generation?
           | 
           | Making friends and interacting with people is hard, but with
           | our tooling you can find or create the exact friend you want
           | and need.
           | 
           | We can remember now that life is beautiful - but what's to
           | stop from making people think that the life made by AI is
           | most beautiful?
           | 
           | And yeah, I've heard this argument before with video games,
           | escapism, etc. I'm talking more about how easy it is to
           | escape now, and how easy it'd be to spread the idea that
           | escapism is better than what is around you.
        
             | benjiweber wrote:
             | Few people getting driving licences sounds ideal.
             | 
             | In Europe there's no need. Got a licence over two decades
             | ago have never needed to drive. Shops in walking distance,
             | public transport anywhere in the country, convenient
             | deliveries, walkable and cyclable cities.
             | 
             | Meanwhile other places have no freedom from cars, locked
             | into expensive car financing, unable to access basic
             | amenities without a car, and motorists have normalised
             | killing millions of people a year.
        
               | rottencupcakes wrote:
               | Way to miss the forest for the trees.
               | 
               | The licenses thing is a proxy for what we're measuring,
               | which is real life socialization.
               | 
               | You'll see the same trends in Japan, where far fewer
               | people drive than in America. I'd imagine you'd see them
               | in Europe too.
        
             | drusepth wrote:
             | One thing to remember is that change never stops and we're
             | certainly not in any perfect society right now where we'd
             | want change to stop at. We've seen huge magnitudes of
             | societal change over and over throughout history.
             | 
             | For the most part, the _idea_ of change is rarely
             | inherently bad (even though, IMO, it 's natural to
             | inherently resist it) -- and humans adapt quickly to the
             | parts that have negative impacts.
             | 
             | Humans are one of, if not the most, resilient race on the
             | planet. Younger generations not getting licenses, sticking
             | to themselves more, escaping in different ways, etc are all
             | "different" than what we're used to, but to that younger
             | generation it's just a new normal for them.
             | 
             | One day they'll be posting on HN2, wondering whether the
             | crazy technological or societal changes about to come out
             | will mean the downfall of _their_ children (or children 's
             | children), and the answer will still be the same: no, but
             | what's "normal" for humankind will continue to change.
        
               | ethbr1 wrote:
               | > _Humans are one of, if not the most, resilient race on
               | the planet. Younger generations not getting licenses,
               | sticking to themselves more, escaping in different ways,
               | etc are all "different" than what we're used to..._
               | 
               | As long as they keep having unprotected sex with each
               | other.
               | 
               | Otherwise, you know, humanity is kind of screwed.
        
         | UberFly wrote:
         | I agree. I see how misinformation is effecting my family
         | members now. I can't imagine how this is all going to effect
         | what's coming.
        
         | rllearneratwork wrote:
         | this is so exciting! why do you feel depressed.
         | 
         | Btw, a year or two from now you'll be able to run a more
         | powerful _open_ model locally. So, not they aren 't having some
         | outsized amount of power
        
           | BadHumans wrote:
           | Exciting if you don't think about how tons of people are
           | going to be out of work with no safety nets or how easily
           | millions of people are going to be scammed or how easily it
           | is going to be to be impersonate someone and frame them or
           | etc etc etc
        
             | shric wrote:
             | Let's say, for the sake of argument, AI could generate
             | absolutely perfect invented videos of arbitrary people
             | doing literally anything. The consequence will be that
             | video will no longer be taken seriously as evidence for
             | crimes. People will also quickly not trust video calls
             | without an extreme level of verification (e.g. asking about
             | recent irl interactions, etc.)
             | 
             | Yes some people will be scammed as they always have been,
             | such as the recent Hong Kong financial deepfake. But no,
             | millions of people will not keep falling for this. Just
             | like the classic 419 advanced free fraud, it will hit a
             | very small percentage of people.
        
               | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
               | OK, but I did like living in a universe where I could
               | watch video news of something happening in another
               | country and treat it as reasonably strong evidence of
               | what is happening in the world. Now I basically have to
               | rely on only my own eyes, which are limited to my
               | immediate surroundings, and eyewitness accounts from
               | people I trust who live in those places. In that sense, I
               | feel like my ability to be informed about the world has
               | regressed to pre-20th-century levels.
        
               | wwilim wrote:
               | Pray it doesn't regress any further
        
               | Spacecosmonaut wrote:
               | I predict that we will have blockchain integration of
               | media crating devices such that any picture / film that
               | is taken will be assigned a blockchain transaction ID
               | that moment it is generated. We will only trust media
               | with verifiable blockchain encryption that allows us to
               | screen against any tampering from the source.
               | 
               | Invest in web 3.0 now.
        
               | oceanplexian wrote:
               | Video alone has never been considered evidence of a crime
               | in a court of law (At least in the United States). A
               | person needs to authenticate the evidence.
        
             | cyrialize wrote:
             | Yeah. This is how I feel. Seeing new AI updates sometimes
             | makes me regret ever working in technology, no matter how
             | much I love it.
        
             | tavavex wrote:
             | The last two claims always felt wrong to me, because
             | they're assuming a society where these kinds of tools are
             | easy to use and accessible to _everyone_ , yet the society
             | at large is completely oblivious to these tools and their
             | capabilities. Arguably, you couldn't ever fully trust
             | images before, people claimed something was photoshopped
             | for decades now. Instead of something "looking realistic",
             | trusting people and organizations will take its place -
             | when, for example, the BBC posts a photograph, I'm inclined
             | to trust it not because it looks real, but because it's the
             | BBC.
        
             | oceanplexian wrote:
             | Think what it was like before the invention of the camera,
             | and then after, this is a similar level of innovation. I'm
             | sure a lot of people who wrote books were terrified by the
             | prospect of moving pictures, but everything worked out and
             | books still exist.
             | 
             | IMHO humanity will be fine, decades from now kids will be
             | asking what it was like to live before "AI" like how we
             | might ask an old person what it was like to live before
             | television or electricity.
        
               | Fricken wrote:
               | Consensus reality is already cracking up due to the
               | internet, smartphones and social media. The Media
               | theorist Marshall McLuhan had a lot to say about this
               | well in advance, but nobody listened.
        
             | rllearneratwork wrote:
             | I'm excited that tons of people don't need to tend to
             | horses or sew and plow everyday. Automation is a great
             | thing.
        
             | Art9681 wrote:
             | The more people AI displaces then the less customers they
             | would have right? Wouldn't there be some equilibrium
             | reached where it can no longer grow due to falling profits?
             | Let's say they mostly sell B2B, who are those other
             | businesses selling to if no one (generally speaking) has
             | expendable income?
        
           | sterlind wrote:
           | Assuming OpenAI's lobbyists don't convince Congress to ban
           | open models because of {deepfakes, CP, disinfo, copyright
           | infringement} or make it impossible to gather open datasets
           | without spending billions on licensing.
           | 
           | I'm not optimistic.
        
         | simpaticoder wrote:
         | I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of
         | animators suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly
         | silenced.
        
           | ethbr1 wrote:
           | The writing has been on the wall for that for awhile
           | though...
           | 
           | Every large animation studio has continually been looking for
           | ways to decrease the number of artists required to produce a
           | film, since the beginning of the field.
        
             | Balgair wrote:
             | I don't know who in the upper parts of the various guilds
             | in Hollywood saw this demo'd last summer, but they really
             | really took notice. Those strikes went on for a long time,
             | and it seems that holding out and getting the clause in to
             | exclude this kinda tech was a brilliant bit of foresight.
             | Holy heck, in 5 years, maybe just a year, this kinda tech
             | is going to take nearly all their jobs.
        
             | moneywoes wrote:
             | doesn't that apply to software as well
        
               | ethbr1 wrote:
               | It does, but I daresay the world's appetite for "more
               | software" (in all applications) seems to be infinite.
        
           | bendergarcia wrote:
           | The only reason this is possible is because of the content
           | those people created. This literally doesn't exist without
           | them. Not sure what you're trying to say....
        
             | tsunamifury wrote:
             | Yea... thats the point he was making.
        
           | carabiner wrote:
           | When they came for the animators, I did not speak, for I was
           | not an animator.
        
             | zzzeek wrote:
             | when they came for the animators, I did not speak, for the
             | diffusion model forgot to give me a plausible mouth
        
         | mmaunder wrote:
         | Stop pathologizing normal human feelings? If you're worried,
         | learn how to use the tools to give yourself a competitive
         | advantage. See steam trains, electricity, microchips, computers
         | and the Web for historical examples of worried people adapting
         | to game changing tech.
        
           | cyrialize wrote:
           | I am. I know we're in a situation now as programmers where
           | there is more AI tooling and more programming jobs - but it's
           | difficult for me to see that last.
           | 
           | You could be the best at using the tools, but I think there
           | could be a point where there is no need to hire because the
           | tools are just that good.
        
             | bamboozled wrote:
             | Then wouldn't you just stop coding and use the tools to
             | build products ?
        
               | jprete wrote:
               | Have you considered what an enormous jump in career that
               | is? Or that all the people who already started building
               | AI products are being obsoleted by OpenAI a year after
               | they started?
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | What concerns me is that Google and OpenAI are racing us
               | to a point where almost no product is valuable. If I can
               | just have AI generate me a booking.com clone, then what's
               | booking.com worth ?
               | 
               | There is zero chance this tech is going to be locked up
               | by a few companies, in a year or two open models will
               | have similar capabilities, I have no idea what this world
               | looks like but I think it's less of a concern for
               | individuals and more of a concern for the global economy
               | in the short term.
               | 
               | Outside of all of this, yeah we're either going I have to
               | adapt or die.
        
               | eastbound wrote:
               | Well, alone I was able to launch a software company in
               | 2010. From accounting to nginx, everything was automated.
               | 
               | Alone, maybe I will be able to launch a unicorn in 2030.
               | It's just tools with more leverage. The limit is just the
               | computing resources we have, so we'll have to use
               | computing resources to calculate how much earth resources
               | each of us can use per year, but that seems a usual
               | growth problem.
        
               | bamboozled wrote:
               | That is my point though, I mean it's good you could
               | launch the company, I just don't know what happens to the
               | large companies that employ a lot of people. Seems like
               | they're heading into dangerous territory.
        
               | jackothy wrote:
               | Well it's going to be an enormous jump for everyone else
               | too, so you're not at a disadvantage.
        
         | trebligdivad wrote:
         | Just imagine how the cats are worried! If the internet doesn't
         | need cats any more for cute cat videos....
        
         | gigglesupstairs wrote:
         | All those videos made me so scared of what's about to come in
         | next few years. India is already a major market for
         | perpetrators of misinformation and with major social media
         | giants only paying lip service to our concerns, with western
         | countries being their major focus, things portend to get even
         | more darker for the poor, the disenfranchised in our side of
         | the world.
        
         | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
         | I felt depressed after seeing this, so I had a long hug with my
         | partner, and remembered the serenity prayer: "God grant me the
         | serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to
         | change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference."
         | 
         | If AI dystopia is coming, at least it's not here quite yet, so
         | I'll try to enjoy my life today.
        
         | elwell wrote:
         | This will just accelerate the realization in people that this
         | earth can't give you true meaning. That comes from 'above'.
        
           | rafaelero wrote:
           | Mars?
        
             | elwell wrote:
             | The Roman god or the planet?
        
           | slothtrop wrote:
           | As though we'd all collectively stop doing anything in a
           | full-automation utopian scenario. Be serious.
        
             | elwell wrote:
             | I don't understand how that relates to my comment.
        
               | slothtrop wrote:
               | Unless you think everyone else is lying, people can and
               | do find meaning in their lives, in the activities they
               | love. AI has no bearing on that (just careers) so there's
               | no reason to believe it would "accelerate" anything.
        
               | elwell wrote:
               | Thanks for taking the time to explain. I do kind of think
               | people are lying (to themselves). Ignorance is
               | (temporary) bliss.
               | 
               | I'm seeking _lasting_ meaning; not  'meaning' that
               | dissolves after a season, or at best, at the end of a
               | life.
               | 
               | What I meant by 'accelerat[ing] the realization' is that
               | all of our earthly desires will more readily be
               | fulfilled, and we will see that we still feel empty. AI
               | is like enabling a new cheat code in the game of life,
               | and when you have unlimited ammo the FPS becomes really
               | fun for a moment but then loses its meaning quickly.
        
           | monsieurgaufre wrote:
           | Yes, the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
        
             | Xenoamorphous wrote:
             | You know the whote collar worker future is bleak when you
             | find _multiple_ comments in this thread about finding
             | solace in some god.
        
               | elwell wrote:
               | Everyone serves some 'god', whether they admit it to
               | themselves or not.
        
             | elwell wrote:
             | FSM is mostly meaningless IMO, so no.
        
         | xanderlewis wrote:
         | I seem to be immune to it now. I've just accepted that I'm
         | going to feel less and less useful as time goes by, and I
         | should just enjoy whatever I can. Life will probably never be
         | as good as it was for people 30 years older than me, but it's
         | not something that looks likely to change.
         | 
         | Nothing about the future looks particularly good, other than
         | that medicine is improving. But what's the point of being alive
         | in such a sanitised, 'perfect', instant-dopamine-hits-on-demand
         | kind of world anyway?
         | 
         | Just say to hell with it and bury yourself in an interesting
         | textbook. Learn something that inspires you. It doesn't matter
         | if 'AI' can (or soon will be able to) do it a billion times
         | better than you.
         | 
         | And be kind to those around you.
        
           | cyrialize wrote:
           | I feel this, thank you.
           | 
           | I've started reading again, because reddit/instagram/etc. has
           | become kind of boring for me? Like, I still go on them to get
           | an instant dopamine hit from time to time, but like you said
           | burying yourself in a textbook just feels so much more
           | rewarding.
        
             | xanderlewis wrote:
             | Maybe someone needs to start a small group of people who
             | specifically want to do this -- seek refuge from the
             | chaotic and increasingly worrying world (in particular the
             | threat of replacement by extremely general automated
             | systems) by immersing themselves in learning, and sharing
             | the results with others.
             | 
             | I'm sure such groups already exist, but maybe not
             | specifically with this goal in mind.
             | 
             | Learning for its own sake really is the answer to lasting
             | happiness... for some of us, anyway.
        
               | chpmrc wrote:
               | I don't think it's too far fetched to hypothesize that
               | the next major global conflict will be between
               | accelerators (e/acc) and decelerators. I see a parallel
               | with political/economic ideologies like capitalism and
               | communism. One of them will eventually prevail (for most
               | of the world) but it won't be clear which until it
               | happens. Scary but also exciting times ahead!
        
               | yyyk wrote:
               | I can't imagine any coherent 'deceleratorionist'
               | political program. It will be all different flavors of
               | acc.
        
               | ethbr1 wrote:
               | > _seek refuge from the chaotic and increasingly worrying
               | world (in particular the threat of replacement by
               | extremely general automated systems) by immersing
               | themselves in learning, and sharing the results with
               | others._
               | 
               | Since 529 CE!
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedictines
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | I skimmed the article and couldn't see which part was
               | particularly relevant. Can you point out the similarity?
               | 
               | If you're just talking about the idea of becoming a monk:
               | yes, I very much like the idea of becoming a modern,
               | digitally-enabled monk.
        
               | phist_mcgee wrote:
               | I think his point is that people have felt like the world
               | is going to shit for a very long time, it's just that
               | with the presence of hindsight we can see that in the
               | past everything worked out, but we can't see the future
               | so our present is troubling.
               | 
               | But none of these feelings are new, just different
               | problems manifesting the same.
        
               | Solvency wrote:
               | Is this a joke? Go outside. Go hiking. Make a garden.
               | Visit Yosemite. Take up bouldering. Learn to surf. Cycle.
               | Go camping. There's a world of living and massive
               | communities but around real life. Explore what your body
               | and mind can do together. Find kinship because it's out
               | there in spades for people not obsessed with the
               | automation of machined content.
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | What about it makes you think I'm joking?
        
               | rvnx wrote:
               | San Francisco, Zurich, etc are quite different from other
               | places in the world.
               | 
               | No mountains here + no garden for me, Yosemite is
               | thousands of kilometers away. The sea has no waves. It's
               | -5 degrees.
               | 
               | Which is "fine", but it means that indoor activities are
               | more prevalent, including computers.
               | 
               | And I'm sure for some other people their options are way
               | more restricted.
        
               | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
               | I've got about a million things I'd like to delve into if
               | such a group existed(let's call it a realist monastery?)
               | 
               | The key though is to avoid becoming a cult.
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | Cults presumably need leaders, and there wouldn't be one.
               | It would be kind of like a church though. But we worship
               | pure knowledge and learning.
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | We could call it...a university.
        
               | theendisney wrote:
               | Sure but since we know everything we know will be wrong
               | in 500-1000 years we might as well register it as a
               | church complete with creation myths. :)
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | Hey, Euclid's ideas from 2000+ years ago are still going
               | strong.
               | 
               | I doubt much of what we know today will turn out to be
               | wrong. Maybe our abstractions will turn out to have been
               | naive or suboptimal, but at least they're demonstrably
               | predictive. They're not just quackery or mysticism.
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | I knew someone would say this. Have a think about whether
               | universities really achieve what I'm describing.
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | It's kinda like how church attendees aren't always
               | upstanding moral individuals.
        
               | samus wrote:
               | In any group there are people that are more talented,
               | more persuasive and/or have more initiative than others.
               | These people will naturally become the group's leaders.
               | This can only be avoided in groups which don't have to
               | make on decisions or conduct activities.
        
               | samus wrote:
               | Such groups are by definition reclusive, hard to find on
               | social media, and might be a lot more fringe or "weird"
               | than you'd prefer. For a while, subreddits were a bit
               | like this.
        
             | jprete wrote:
             | I've abandoned all online content sources except HN,
             | Substack, and YouTube. The latter two are aggressively
             | filtered and still feel like they're getting less
             | interesting over time. HN isn't the best habit, either, but
             | it's good to have at least one source of news.
        
               | cyrialize wrote:
               | Hah, I feel the same. HN has good news, but the community
               | is hit or miss.
        
               | moneywoes wrote:
               | what substacks and youtube do you follow? email in bio
        
           | mrb wrote:
           | " _I've just accepted that I'm going to feel less and less
           | useful as time goes by_ "
           | 
           | It's probably the same feeling farmers had in the beginning
           | of the 20th century when they started seeing industrialized
           | farming technologies (tractors, etc). Sure, farming tech
           | eliminated tons of farming jobs, but they have been replaced
           | by other types of jobs in the cities.
           | 
           | It's the same thing with AI. Some will lose their jobs, but
           | only to find different types of jobs that AI can't do.
        
             | ThisIsMyAltAcct wrote:
             | I see this "just adapt" response a lot and it misses the
             | point. The goal of research like this is to create a
             | machine that can do _any_ job better than humans.
        
               | someplaceguy wrote:
               | And when that happens, humans will no longer need jobs.
               | 
               | The problem is the transition into that new world.
        
               | yyyk wrote:
               | The other problem is that the powers that be won't need
               | the masses for anything.
        
               | chefandy wrote:
               | That's been the prediction with many technological
               | updates, but here we are. This setup works just fine for
               | the small group of fantastically wealthy and powerful
               | people that dictate society's requirements for the rest
               | of us.
               | 
               | I can't imagine anything changing our culture's
               | insistence that personal responsibility in employment
               | means zero responsibility for employers, policy makers,
               | or society at large. That is, short of a large scale
               | armed rebellion, or maybe mass unionization.
        
               | T_MacThrowFace wrote:
               | > short of a large scale armed rebellion, or maybe mass
               | unionization
               | 
               | don't worry; AI drones will deal efficiently with both
               | those forms of terrorism and malinformation
        
               | worldsayshi wrote:
               | They will not need jobs because AI corporations will give
               | them everything they need just like that?
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | History is full of examples of people with power deciding
               | that they like resources but don't need the people who
               | live on top of them, and solving this problem by going on
               | a killing spree.
               | 
               | Bear in mind that a substantial portion of people
               | (perhaps 30%) don't feel satisfied unless they see
               | someone else worse off. We are not an inherently
               | egalitarian species.
        
             | xanderlewis wrote:
             | Sorry, but comparing this to previous technology seems
             | totally short-sighted to me (and it's not as though you're
             | the first to do so). If ( _if_ ) we end up with truly
             | general AI (and at the moment we seem to be close in some
             | ways and still very far off in others), then that will be
             | fundamentally different from any technology that has come
             | before.
             | 
             | > jobs that AI can't do.
             | 
             | Sure, by definition, you've described the set of jobs that
             | won't be replaced by AI. But naming a few would be a lot
             | more useful of a comment. It's not impossible to imagine
             | that that set might shrink to being pretty much empty
             | within the next ten years.
        
               | joshuahedlund wrote:
               | > It's not impossible to imagine that that set might
               | shrink to being pretty much empty within the next ten
               | years.
               | 
               | No but it's also not impossible to imagine the opposite.
               | AI beat humans at chess decades ago but there are more
               | humans generating income from chess today than there were
               | before Deep Blue.
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | No one pays anyone to play chess because it's _useful_.
               | 
               | Chess players get paid because it's entertaining for
               | others to watch.
               | 
               | So your argument only shows that we can expect work as a
               | form of entertainment to survive. Outside of YouTube,
               | where programmers and musicians and such can make a
               | living by streaming their work live, this is a minuscule
               | minority.
               | 
               | The strongest interpretation of what you're saying seems
               | to be that we'll end up in a world where everything
               | (science, engineering, writing, design) is a sport and
               | none of it really matters because ultimately it's 'just a
               | game'. Maybe so... but is that really something to look
               | forward to?
        
               | T_MacThrowFace wrote:
               | They get paid because the people who can't play chess
               | professionally watch it as a mental escape from their
               | drudgery jobs because it reminds them of their youth when
               | they could still dream about becoming a great chess
               | player, and then you can use marketing displayed during
               | the chess tournament to trick them into preferring to
               | spend the money they make from the drudgery on the
               | adveritser's product.
               | 
               | Now upgrade AI to do every job better than humans so that
               | there are no drudgery jobs. What money are they going to
               | spend?
               | 
               | Not too long ago, people would come and visit the first
               | family in the village who had installed running water,
               | because it was a new and exciting thing to see. And yet
               | people don't wake up every day excited to see water
               | coming from their kitchen tap.
        
               | joshuahedlund wrote:
               | Think more broadly than that single example. Perhaps
               | humans will always be interested in economic activity
               | that involves interacting with other humans, regardless
               | of what the robots can do.
        
               | worldsayshi wrote:
               | I agree but also think this discussion need to go deeper
               | into its assumptions. They can't really hold in a world
               | with AGI. Can anyone acquire/own AGI? Why? Why not? Will
               | anyone pay anyone for anything? Will capital, material
               | and real estate be the only things with steep price tags?
               | What would a computer cost if all work was done by AI?
        
               | mrb wrote:
               | My intuition tells me humans will always have needs that
               | AI can't fulfill. If AI does more and more jobs, cheaper,
               | faster, and better than humans, then the price of these
               | services and goods are going to drop, and that means
               | people will have more disposable income to spend on other
               | services and goods that are more expensive because AI
               | can't produce those (yet).
               | 
               | Imagine a breakthrough not only in AI but also robotics,
               | allowing restaurants to replace the entire staff (chefs,
               | cooks, waiters, etc) with AI-powered robots. Then I
               | believe that higher-end restaurants will STILL be
               | employing humans, as it will be perceived as more
               | expensive, more sophisticated, therefore worth a premium
               | price. What if robot cooks cook better and faster than
               | human cooks? Then higher-end restaurants will probably
               | have human cooks supervising robot cooks to correct their
               | occasional errors, thereby still providing a service
               | superior to cheaper restaurants using robot cooks only.
        
             | yyyk wrote:
             | >It's probably the same feeling farmers had in the
             | beginning of the 20th century
             | 
             | Not remotely comparable. Farming is a backbreaking job,
             | many were happy to see it going away. This is taking over
             | the creative functions. Turns out what Humanity is best at,
             | is menial labor?
        
               | swells34 wrote:
               | Well, replacing novel creative functions with derivative
               | creative functions. That's the big change I see here;
               | similar to the difference between digitally editing an
               | image vs. applying a stock sepia filter to it. Yes, we
               | can use a model to regurgitate a mish mash of the data it
               | was trained on, and that regurgitation might be novel in
               | that nothing like that has been regurgitated before, but
               | it will still be a regurgitation of pre-existing art. To
               | some degree humans do this too, but the constraints are
               | infinitely different.
        
               | brigadier132 wrote:
               | Humanity will not be best at anything. Even menial labor
               | will be automated.
               | 
               | So the downside is we have lives devoid of meaning. The
               | upside is we live in a scarcity free paradise where all
               | diseases have been cured by superhuman ai and we can all
               | live doing whatever we want.
        
               | yyyk wrote:
               | Eventually, but economics points into a couple of a
               | decades of menial labour first since humans will be so
               | cheap.
               | 
               | Anyhow, what makes you think the AI or whomever controls
               | it has any use for a bunch of useless eaters?
        
             | WilTimSon wrote:
             | > but they have been replaced by other types of jobs in the
             | cities.
             | 
             | But when one is 30+ years old, or even 40+ years old, it's
             | hard to completely switch careers, especially when you're
             | also dealing with the fact that it's not because you were
             | bad at your job. Rather, a machine was made to replace you
             | and you simply can't compete with a machine.
             | 
             | It's evolution, of course, but it is a stressful process.
        
               | akudha wrote:
               | Even if one is able to switch careers in their 40s and
               | 50s, it is sad that they're forced to do so, just to eat
               | and have a roof over their head.
               | 
               | Nearly all humans work for money (aka, just basic stuff)
               | and not because they're passionate about their work. It
               | is just a sad situation all around
        
             | lIl-IIIl wrote:
             | "People" find different jobs but individuals don't. Many
             | people displaced by technology don't recover even despite
             | retraining programs and go work in service industry or go
             | into early retirement. The new jobs go to a younger
             | generation.
        
           | dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
           | >medicine is improving.
           | 
           | I doubt whether this is true. Lots of hype, but no tangible
           | improvement to show for chronic conditions for common people.
        
             | Brusco_RF wrote:
             | GLP-1 isn't a tangible improvement for a chronic condition
             | for common people?
        
             | xanderlewis wrote:
             | Medical understanding is not getting worse, unless I'm
             | severely mistaken.
             | 
             | The systems that _deliver_ the medical care might be,
             | however (and indeed observably locally are, in many cases).
        
               | dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
               | >Medical understanding is not getting worse, unless I'm
               | severely mistaken.
               | 
               | You are mistaken. To realize that you will have to look
               | back several decades and read the literature of those
               | times, of what is left. Now note I'm taking about chronic
               | illnesses (diabetes, cancer etc) not acute ones like an
               | infection etc. The medical practitioner of yesteryear did
               | not have the fancy diagnostic tools that we have today,
               | but several of them appear to me to be sharp observers.
        
             | TaupeRanger wrote:
             | You're exactly right, but most people just believe the
             | headlines about cancer cures and "individualized medicine"
             | that pop up every week and don't realize that literally
             | none of them produce anything that helps real life
             | patients. Medicine is not getting better - it's getting
             | more expensive and less efficient.
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | > literally none of them produce anything that helps real
               | life patients
               | 
               | If you make claims that bold no one should even bother to
               | read on.
        
               | Aeolun wrote:
               | I dunno, I can casually get an MRI to check the status of
               | slime in my nose these days. It may not be strictly
               | 'better' but the availability certainly goes up.
        
               | swells34 wrote:
               | A majority of what you wrote is objectively false FUD.
               | The only thing that I found accurate is: > it's getting
               | more expensive and less efficient There have been a
               | ridiculous number of medical advances in the last few
               | years, advances that are actively improving and saving
               | lives as I write this. Remember that time we had a
               | pandemic, and quickly designed and produced a massive
               | number of vaccines? Saved millions of lives, kept
               | hundreds of millions from being bed ridden for weeks? The
               | medical technology to design those vaccines, and to
               | produce them at that speed and scale didn't exist 20
               | years ago. Cancer treatments, which you specifically
               | mentioned, are entirely better than they were 10 years
               | ago.
               | 
               | The actual issue, which is the only worthwhile thing you
               | wrote about, is cost and availability.
        
               | TaupeRanger wrote:
               | You are simply ignoring what I actually said. My
               | criticism was directed at specific fields: name one
               | cancer treatment or "individualized medicine" approach
               | that has been proven to save lives or increase quality of
               | life in the last 3-5 years. I'll wait.
               | 
               | The vaccines were not the result of medicine getting
               | "better" - they just happened to have a solution for the
               | right thing at the right time, which is fortunate (and
               | we're lucky that it worked, because there was no
               | guarantee of that beforehand) but if the pandemic hadn't
               | happened, what advances would we be discussing? What
               | advances are actually making medicine better aside from
               | once-in-a-hundred-year worldwide emergencies?
        
               | dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
               | Cancer cure, is indeed a big can of worms. I commented on
               | it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39084422
        
             | mlsu wrote:
             | I'll just say: I have Type 1 diabetes, and in my lifetime,
             | we have invented
             | 
             | - fast acting analog insulins that are metabolized in 2-3
             | hours instead of 6-7
             | 
             | - insulin pumps that automatically dose exactly the right
             | proportion of insulin
             | 
             | - continuous glucose monitoring system that lets you see
             | your BG update in real time (before, it was finger sticks
             | 4-5 times a day; before that, urine test strips where you
             | pee on a stick to get a 6 hours delayed reading (!))
             | 
             | - automated dosing algorithms that can automatically
             | correct BG to bring it into range
             | 
             | In aggregate, these amount to what is closer than not to a
             | functional cure for type 1 diabetes. 100 years ago, this
             | was a fatal condition.
        
               | dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
               | You are partially correct. Although notice that diabetes,
               | both type I and II have dramatically increased due to a
               | direct result of bad advice and environment. A little
               | like giving a deaf person a hearing aid, while not
               | addressing factors like loud noises that may lead to
               | hearing loss.
        
           | brandonagr2 wrote:
           | This is an exciting future:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhJRzQsLZGg
        
           | davedx wrote:
           | Get outside, go hiking, climb a mountain! That's my big
           | offline plan for this year and I'm excited to do it.
           | 
           | The world is way bigger than technology and the Internet. It
           | hasn't really gone anywhere
        
             | xanderlewis wrote:
             | Good idea. But for people like me, reading a book on a
             | technical subject feels like climbing a mountain -- but
             | even more thrilling and enriching!
             | 
             | Fresh air and sunlight are important though.
        
               | Aeolun wrote:
               | You can read any book outside.
        
             | xster wrote:
             | That isn't the OP's point I believe. I think the point was
             | if the more productive means of production is ultra-
             | centralized to a few owners of AI, the question wouldn't be
             | whether to go outside, but whether you can afford to not be
             | permanently outside, if the superstructure of society
             | assigns housing to capital and not humans.
        
               | konschubert wrote:
               | Since this is just knowledge, I don't think it can be
               | guarded all that well.
        
               | patientzero wrote:
               | Anyone can make a cotton gin.. Industrialization of an
               | industry basically centralizes its profits on a
               | relatively small number of winners who have some
               | advantage of lead time on some important factors as it
               | becomes not worthwhile for the vast majority of
               | participants from when it required more of the
               | population.
        
               | ohthatsnotright wrote:
               | > Chips are made from sand.
               | 
               | And that sand takes a very, very long time with lots of
               | big brains to figure out how to manipulate at the
               | nanometer level in order to give you a "beep boop"
               | 
               | It's not like Intel could decide tomorrow to spin up a
               | fab and immediately make NVIDIA and TSMC irrelevant.
               | They're the next closest thing given they make chips,
               | have GPU technology, and also foundry experience and it's
               | still multiple years of effort if they chose that
               | direction.
               | 
               | Your statement is a lot like saying "poker has
               | predictable odds" and yet there is still a vast ocean of
               | poker players.
        
               | konschubert wrote:
               | Yea, I deleted that second sentence that you quoted,
               | since it is opening up another discussion that was kind
               | of orthogonal to my main point.
        
               | itishappy wrote:
               | If knowledge alone were sufficient, foundational models
               | would be ubiquitous.
        
               | thomashop wrote:
               | They're becoming ubiquitous last time I checked. LLMs are
               | almost commoditized.
        
               | visarga wrote:
               | > if the more productive means of production is ultra-
               | centralized to a few owners of AI
               | 
               | But AI is different than previous waves, like search
               | engines and social networks. You can download a model on
               | a stick. You can run it on a CPU or GPU, even a phone.
               | These models are easy to work with, directly in natural
               | language, easy to fine-tune, faster, cheaper, and private
               | under your control. AI is a decentralizing technology,
               | will empower everyone directly, it's like open source and
               | Linux in that it puts users in control.
        
             | lIIllIIllIIllII wrote:
             | caveat - it kind of is going somewhere, the amount of
             | wilderness has gone from like 65% to 35% in the last 50
             | years
             | 
             | on the flip side, we'll just generate VR wilderness in the
             | near future and nobody will care what's real or not
        
             | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
             | You can read books outside.
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | Best place to. Especially with a cup of tea.
        
             | suyash wrote:
             | One can't really enjoy life much if you don't have
             | financial means to survive. This technology promises to
             | wipe of hundred's of thousands of jobs in media production
             | - from videographers, actors, animators, designers, camera
             | person working in TV, Movie production all are one click
             | away from losing job.
        
               | Animats wrote:
               | The killer product of 2030 - the standalone TV that
               | generates its own content.
        
               | mlboss wrote:
               | I think it will be much sooner than that. And the TV is
               | already in your pocket.
        
               | inatreecrown2 wrote:
               | good startup idea !
        
               | birracerveza wrote:
               | I can't believe we can actually create Rick and Morty's
               | Interdimensional Cable
        
               | willsmith72 wrote:
               | do people even want that?
               | 
               | i thought the point of tv was to sit back and be
               | entertained, usually through some form of storytelling.
               | personally, i don't want to have any part in the
               | creation. if anything custom content would be annoying,
               | because i'd lose the only social aspect of tv (discussing
               | with others)
        
               | worldsayshi wrote:
               | I'm sure the AI itself or some social media prompt
               | sharing service can generate the narrative.
        
               | theendisney wrote:
               | The viewers dad is the hero in all movies using his real
               | world skills. In the end he finds mum.
        
               | joshuahedlund wrote:
               | Most of those jobs only existed for about two generations
               | of human history. Who knows what future jobs will exist.
        
           | karmasimida wrote:
           | Same, I feel nothing.
           | 
           | Just another tool.
           | 
           | Until full automated agent that is able to carry out a task
           | from start to finish without human intervention, there is
           | something for us to do I guess.
        
           | zingelshuher wrote:
           | > I've just accepted that I'm going to feel less and less
           | useful as time goes by
           | 
           | You are not alone : https://youtu.be/h3-va0umXTY?t=383
           | 
           | PS: youtube.com at 6:23, "Leonardo DiCaprio,,Julia Butters in
           | Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood --break"
        
           | ericmcer wrote:
           | I'm the complete opposite, I wish I was being born 20 years
           | in future. I am kinda terrified of being 80 when they come
           | out with some technique for heavily slowing down aging and
           | our generation just has to sigh and accept we just missed the
           | cutoff.
        
             | xanderlewis wrote:
             | I don't necessarily _wish_ I 'd been born earlier (I
             | probably don't, if I think about it). I just think it might
             | have been more fun.
        
           | imiric wrote:
           | > Life will probably never be as good as it was for people 30
           | years older than me
           | 
           | > Nothing about the future looks particularly good, other
           | than that medicine is improving.
           | 
           | How do you reconcile your thoughts with what the CEOs of
           | these AI companies keep telling us? I.e. "the present is the
           | most amazing time to be alive", and "the future will be
           | unimaginably better". I'm paraphrasing, but it's the gist of
           | what Sam Altman recently said at the World Government
           | Summit[1].
           | 
           | Are these people visionaries of some idealistic future that
           | these technologies will bring us, or are they blinded by
           | their own greed and power and driving humanity towards a
           | future they can control? Something else?
           | 
           | FWIW I share your thoughts and feelings, but at the same time
           | have a pinch of cautious optimism that things might indeed be
           | better overall. Sure, bad actors that use technology for
           | malicious purposes will continue to exist, but there is
           | potential for this technology to open new advancements in all
           | areas of science, which could improve all our lives in ways
           | we can't imagine yet.
           | 
           | I guess I'm more excited about the possibilities and seeing
           | how all this unfolds than pessimistic, although that is still
           | a strong feeling.
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15UZCAr3shU
        
             | jamesear wrote:
             | > How do you reconcile your thoughts with what the CEOs of
             | these AI companies keep telling us? I.e. "the present is
             | the most amazing time to be alive", and "the future will be
             | unimaginably better". I'm paraphrasing, but it's the gist
             | of what Sam Altman recently said at the World Government
             | Summit[1].
             | 
             | Three ways:
             | 
             | * It's the job of CEOs to advocate the benefits of what
             | they're doing.
             | 
             | * Those things might be true, for them.
             | 
             | * Those things might be true, from a global perspective,
             | even if there are some people who are worse off. White-
             | collar workers might just be those people worse off.
        
           | bjelkeman-again wrote:
           | I have two observations.
           | 
           | 1) My wife trained as a typesetter on a photo typesetting
           | machine. That was already replacing typesetters working with
           | lead, and the people sorting the used lead, and working with
           | inks etc. They still needed a past-up artist and more.
           | Eventually the GUI based computer arrived, with PageMaker,
           | Quark, Indesign etc. These days she is super productive with
           | a massive online icon library available, full printing and
           | distribution capabilities. Able to do a job that could have
           | involved half a dozen or more people previously.
           | 
           | Are those people unemployed now? Not really (we are talking
           | 1.5 generation now, so not the same people). Unemployment
           | levels are low, and the workforce is significantly larger,
           | with men and women working. The working (outside of the home)
           | part of the population has gone up significantly over a few
           | generations, despite all the new enabling productive tech.
           | 
           | What I see is a lot of visually higher quality work being
           | delivered, but often with the same core content. So
           | productivity has increased, but you get a glossy new shiny
           | report in a PDF, instead of a photocopy of a typewritten
           | page. (Yes, I do simplify. But I think you get the gist.)
           | 
           | 2) I started as a system admin, the a systems analyst, worked
           | through project manager, etc. until I was leading startups.
           | In the space where I work now, circular economy and food
           | production, there is so much work to do, that any AI support
           | we can get is welcome. But as the work is innovative, new and
           | not done before, most often the AI tools aren't that useful,
           | yet. That may change, but with a society that needs to
           | replace a significant part of the infrastructure and
           | processes to achieve a long term sustainable society, I
           | actually don't worry the AI tools will take my job or any of
           | my colleagues job away. There is plenty to do. I have enough
           | new things in front of me that I could probably keep a whole
           | big venture fund occupied for a long time.
        
             | nkozyra wrote:
             | No offense but jobs changing is a very different shift than
             | jobs being entirely replaced by automation.
             | 
             | One can adapt to needing to learn new technology, but one
             | cannot adapt to an algorithm out performing you
        
               | thomashop wrote:
               | The parent commenter is saying that the moment automation
               | entirely replaced traditional typesetting, people moved
               | on and started using the new technology.
               | 
               | Sure a part of the population is slow to adapt and
               | therefore at a disadvantage. But the others, like his
               | wife, adapted.
               | 
               | The idea is that this wave of automation will be no
               | different than other times this has happened to us in the
               | past.
        
               | T_MacThrowFace wrote:
               | The difference could be that A(G)I will automate away the
               | would-have-been new jobs as well, instantly, as it will
               | function as a smarter human that needs no sleep and
               | demands no pay, sort of like a young programmer but
               | without capital owners even having to supply caffeinated
               | beverages.
        
               | thomashop wrote:
               | A lot of decisions are not based on intelligence alone. A
               | lot is about personal beliefs and tastes.
               | 
               | I've never totally understood this binary moment when AGI
               | does "everything" better. How can one even define
               | everything?
               | 
               | Our AI partner could be the most intelligent
               | mathematician or researcher. That's great then we can
               | bounce ideas off of them and they can help us realize our
               | professional / creative ambitions.
               | 
               | Sure if our goal is to maximize profit then maybe we can
               | outsource the decisions to an AI agent.
               | 
               | You can get a computer to create infinite remixes of
               | songs. I haven't seen that replacing music producers
               | doing the same.
        
               | T_MacThrowFace wrote:
               | The I in AGI doesn't really mean intelligence as in "a
               | mathematician has to be more intelligent than a janitor
               | to do his job" *, it means the productivity equivalent of
               | whatever human conciousness is; that is, to be able to
               | have beliefs and tastes as well. And since it will have
               | infinite patience, arguments such as "I prefer to have an
               | actual human musician playing" is also up for persuasion.
               | 
               | When everyone can just press a button and have better
               | music automatically generated, based on their exact
               | preferences inferred from their DNA or an fMRI brain
               | scan, what are your creative ambitions?
               | 
               | I'm obviously not talking about today's limited (public)
               | AI, but far into the future, like in 5 years.
               | 
               | * whether or not that is actually the case is irrelevant
        
               | thomashop wrote:
               | The music analogy doesn't work for me at all.
               | 
               | So much about music appreciation is about knowing the
               | artist and for example knowing that what they sing about
               | is shaped by their personal history allowing you to
               | identify with it.
               | 
               | A lot about the appreciation of art is the process and
               | the intention behind the artwork. The final image or sond
               | is just one part.
               | 
               | I find it very difficult to define "better" when we're
               | talking about art.
        
               | nkozyra wrote:
               | > A lot of decisions are not based on intelligence alone.
               | A lot is about personal beliefs and tastes.
               | 
               | That's the easy stuff! That's the stuff ML has been
               | successful doing for a decade or more.
        
             | Animats wrote:
             | > So productivity has increased, but you get a glossy new
             | shiny report in a PDF, instead of a photocopy of a
             | typewritten page.
             | 
             | "Now, you can typeset everything in your office" - early
             | Macintosh ad.
        
             | staplers wrote:
             | needs to replace a significant part of the infrastructure
             | and processes to achieve a long term sustainable society
             | 
             | AI infra is _extremely_ energy intensive and not
             | sustainable by any metric.
        
               | thomashop wrote:
               | That sounds like a myth to me. An Nvidia H100 consumes up
               | to 700 watts. The same as hair dryers and microwave
               | ovens.
               | 
               | Sure you have big data centers full of them but that's
               | already happening with other hardware in other businesses
               | too.
        
               | numpad0 wrote:
               | (Humans are ~200W, as context)
        
               | staplers wrote:
               | Your assumptions are incorrect.
        
             | ajmurmann wrote:
             | This reminds me of some claims I've heard about domestic
             | cooking and baking. Supposedly recipes got more
             | sophisticated as we developed machinery like blenders and
             | more pre-processed ingredients to make work quicker which
             | ultimately resulted in time to cook or bake when hosting
             | guests to take roughly the same amount of time as before.
             | The dishes were just more elaborate.
        
               | BytesAndGears wrote:
               | Same with finance, we could all live an upper-middle-
               | class life with all the luxury, for one parent working in
               | the home, if we were willing to live the same lifestyle
               | as the 1950s. But life today is much easier than even
               | then -- and we'd rather pay more for that extra luxury
               | than live the spartan lifestyle that would've been luxury
               | then.
        
               | actionfromafar wrote:
               | People pay top dollar to live like we lived then.
        
               | ajmurmann wrote:
               | What's an example of this?
        
               | mitthrowaway2 wrote:
               | I think that's a bold claim. Many things that were cheap
               | then are now unreachably expensive. Many careers that
               | paid well then are gone. The converse is also true; many
               | things that were unreachably expensive then are cheap
               | now, but that doesn't mean that we can easily live such
               | lifestyles if we choose to. Forgoing a cellphone and
               | seatbelts doesn't make it easy to afford a bungalow! Nor
               | is such a lifestyle even legal, in many cases. And you
               | won't find a payphone to call your family. The world
               | moves around us, and it's not a matter of choice to be
               | pulled along.
        
               | Ludleth19 wrote:
               | This is just flat out untrue for a variety of reasons.
               | People need to stop thinking of 1945-1975 as "the norm,"
               | it was a world historic anomaly that was a direct
               | response to earlier events- the economy targeted full and
               | fair employment to stop people from drifting to more
               | extremist ideologies because everyone literally just
               | lived through the result of highly unregulated capitalism
               | for example. That was a large impetus behind Keynesianism
               | and Bretton Woods, which was ultimately unsustainable and
               | led to the broader global economy we have now- which
               | itself seems more unsustainable by the day.
        
             | moneywoes wrote:
             | what opportunities do you see in food production? i'd love
             | to get involved
        
               | bjelkeman-again wrote:
               | Our food supply system is broken.
               | 
               | - It emits 30% of climate emissions
               | 
               | - 30% of food produced is gone in losses and waste
               | 
               | - People in middle to high income countries have
               | significant obesity and related problems (some countries
               | have either malnourished people or obese people, and less
               | in between)
               | 
               | - Pollution from our agriculture and aquaculture is
               | killing the ocean near land
               | 
               | - Our intensive agriculture is threatening biodiversity
               | 
               | - We have lost up to 70% of insects in many industrial
               | nations
               | 
               | - Essentially all (90%?) of ocean fish stocks are
               | overfished or at capacity. Even a supposedly rational and
               | environmentally aware nation like Sweden can stop the
               | overfishing. The cod stock has collapsed and now the
               | herring is going too
               | 
               | - The soils are being destroyed or depleted
               | 
               | - The phosphor and nitrogen cycle is broken (fossil fuels
               | or resources that are mismanaged)
               | 
               | I could go on. It is well documented.
               | 
               | I work on circular food production, where we really care
               | about putting together highly efficient nutrient loops
               | and make sure they work locally/regionally. A mix of tech
               | (automation, IT, climate control, etc), agriculture,
               | horticulture, aquaculture, insects etc. As part of this
               | there are very interesting completing pieces with ways of
               | getting the nutrients in creative ways (new food tech),
               | dealing with animal disease (new tech), combined with
               | sensors, ML and just plain old common sense, that can
               | make a huge impact. If we just think through the process
               | a bit more and take responsibility for the externalities,
               | which really are starting to bite.
               | 
               | Much is still overhyped in foodtech imho, specifically
               | the stuff which claims silver bullets without proper
               | circularity. Which is detrimental to the real solutions
               | as investors like simple superscalable solutions, and the
               | simple solutions are mostly not sustainable. (There are
               | of course exceptions).
        
           | AlexAndScripts wrote:
           | If you think that's bad, try being 18 :) this field may not
           | exist (at least in its present form) by the time I'm out of
           | uni (I'm planning to hedge my bets by studying physics), and
           | it seems the world is getting less stable by the minute.
           | There seems to be no sense of urgency or even medium-term
           | thinking in stopping Putin, and Article 5 appears to be
           | becoming less sacrosanct by the minute. Society is
           | increasingly divided, with absolutely no attempt to find
           | common ground (particularly evident in my demographic) and
           | the majority of my generation having a miniscule (and
           | shrinking) attention span through their direct stream of
           | Chinese propaganda. And, of course, the climate-shaped
           | elephant in the room.
           | 
           | I'm just trying to not let it get in the way of appreciating
           | the world. I'm planning to travel to mainland Europe sometime
           | next year (gap year). SpaceX has reignited spaceflight, and
           | there's so much cool stuff going on in that space. Science
           | marches on, with a steady stream of interesting discoveries.
           | 
           | And programming is great - for now. It feels slightly strange
           | spending a week writing a project that may be finished with a
           | single prompt in a few year's time, but it's enjoyable.
           | 
           | Maybe I'm overreacting? I've grown up in a pretty calm
           | period, with the west in a clearly dominant position. Maybe
           | this is, paradoxically, a return to normality?
        
             | CaptainFever wrote:
             | "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are
             | weeks where decades happen."
             | 
             | -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
        
           | ushuz wrote:
           | So true. Even if it's not AI, climate change, or WW3 may doom
           | us very soon. Just chill and enjoy life while we can.
        
           | billiam wrote:
           | Cheer up. It's not real. Generative AI is going to force us
           | to confront what makes us human and the real world real, and
           | learn to love it all over again. Sure, a lot of people will
           | be lost in digital realms. Some might even like it. But I
           | think that many will embrace the messy, imperfect, poignant
           | realm we live in.
        
         | lukan wrote:
         | We are close to 1.5 degree global warming. And the world is
         | rather busy with war, than actually make a unified effort to
         | change things. That is depressing to me, not that AI can make
         | somewhat convincing background scenery movies (as standalone
         | videos I do not found them convincing, all in all impressive,
         | sure, but too many errors).
        
           | layer8 wrote:
           | I'm more worried that if AI really works out, businesses will
           | end up consuming as much energy as they possibly can using
           | it, because using it more than the competition will provide
           | another edge. It's not clear how we are supposed to reduce
           | energy consumption. Is there a boundary of diminishing
           | returns that would impose a limit?
        
             | promiseofbeans wrote:
             | I think the big visionaries behind the main ai developers
             | are all hoping to achieve agi, and that it will be able to
             | fix everything, outweighing the short-term vast usage of
             | energy trying to create it
        
             | golergka wrote:
             | We shouldn't be reducing energy consumption. We should be
             | increasing it, while decreasing CO2 emissions.
        
             | numpad0 wrote:
             | So this is why a global thermonuclear war followed by
             | nuclear outer space expansionism is a solution.
        
         | schleck8 wrote:
         | > We don't have good social safety nets, and we aren't close to
         | UBI.
         | 
         | In the US, let's keep that in mind.
        
           | reducesuffering wrote:
           | If you think EU funds are going to be there funding those
           | social safety nets in the Brave New World where AGI decimates
           | industry... They're not even sustainable as is.
        
             | Moldoteck wrote:
             | Eu will find ways to keep ppl employed:)
        
               | Astraco wrote:
               | And Unicorns
        
               | Moldoteck wrote:
               | I think unicorn's jobs are safe for now, but will see :)
        
         | mv4 wrote:
         | OpenAI is one major privacy/compliance scandal away from losing
         | that power. I believe it's inevitable, and MS 'will' throw them
         | under the bus when that happens.
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | Only for Microsoft to get the IP
        
         | throwup238 wrote:
         | Depression and gloom? Not here!
         | 
         | I can see all of my plans for world domination coming together
         | right in front of my eyes. A few years ago I was absolutely
         | certain I'd die without achieving my dream of becoming God
         | Emperor of a united Planet Earth.
        
           | DalasNoin wrote:
           | New alt, Sama?
        
         | debarshri wrote:
         | I think you can create an alternate reality with these tools in
         | a way that we havent even thought can alter ones own self.
         | 
         | We have seen this in small scale of social media that ones self
         | esteem.
         | 
         | We will see a new set of problems that would be much deeper.
         | Videos and image that make you believe false reality, reliance
         | of GPT will generate false knowledge.
         | 
         | False reality problems have started popping up everywhere. It
         | is going to be much deeper. I think we are in for a really
         | crazy trip
        
           | Aeolun wrote:
           | Go back to insularized communities that only interactt
           | offline. Guaranteed reality, as far as you can trust
           | interactions with your neighbors anyway.
        
         | Quothling wrote:
         | The climate is burning. The Amazon is likely collapsing sooner
         | than we expect. There are plenty of wars around the globe and a
         | major multi country conflict brewing in Africa. Western
         | politics are laughable, and still the best if you want to be
         | free to say what you want and have rights. Inequality is
         | incredibly high and rising. And so on.
         | 
         | So there are a lot of things to be depressed about before you
         | get depressed about a little increase in misinformation and
         | idiocy on the interwebs. I mean... things like polio and the
         | measles are literally back to fuck with us because people are
         | so fucking stupid they think vaccines are a bad thing.
         | 
         | It'll be fine.
        
           | BadHumans wrote:
           | A lot of the things you mention are happening because of
           | rampant misinformation. Something these tools will help
           | create more of as an unstoppable rate.
        
             | ziroshima wrote:
             | I think it's naive to attribute all of the world's problems
             | to "misinformation". You can give everyone the same
             | information; in fact, we all already have the same
             | information. But perspectives will vary, and there will be
             | conflict.
        
               | BadHumans wrote:
               | I don't attribute it all to misinformation. I attribute
               | it all to greed but misinformation is a great tool for
               | the ruling class to satisfy their greed.
        
             | Quothling wrote:
             | The point I was trying to make was that there is no reason
             | to worry about us setting fire to a fire. Of course you're
             | correct, it'll get worse, but it's not like it wasn't
             | terrible to begin with.
             | 
             | If anything the optimist in me is hoping that all this "AI"
             | generated content is going to make the internet so useless
             | that our society (well the part that doesn't believe the
             | earth is flat and that Bill Gates has mini clones in the
             | vaccines) finally get away from it. In my region of Denmark
             | our local police posts their immediate updates on twitter,
             | which was fine when everyone could see them, not so great
             | now that you need an account. I very rarely care about what
             | they post, but around new years a fireworks container blew
             | up near here, and I had to register (and then later delete)
             | a twitter account to figure out if I had to worry about it
             | or not. It'd be nice if the impending doom of fake content
             | is going to move our institutions and politicians away from
             | big tech SoMe platforms and it just might if they become
             | useless.
        
         | jameslk wrote:
         | UBI was tested during 2020 on a nearly global scale. In the US,
         | the CARES Act which provided stimulus checks for every tax-
         | paying US citizen as well as extensions to unemployment was
         | essentially a giant UBI experiment. Not for AI, but for a giant
         | shift in economic activity where many individuals became
         | unemployed nonetheless.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARES_Act
         | 
         | EDIT: For the downvoters, yes components of CARES was in fact
         | inspired by UBI:
         | 
         | https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/13/andrew-yang-aoc-free-ubi-cas...
         | 
         | https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-aoc-demands-univ...
        
           | advael wrote:
           | This is a nonsensical argument
           | 
           | UBI has three basic properties that the CARES act fulfills
           | none of
           | 
           | 1. Covers cost of living for some basic standard (debatable,
           | but should include food, water, and shelter at minimum)
           | 
           | 2. Is available to everyone without onerous requirements or
           | means-testing (IE is "universal")
           | 
           | 3. Carries a reasonable expectation of continuity such that
           | people can plan around continuing to have it
           | 
           | The CARES act was an emergency measure that absolutely zero
           | people expected or intended to be permanent, it was laden
           | with all the means-testing and bureaucratic hurdles that
           | unemployment generally carries, and it very clearly did not
           | provide adequate support for quite a lot of people
           | 
           | It's meaningless to call something a "test" when it carries
           | none of the properties that proponents of a policy claim
           | would make it desirable. The only perspective from which the
           | comparison even makes sense is from that of someone who's not
           | considered it seriously and come up with a strawman to argue
           | against it (IE something like "UBI is the government gives
           | people some money")
           | 
           | It also seems worth mentioning that I really don't buy the
           | highly political claim that some people seem to view as self-
           | evident: that people remained unemployed longer because they
           | got extended unemployment benefits, rather than as a result
           | of the massive economic shock that prompted that decision in
           | the first place
        
           | itishappy wrote:
           | It may be modeled on UBI, but it's not. Universal basic
           | income is perpetual and unconditional, while the CARES Act
           | was a one-time payment in response to COVID. I'm sure there's
           | still a lot we can learn from it, but I also expect many of
           | the psychological effects will be someone muted.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income_pilots
        
         | rglover wrote:
         | Read the Bible. Specifically Revelation, 1/2 Thessalonians, and
         | Daniel. If you haven't before, you'd be surprised how much of
         | what's taking place now is prophesied.
         | 
         | Many people, rightfully, (over-)react to the American
         | caricature of Christianity (mega churches, Kenneth Copeland,
         | etc.) as the definition of what it is (that's arguably the
         | deception hinted at in the Bible), but reading/trusting the raw
         | word--what's referred to as "sola scriptura"--is remarkably
         | helpful in navigating what's taking place.
        
           | egorfine wrote:
           | Despite you being downvoted which is completely expected on
           | HN, I still have to second this.
           | 
           | > to the American caricature of Christianity
           | 
           | This cannot be overestimated.
        
           | joquarky wrote:
           | Astrology helps people with navigating life in the same way
           | as the Bible
           | 
           | As does the I Ching
           | 
           | These are all just Rorschach tests, why choose one of the
           | most corruptible and corrupted approaches?
        
             | rglover wrote:
             | Nothing protects your other examples from corruption.
             | 
             | > why choose one of the most corruptible and corrupted
             | approaches?
             | 
             | Because when the non-prophetic elements of it are applied
             | to life, all of the anxiety, fear, and dread you feel
             | evaporates. It's only when you view it through the lens of
             | a "church" or "leader" (read: group) that it loses its
             | meaning.
             | 
             | I've read the I Ching and it lacks a religious/church
             | element which leads to the conclusion you've had. It's not
             | until people take it and turn it into something it isn't
             | that it loses its value.
             | 
             | Arguably, Christianity, due to its claims, has become
             | weaponized. Interestingly, this very outcome is prophesied
             | in the Bible (which, personally, cements my faith in it
             | what it prescribes).
        
           | zoky wrote:
           | > _Read the Bible. Specifically Revelation, 1 /2
           | Thessalonians, and Daniel. If you haven't before, you'd be
           | surprised how much of what's taking place now is prophesied._
           | 
           | ...said every doomsday preacher since the Bible was written.
        
             | rglover wrote:
             | I'm not a preacher and I don't subscribe to any
             | church/denomination. I think, generally speaking, religious
             | leadership in the world is in a state of apostasy and is
             | guilty of leading people away from God/Christ's message
             | (which the Bible prophesies would happen).
        
               | Almondsetat wrote:
               | And yet you quote the english bible, whose innumerable
               | translations carry a similar burden
        
               | rglover wrote:
               | Read them. They're all quite similar, mostly changing in
               | tone or structure. I recently built an app to side-by-
               | side ESV, KJV, NASB, NLT, AMP, and ASV translations and
               | they're all very similar. Even obscure translations
               | follow the same structure and message (they have to,
               | doing the opposite is warned against in the Bible).
        
               | Almondsetat wrote:
               | Sorry, if you don't read the OT in hebrew and the NT in
               | greek you cannot speak about christianity
        
               | slothtrop wrote:
               | You're a token Protestant. Nothing new under the sun.
        
               | rglover wrote:
               | Protestants are just confused Catholics, so no.
        
               | slothtrop wrote:
               | That doesn't make any sense. You've outed yourself as not
               | knowing what you're talking about.
        
               | rglover wrote:
               | Protestantism copied/copies a lot of the non-Biblical
               | tradition propagated by Catholicism (e.g., Sunday
               | replacing the Sabbath, recognition of non-Biblical holy
               | days, claiming "Jesus nailed the law to the cross" when
               | the exact opposite is stated in the Bible, etc).
        
               | slothtrop wrote:
               | That's neither here nor there when the entire point was
               | to eschew non-Biblical tradition maintained by the
               | Church. Notwithstanding that there are various Protestant
               | sects and some do not practice what you're accusing them
               | of. It's a large tent, the beliefs aren't that specific.
        
               | swells34 wrote:
               | And religion in general is in a state of apostasy and is
               | guilty of leading people away from reality. That's why it
               | was invented after all, and it sure has done it's job.
               | You'll never find a place more full of delusional self
               | indulgence and aggrandizement than a church, regardless
               | of which religion or denomination they subscribe to.
        
               | rglover wrote:
               | > You'll never find a place more full of delusional self
               | indulgence and aggrandizement than a church, regardless
               | of which religion or denomination they subscribe to.
               | 
               | Correct, which is why I avoid religion (in the
               | institutional church sense). I'm a bit of an odd duck
               | because I came to the Bible after having been a
               | practicing Buddhist for several years and generally being
               | unexposed to Christianity (save for a lukewarm exposure
               | to Jesuit Catholicism) or any religion growing up.
               | 
               | Having lived a mostly-secular life and only later (at age
               | ~30) coming to Christianity, I can confidently say that
               | in regard to reality, it's taught me that it's highly
               | subjective. What most people consider as "reality" is
               | just the interpretation of what they see that keeps them
               | from losing their mind. For some, reality is being an
               | unhinged hedonist, for others it's planting a garden, and
               | for others it's generally just "trying to be nice and
               | getting along."
               | 
               | Personally, God/Christ (and by extension, what's recorded
               | in the Bible) is the interpretation of reality that makes
               | the most sense to me. In practice/study, I've found that
               | it maps 1:1 with what I see while also filling in the
               | blanks on things I can't explain (e.g., the ability for
               | the human body to heal itself, the pace/behavior of
               | nature, or humanity's unrelenting drive to destroy what
               | it doesn't/refuses to understand).
        
               | zoky wrote:
               | You're completely missing the point. Unfortunately, it
               | seems you lack the capability to see the point--to wit,
               | you're not special. So, as the Lord commanded us in
               | Isaiah 1:16 -- I wash my hands of thee.
        
         | slothtrop wrote:
         | It takes a crisis to spur drastic policy changes such as UBI,
         | or the sort of UBI that would maintain Western lifestyle.
         | 
         | Just wait.
        
         | bowsamic wrote:
         | Listen to Bach and have a beer
        
           | skulk wrote:
           | Panem et circenses, the one-stop-shop solution for
           | alienation.
        
         | bluerooibos wrote:
         | Well, Google just released Gemini 1.5 which looks insane so
         | there's at least 2 companies in this race.
         | 
         | These huge updates are interestingly timed though - same day?
        
         | ETH_start wrote:
         | AGI would give you access to millions of times more resources
         | than you currently enjoy. So I would suggest that you have
         | absolutely nothing to worry about on the income/employment
         | front.
         | 
         | One company having that much power is a different matter, and I
         | address it by looking at how we can distribute GPT training
         | through decentralized and open platforms.
        
           | cryoshon wrote:
           | Who will own the company that operates the AGI?
           | 
           | It won't be me or you. Whoever it is, they will not share any
           | of the economic upsides of AI with the public unless they are
           | legally forced -- zero, zip, zilch, nada. Even then, they
           | will keep the lion's share for themselves, and they will use
           | their surplus to shape society to their advantage.
           | 
           | So yes, many millions of us have a big problem to worry
           | about, especially considering how much struggling there
           | already is now.
        
             | ETH_start wrote:
             | If the AGI is open source and operates through a
             | decentralized platform, that everyone/no-one owns it, and
             | the upside will be fully distributed to end users.
             | 
             | But even if it stays in private hands, one company
             | monopolizing a technology and keeping it expensive/out-of-
             | reach is generally not how technological innovation works.
             | There is generally intense competition between providers,
             | with each aggressively cutting prices to capture market
             | share.
        
           | thuuuomas wrote:
           | > AGI would give you access to millions of times more
           | resources than you currently enjoy. So I would suggest that
           | you have absolutely nothing to worry about on the
           | income/employment front.
           | 
           | Pure theology
        
             | ETH_start wrote:
             | I'm puzzled as to how you can characterize a description of
             | AGI's functions as "theology." AGI represents the
             | automation of what we would describe as human-level
             | thought, transforming it into a mass-produced service that
             | costs almost nothing to acquire. Consequently, the cost of
             | any product or service that requires human labor is
             | expected to trend toward zero.
             | 
             | We're already witnessing this with the creation of textual
             | and graphical content through ChatGPT. It's now possible to
             | generate various types of text content and a wide range of
             | graphics at the cost of 10 cents for the dozen ChatGPT API
             | calls. And the work is completed in a few minutes, as
             | opposed to several hours. This represents a several orders
             | of magnitude increase in per capita productivity for these
             | specific tasks. As AI technology advances, the scope of
             | applications benefiting from such productivity boosts is
             | expected to widen, which means human civilization will
             | experience a revolutionary increase in productivity, and
             | with it, resource abundance.
        
           | sureglymop wrote:
           | What will you do with millions of times more resources than
           | you currently enjoy?
           | 
           | I for one, would be overwhelmed. In the meantime I will be
           | passionate and joyful about the things I like regardless of
           | whether AI can do them a million times better. I have fun
           | doing it.. while the AI is.. just AI.
        
             | ETH_start wrote:
             | Personally, I love life, and I expect AI will allow me to
             | spend more of my life taking it in instead of running
             | through the gauntlet of errands needed to stay alive. I
             | also expect it will help us live much longer, which is an
             | absolute blessing considering how precious every moment is.
        
         | __salt wrote:
         | I know it's cliche, but you truly, unironically need to go
         | touch grass.
        
         | lagrange77 wrote:
         | > we aren't close to UBI
         | 
         | Right! I keep saying, that at least we have to kickoff the
         | process. Not even the legislative process, but convincing the
         | public that we'll need it eventually (alternatively a whole
         | different system worldwide, but that will be even harder). Will
         | take a long time anyway.
        
           | bsenftner wrote:
           | Beware of UBI, simply from the perspective there is no way
           | our puritanical members of society will allow it, and if it
           | does get enacted will have negative ramifications rendering
           | it more of an economic one way trap than a safety net. We're
           | simply to easy to other others, and when those budgeting the
           | entire economy look at the UBI population, their funding will
           | be cut just like they cut education and social services
           | today. I'm afraid of UBI, because I don't trust it's
           | enactment to be fair, honest or worth accepting.
        
             | lagrange77 wrote:
             | Never thought about it this way. Your fears sound
             | realistic.
        
             | eastbound wrote:
             | France has UBI ("RSA").
        
               | polshaw wrote:
               | RSI is not "universal". It is closer to an unemployment
               | benefit than it is to a UBI.
        
         | Moldoteck wrote:
         | Do you feel the doom related to yourself or related to the
         | future of humanity? If it's the first - I can't think of
         | something else than having a money safety net for 6-12 months
         | and having a flexible mind. You can try to learn just in case
         | some phisical skills like electrician if the doon feeling is
         | that bad. If you feel doon for humanity's future, I don't want
         | to be mean, but you shouldn't worry about things you can't
         | control, try to spend more time with nature and with ppl that
         | spend time close to nature Related to competition - the same
         | thoughts people had when thinking about roman/any empire, how
         | could it break, how could others compete. In the end everything
         | ends, giants like IBM are just shadows of their past success,
         | some are saying google is the next ibm and probably openai will
         | be the next ibm-ed google...
        
         | huhtenberg wrote:
         | The feeling comes from not being able to understand how exactly
         | this is done. Makes one feel like a prehistoric man looking at
         | a smartphone.
        
         | lawrencechen wrote:
         | > Historically, letting technology eliminate their jobs has
         | been a sacrifice people have made for their kids' sakes. Not
         | intentionally, for the most part, but their kids ended up with
         | the new jobs created as a result. No one weaves now, and that's
         | fine.
         | 
         | - paulg
         | 
         | https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1757794178548048117
        
           | tr3ntg wrote:
           | Ah yes, Paul G, the historian
        
           | chis wrote:
           | Ah perfect, all we have to do is consider a vague analogy to
           | a totally different event in the past and it's clear that
           | there's no worries if AI takes the vast majority of human
           | jobs in the next 50 years.
           | 
           | As a side note I shudder to think how many nightmare fuel
           | cursed videos the researchers must have had to work through
           | to get this result. Gotta applaud them for that I guess.
        
           | jprete wrote:
           | I can't imagine Paul Graham actually thought through the
           | scenario he's describing. The kids of the parents who lost
           | their jobs, throwing their lives into disarray and
           | desperation, are not going to be the primary recipients of
           | the new shiny technologically advanced careers.
        
           | akprasad wrote:
           | Sentence 1 seems historically illiterate, and I think pg
           | knows how ridiculous it sounds because he walks it back
           | almost immediately. "Historically people made a sacrifice,
           | but not intentionally, for the most part" is incoherent.
           | 
           | > No one weaves now, and that's fine.
           | 
           | Did horses find new jobs when we moved to steam power? Leave
           | aside the odd horse show and fairground ride. By the numbers,
           | what do you think happened?
        
             | Aeolun wrote:
             | > By the numbers, what do you think happened?
             | 
             | They found alternate employment as pack horses in WW1. The
             | problem was solved after that.
        
         | unethical_ban wrote:
         | Saving money, honing personal skills that ai can't replicate.
         | Staying offline and enjoying the world each day without looking
         | at my phone.
         | 
         | This stuff is going to change media and reality so much. Best
         | to get involved in local groups.
        
           | digging wrote:
           | > honing personal skills that ai can't replicate
           | 
           | Name one, and see if that holds up in 5 years...
        
             | unethical_ban wrote:
             | I'm not saying I'm there yet!
             | 
             | Being personable, mediating conflict, leadership in
             | general. Also cooking, baking and masonry.
        
               | oxqbldpxo wrote:
               | I believe you're right. There may be a better quality of
               | life by looking at the ways of the ancient past. All Ai
               | is going to do is make the rich richer. Why try to
               | compete with this?
        
               | digging wrote:
               | I don't think any of those are things AI can't excel at
               | in 5-10 years. The latter 3 will require integration with
               | robotics, but that's not exactly science fiction these
               | days either, it's just something that maybe nobody
               | bothers to do.
        
         | adastra22 wrote:
         | Why do you feel depression, not joy when humanity moves the
         | line of progress further?
        
           | ChatGTP wrote:
           | Progress to what ? Where are we progressing to?
           | 
           | More climate change, war, microplastics in our body and now
           | extreme joblessness ?
           | 
           | If I woke up and I saw a headline that said OpenAI has
           | developed and AI which told us how to sequester huge amounts
           | of cO2 then I'd be excited and agree.
        
             | reducesuffering wrote:
             | > Progress to what ? Where are we progressing to?
             | 
             | Exactly. I'm sick of people advocating changes as
             | "progress" until we get some fundamental baseline sampling
             | of humanity's well-being. When "are you depressed?" "do you
             | contemplate suicide?" "are you exhausted?" go up for 10
             | years around the globe, then people will look like lunatics
             | saying this is "progress" and maybe we'll have a better
             | conversation about where progress actually is.
        
             | speff wrote:
             | Progress for more media to be available to the general
             | public of course. As if that's what people need nowadays...
        
             | ssnistfajen wrote:
             | The e/acc camp will tell you AGI can solve all of those,
             | which is why AI research needs to move as fast as possible.
             | What they don't tell you is only an aligned AGI can solve
             | it in a way beneficial for humans.
             | 
             | We had a half-assed lockdown for a few months where most
             | people just kind of stayed indoors and saw noticeable
             | environmental improvements world-wide. An unaligned AGI can
             | easily conclude the best way to fix these problems is to
             | un-exist all humans.
        
               | adastra22 wrote:
               | There has never in the history of humanity been anything
               | "aligned" in the sense that AI doomers use that word. Yet
               | humanity has had a clear progression towards better,
               | safer, and more just societies over time.
               | 
               | We will be just fine.
        
             | latency-guy2 wrote:
             | If you feel the sum of the last few thousand years of
             | civilization just meant nothing, then you're not looking
             | for a conversation.
        
             | adastra22 wrote:
             | You say as you comfortably type on a thinking machine while
             | indoors sheltered from the elements, presumably without any
             | concern for war or famine or marauding gangs of lawless
             | raiders.
             | 
             | Yeah, progress has gotten us nowhere /s
        
           | ssnistfajen wrote:
           | This is the same as slacklining over a ravine with no
           | harness. Are the views epic? Yes. Does the adrenaline rush
           | feel good? Yes. Are the consequences irreversible if you
           | happen to mess up? Probably yes. The last point is why
           | there's so much more doomerism compared to OpenAI's previous
           | products. We don't have that harness and we don't know if
           | we'll ever have it.
        
             | adastra22 wrote:
             | Wtf has machine learning technology have to do with crazy
             | adrenaline sports that will get you killed? That was way
             | out of left field.
        
               | drooby wrote:
               | It's an analogy.. perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but it's
               | within the acceptable window IMO.
               | 
               | When Facebook came out very few considered it an
               | existential risk. Turns out, it has immense power over
               | elections. Elections have consequences for the well being
               | of billions of people on the planet. Not to mention it
               | might negatively impact the mental health of its users (a
               | large chunk of the human population).
        
         | __MatrixMan__ wrote:
         | We've been on an unsustainable trajectory for quite a while
         | now. I take hope from things like this. Maybe this time it'll
         | finally be the shock we need to rethink everything.
        
           | starbugs wrote:
           | I also hope that it will eventually wake up people and show
           | what's really important. But I'm afraid we're far off from
           | that happening.
        
         | harryquach wrote:
         | There will be a business created specializing in authenticating
         | digital information. I have no doubt this problem will be
         | solved with technology.
        
         | polytely wrote:
         | Not worried, I trust in my taste. I still haven't seen anything
         | made by AI that moved me. I'm buying physical books written
         | before AI was a thing, backing up music and film. Visiting
         | concerts and museums. The information and experience in my head
         | will become more rare and valuable compared to the AI slop that
         | will soon permiate everything. Oh your model is trained on the
         | billion most read online texts in the english language? cute.
         | I'm pulling inspiration from places that aren't captured by any
         | model.
         | 
         | Most of my programming job is tightly coupled with the business
         | processes and logistics of the company I work for, AI will not
         | replace me there.
         | 
         | Also I'm not convinced this is sustainable, I'm thinking this
         | will be like GCI where the first iron man film looked
         | phenomenal but where huge demand + the drive to make it
         | profitable will drive down the quality to just above barely
         | acceptable levels like the CGI in current marvel blockbusters.
        
           | screenothethh wrote:
           | You say that but most things that are commercially produced
           | aren't made by individuals but via collaborative processes.
           | The AI won't even get credit, they'll just use it to dilute
           | everyone else's contribution.
        
           | elicksaur wrote:
           | > Most of my programming job is tightly coupled with the
           | business processes and logistics of the company I work for,
           | AI will not replace me there.
           | 
           | Wondering what the runway on this statement is.
        
           | bhaney wrote:
           | "I still haven't seen any text written by AI that can seem
           | coherent for more than a sentence"
           | 
           | "I still haven't seen any text written by AI that doesn't
           | contradict itself a few paragraphs later"
           | 
           | "I still haven't seen any picture made by AI that doesn't
           | look like an abstract nightmare"
           | 
           | "I still haven't seen any picture made by AI that includes
           | hands with the right number of fingers"
           | 
           | "I still haven't seen any videos made by AI that aren't janky
           | and uncanny"
           | 
           | "I still haven't seen any videos made by AI that _move_ me "
           | 
           | The transition from the first to the last took less than five
           | years.
        
             | shostack wrote:
             | Is there a Moore's Law equivalent for AI here yet?
        
             | mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
             | All these videos are still janky and uncanny though. Legs
             | morph weirdly, physics are strange, objects do things that
             | make no sense.
        
               | Animats wrote:
               | Yes. These systems are working on a 3D problem in a 2D
               | world. They have a hard time with situations involving
               | occlusion. A newer generation of systems will probably
               | deduce 3D models from 2D images, build up a model space
               | of 3D models, generate 3D models, and then paint and
               | animate them. That's how computer-generated animation is
               | done today, which humans driving. Most of those steps
               | have already been automated to some degree.
               | 
               | Early attempts to do animation by morphing sort of
               | worked, and were prone to some of the same problems that
               | 2D generative AI systems have. The intermediate frames
               | between the starting and ending positions did not obey
               | physical constraints.
               | 
               | This is a good problem to work on, because it leads to a
               | more effective understanding of the real world.
        
             | root_axis wrote:
             | How deep is the pool? Just because you have descended to
             | depths that others were skeptical of doesn't mean there
             | isn't a floor. Besides, these videos are _less_ janky, but
             | still obviously fake, for _for sure_ they 're cherry-picked
             | for maximum effect.
        
             | numpad0 wrote:
             | Well - the videos in the link gave me same kind of response
             | as literal Latin American gore videos, so line 3 to 5 still
             | applies, and line 1 to 2 still applies to ChatGPT w/GPT-4
             | Turbo, so... I don't know what to make of this, maybe
             | people like gore videos. Or something.
        
           | tbm57 wrote:
           | not to add to the doomerism, but I often wonder about how
           | much AI-generated content I've consumed without realizing it
           | - especially from times before generative AI became
           | mainstream
        
             | Barrin92 wrote:
             | I don't get this angle at all. To me that's like "organic"
             | food labels. What do I care if my content is "AI" made.
             | When I watch a CGI animated movie there isn't a little
             | artisan sitting in the video camera like in a Terry
             | Pratchett novel, it's all algorithms anyway for like 30
             | years.
             | 
             | When I use Unity I write ten lines of code and the tool
             | generates probably 50k. Ever looked into the folder of a
             | modern frontend project after typing one command into a
             | terminal? I've been 99% dependent on code generation for
             | ages.
        
               | tbm57 wrote:
               | Does it matter to you whether you're interacting with a
               | human on some level when watching a show or movie,
               | specifically on an artistry level?
               | 
               | Maybe some movie you've watched has been spun up by a
               | Sora-like platform based on a prompt that itself was AI-
               | generated from a market research report. Stephen King
               | said that horror is the feeling of walking into your
               | house and finding that all of your furniture has been
               | replaced by identical copies - finding out that all of
               | the media everybody consumes has actually been generated
               | by non-human entities would give me the same feeling
        
               | Barrin92 wrote:
               | >Does it matter to you whether you're interacting with a
               | human on some level when watching a show or movie,
               | specifically on an artistry level?
               | 
               | Yes it matters to me a great deal. But there's a reason
               | Stephen King made that observation a long time ago. All
               | the actors in a modern Marvel movie look like they've
               | been grown in some petri-dish in a Hollywood basement and
               | all the lines sound like they come from LLMs for the last
               | fifteen years. There's been nothing recognizably human in
               | mass media for decades. 90% of modern movies are asexual
               | Ken doll like actors jumping around in front of green
               | screens to the demands of market research reports
               | already.
               | 
               | I'm not saying the scenario isn't scary, I'm saying we've
               | been in that hellscape for ages and the particularly
               | implementation details of technologies used to get us
               | there ("AI" in this case) don't interest me that much.
               | And in the same vein, an authentic artist can surely make
               | something human with AI tools.
        
           | animanoir wrote:
           | AI doesn't cares about your "refined taste", it cares about
           | money, that's the problem.
        
         | elorant wrote:
         | Why should we always take the pessimistic viewpoint? Think of
         | all the beautiful things that can be built with something like
         | that. All the tutorials that could be created for any given
         | subject. All the memories that could be relived. Upload a photo
         | with your grandparents, give it context, and see them laughing
         | and playing with you as a toddler. Feed it your favorite book
         | and let it make a movie out of it. I mean, fuck me, the
         | possibilities are endless. I don't feel depressed. I feel
         | blessed to be able to live in an era when all these marvelous
         | things materialize. This is the stuff we read in science
         | fiction decades ago.
        
           | lemming wrote:
           | Yes, I remember the Matrix discussing something very like the
           | situation you describe.
        
           | ssnistfajen wrote:
           | Idk about you but I would not consider AI-generated memories
           | of my grandparents even remotely close to being an authentic
           | experience whatsoever. One of my grandparents passed before I
           | was born, so any synthetic depictions of us are fake. That
           | frankly sounds like a post-apocalyptic experience, if not
           | worse than that.
        
           | dorkwood wrote:
           | > Upload a photo with your grandparents, give it context, and
           | see them laughing and playing with you as a toddler.
           | 
           | Exactly. People just aren't seeing this. You don't even have
           | to limit the fake memories to real people. Don't have a
           | girlfriend? Generate videos and photographs of you and your
           | dream girl traveling the world together, sharing intimate
           | moments, starting a family. The possibilities are so
           | exciting. I think the people who hate this idea are people
           | who already have it all. They're not like me and you.
        
         | jjice wrote:
         | For what it's worth, there have been a lot of situations like
         | this in the past. Maybe not as fast as this, but tech has
         | displaced jobs so many times like with the cotton gin and
         | computers, but more jobs have come about from those (like
         | probably your job). Now, you can say that this is different but
         | do we really have any data to back that up aside from speed of
         | development?
         | 
         | As for social safety nets: if this affects people as heavily as
         | you think (on an unprecedented, never before seen level), the
         | US will almost certainly put _something_ into place and add
         | some heavy taxes on something like this. If tens of millions of
         | Americans are removed from the work force and can't find other
         | work because of this, they'll form a really strong voting
         | block.
         | 
         | Also consider that things are never perfect. We've had wars
         | around the world for a notable amount of time. Even the US has
         | been in places we shouldn't be for a serious chunk of the last
         | century, but things have worked out. We have a ton of news and
         | access now so we're just more aware of these things.
         | 
         | Hopefully that perspective helps a bit. HN and social media can
         | have "doomer" tones quote a bit. Hopefully some perspective can
         | help show that this may not be as large a change as we think.
         | 
         | Or maybe I'm an idiot, as some child comments may point out
         | shortly.
        
           | akprasad wrote:
           | > do we really have any data to back that up
           | 
           | By definition, we don't have data for events we haven't seen
           | before. So instead I reason as well as I can:
           | 
           | Consider the set of all jobs a human being could do. Consider
           | the set of all jobs an AI system could perform as well as a
           | human being but more cheaply. Is the AI set growing, and if
           | so, how quickly?
           | 
           | Prior technology is generally narrow and dumb: I cannot tell
           | my cotton gin to go plant cotton for me, nor can I ask it to
           | fix itself when it breaks. Therefore I take on a strategic
           | role in using and managing my cotton gin. The promise of AI
           | systems is that they can be general and intelligent. If they
           | can run themselves, then why do I need a job telling them
           | what to do?
        
             | tombert wrote:
             | Isn't this making the assumption that the stuff that needs
             | to get done is fixed size? New technologies also create
             | entirely new _categories_ of jobs.
             | 
             | "Computer" used to be a profession, where people would sit
             | and do multiplication tables and arithmetic all day [1].
             | Then computing machines came along and put all those people
             | out of work, but it also created entire new categories of
             | jobs. We got software engineers, computer engineers,
             | administrators, tons of sub-categories for all of those,
             | and probably dozens more categories than I can think of.
             | 
             | I think that there's a very high likelihood with the
             | _current_ jobs that humans do better than computers, most
             | will be replaced by cheaper AI labor. However, I don 't see
             | why we should assume that set of things that humans do
             | better than computers is static.
             | 
             | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_(occupation)
        
               | akprasad wrote:
               | I'm trying to point to the set of _all_ jobs a human
               | being _could_ do, which includes future jobs enabled by
               | future technology.
               | 
               | This is not as nebulous of a set as it sounds because it
               | has real human boundaries: there are limits to how fast
               | we can learn, think, communicate, move, etc. and there
               | are limits to how consistently we can perform because of
               | fatigue, boredom, distraction, biological needs like food
               | or sleep, etc. The future is uncertain, but I don't see
               | why an AI system couldn't push past these boundaries.
        
               | yousif_123123 wrote:
               | Maybe if AI could do all jobs humans could do, we'd setup
               | some system where the AI works and we don't since we tax
               | them or somehow at least part of the created goods and
               | services flows to everyone. Anything AI "creates" is
               | worthless unless it's consumed, and AI being a
               | machine/software won't inherently want to consume
               | anything (like burgers for example).
               | 
               | I also struggle to think about all this, but I imagine if
               | you can flip a switch and everything produced and
               | consumed in the economy could be done in half the time,
               | is that a good or bad thing? If we keep flipping that
               | switch and approaching a point where everything is being
               | produced with almost no human effort, does it become bad
               | all of a sudden?
               | 
               | Somehow we'd need to distribute all this production, I'm
               | not sure how it would work out, but just going from what
               | we have now to half or 25% of effort needed is probably
               | an improvement, at least I'd take that.
        
         | OscarTheGrinch wrote:
         | The more I play with AI the more I realise that The "I" part of
         | AI is just clever marketing. People who are freaking out about
         | AI should just play around with it, you will soon realise how
         | fundamental dumb it is, and maybe relax about it.
         | 
         | AI has no spark, no drive, no ambition, no initiative, no
         | theory of mind, and it's not clear to me that it will ever have
         | these things. Right now, it's just a hammer that can build 100
         | houses a second, but who needs 100 slightly wonky houses?
        
           | srinivgp wrote:
           | Um. A hammer that can build 100 houses a second would be
           | incredibly valuable, both solving and causing some very
           | important problems. So good analogy from my perspective I
           | suppose, but I don't think it supports your conclusion?
        
             | jononomo wrote:
             | What do you think his conclusion is?
        
           | Animats wrote:
           | > AI has no spark, no drive, no ambition, no initiative...
           | 
           | Just add a cost function.
        
             | elicksaur wrote:
             | This kind of reductive attitude towards what it means to be
             | human is what really depresses me, not current ai tech.
        
               | fullshark wrote:
               | Maybe engineers aren't who you should be looking to for
               | what it means to be human. This board can't answer every
               | question you face.
        
               | Animats wrote:
               | He didn't ask about being human. He asked about having
               | the capabilities to do certain things.
               | 
               | We can no longer equate intelligence with humanity.
               | Humans are just one kind of intelligence.
        
               | elicksaur wrote:
               | Sorry if my comment didn't give enough context. I'm not
               | the OP, so I'm not asking any questions.
               | 
               | I was interpreting the parent comment as saying the spark
               | of consciousness only needed a cost function.
               | 
               | Personally, I disagree that our current neural nets are
               | accurate representations of what goes on in the human
               | brain. We don't have an agreed upon theory of
               | consciousness, yet ML businesses spread the idea that we
               | have solved the mind and that current LLMs are accurate
               | incarnations of it.
               | 
               | More than the functionality of ai replacing current human
               | jobs, I worry what we will lose if we stop wondering
               | about the universe in between our ears thinking we know
               | everything there is to know.
        
             | numpad0 wrote:
             | But that had always been THE missing piece for AI!
        
           | patall wrote:
           | While I do not think that it is impossible to get there, I
           | totally agree that this is a key step that current AI is
           | missing. Auto-GPT seemed to be the big thing that can outlay,
           | plan, execute and reiterate complex tasks but ultimately
           | wasn't able to do anything like that. Kind of ironic that it
           | is reinforcements learning that the models seem to be so bad
           | at.
        
           | fullshark wrote:
           | Consumers don't want that stuff, they want junk food visual
           | content, and a slighty wonky house, especially if they can
           | get those for a lot cheaper.
        
           | ssnistfajen wrote:
           | AI and AGI are practically two different concepts that most
           | of the industry and the mainstream media are doing a poor job
           | making the distinguishment between them.
           | 
           | Also, 100 slightly wonky houses will sell like hot cakes if
           | each one costs less than 1/100th of a not-slightly-wonky
           | house. People will buy 100 of them instead of 1 and just live
           | in a different one every day/hour so they always notice the
           | novel parts instead of the wonky parts. We've had mass
           | manufacturing for centuries and they always prevail when the
           | trade-offs are acceptable.
        
             | myaccountonhn wrote:
             | Accepting wonky houses is how we end up with favelas. It
             | ain't pretty
        
           | golergka wrote:
           | > AI has no spark, no drive, no ambition, no initiative, no
           | theory of mind
           | 
           | So, it is completely alike what a lot of humans are like, at
           | least at their jobs?
        
         | TaupeRanger wrote:
         | It's literally nothing. Generative images haven't really gotten
         | better at the things people care about, like getting specific
         | details right and matching exact descriptions, and avoiding
         | uncanny animals and humans. There's no reason to think video
         | will be any different. No reason to panic - just take it for
         | what it is: something funny to amuse yourself with for a few
         | hours.
        
         | itissid wrote:
         | And we have been told that with innovation and disruption, a
         | new breed of jobs and skill sets are created. But we don't know
         | (or are very bad at predicting) what those would be, especially
         | now that the world has 100's millions of people linked to these
         | economies (film, writing, gaming).
         | 
         | Many people (including myself) have bought into the narrative
         | that history will repeat here and things will be better
         | eventually, but not how much has to break first, and it's used
         | as a hammer by OpenAI and probably every innovator who
         | disrupted.
         | 
         | They advertised "Safety" but no "Economic Impact" analysis
         | because the latter is less scary and requires difficult
         | predictive work, the former is just narrow legalese defined by
         | 80-year-old congressman they have to abide by to "release"
         | v1.0. There is at-least a Congressional Budget office(CBO)
         | where the 80-year-olds work, flawed as it maybe...
        
         | aggie wrote:
         | It's worth considering that throughout history there have been
         | people who have felt this way. That suggests this perception is
         | a natural tendency of humans and it does not have a good track
         | record of turning out be be correct.
        
         | konschubert wrote:
         | 1. I would much rather live in a world of abundance and figure
         | out UBI than in a world of scarcity.
         | 
         | 2. I don't think what they have can be protected all that well.
         | Others will catch up.
        
         | suyash wrote:
         | There is no UBI coming, govt can barely fund current budgetary
         | needs without borrowing tons of money. If here are no jobs
         | means no tax payers which will further shrink gov budgets. We
         | are on our own as I see it.
        
         | satvikpendem wrote:
         | I don't worry. These are all ultimately just tools for humans,
         | they don't do anything without us prompting them to do so.
        
         | throw310822 wrote:
         | The thing that fills me with dread watching these videos is not
         | (much) the thought of how many jobs it might make useless. It's
         | the thought that _every_ single pixel, _every_ movement is
         | fake. There is literally not a speck of truth in these videos,
         | there is nothing one can learn about the real world. Yes they
         | 're often "right" but any detail can be wrong at any moment.
         | Just like ChatGPT hallucinating but in a much deeper way- we
         | know that language can be used to lie or just make up things,
         | but a realistic video hits in a different way. For example the
         | video of the crested pigeon- a bird I haven't seen before- is
         | beautiful and yet it can be wrong in an infinity of details-
         | actually, I don't even know if such a bird exists.
        
         | up2isomorphism wrote:
         | I just don't find much value of the things that they are
         | generating so I don't feel that's a problem. If there is
         | anything this things is positive, is that it reminds us how
         | boring and predictable the daily life of normal people are.
        
           | elicksaur wrote:
           | Gentle reminder that you are also "normal people".
        
         | quadcore wrote:
         | Like you said, it's a feeling. Once you've identified it, just
         | remember you have many many buttons that can be pushed to
         | generate feelings. It's just a program installed long long long
         | ago. Visualize that, breathe and just laugh at that poor bash
         | program.
         | 
         | There is some usefulness to those feelings - this announcement
         | will probably have an impact on your life soon enough. But you
         | cant let every button push and distant threat pull you down can
         | you.
         | 
         | Also remember, life has its own ways: as far as you know, it
         | could also be the beginning of the best days of your life.
        
         | petesergeant wrote:
         | Honestly? Just an embrace of cheerful, curious nihilism.
         | Between this and climate change, we are entering interesting
         | times, and remembering that I'll be able to "opt-out" at a time
         | of my choosing, and then embracing the time left with happiness
         | and curiosity.
         | 
         | "Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will
         | ... Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor,
         | home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill."
        
         | sunshine_reggae wrote:
         | Well, what's ChatGPT's answer to your fears?
         | 
         | I suppose it's going to be something like "You're asking for
         | more purpose in your life? Sorry, I can't let you do that,
         | Dave."
        
         | kromem wrote:
         | There really isn't a moat.
         | 
         | Dall-E was crazy and then suddenly people were doing the same
         | thing on consumer hardware with an open model within a year.
         | 
         | Filmmakers being able to bring their vision to life using
         | generative models is going to create such a huge expansion of
         | the market.
         | 
         | What people don't realize is that long term these advances are
         | a death knell for mega-corps, not for individuals.
         | 
         | Why do I need to kiss Weinstein's ass to get my movie made if I
         | can do it with a shoestring budget and AI and have the same
         | assistance to create marketing materials, etc. I need a lot
         | less money to break even and can focus on niche markets aligned
         | with my artistic vision instead of mass appeal to cover costs
         | plus the middlemen involved in distribution and production.
        
           | great_psy wrote:
           | I don't even think the moat is the issue here. We are giving
           | the enjoyable parts of life to a computer. And we are left
           | with the drudgery.
           | 
           | I'm sure some people would be more ok to work a shitty job
           | with the hope that they might make it as an artist.
           | 
           | Now that it's becoming more and more obvious they will not be
           | an artist that's better than AI, what do they have left to
           | hope for ?
        
             | erichmond wrote:
             | Interestingly, I think that's for us to choose. I'm leaning
             | into AI specifically for this reason. I want to build tools
             | to that reduce the drudgery.
             | 
             | But I agree, there's going to be a "war" around this and if
             | could go wrong, if we are not careful.
        
               | richrichie wrote:
               | Isn't the constant building out tools another form of
               | drudgery?
        
               | moneywoes wrote:
               | what are you building
        
             | salty_biscuits wrote:
             | It's not that long ago in human history that basically none
             | of the jobs we do now existed. So it is kind of myopic to
             | think that any current career is a calling. Art can become
             | a craft again, not a career. There is nothing wrong with
             | that.
        
               | dandelany wrote:
               | Also not that long ago electricity and clean drinking
               | water weren't a thing. The fact that people can make a
               | career as an artist now, and couldn't before, is
               | something I'd consider an advancement! "Nothing wrong
               | with that" is a conclusion that simply doesn't follow
               | from the rest of your post.
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | It takes a lot of time to develop that craft, which won't
               | be available to you if you have to do drudgery to keep a
               | roof over your head. You're arguing for art to be at best
               | a hobby, and full-time pursuit of it to be limited to
               | rich kids.
               | 
               | Also I take issue with your argument about 'none of the
               | jobs we do now' existing through most of history.
               | Farming, construction, fighting, bookkeeping, cooking,
               | transport, security are all jobs that have been around as
               | long as people have lived in settlements.
               | 
               | Sure, you could point to the long history of nomadic
               | hunting and gathering prior to that, but that's like
               | expanding your argument back to the origin of cellular
               | life or forward to the heat death of the universe in
               | order to make your interlocutor's arguments look
               | insignificant on a cosmic scale. It's not a helpful
               | contribution to addressing the real challenges of the
               | present.
        
               | vunderba wrote:
               | There hasn't been any money in the arts in a _long long
               | time_ so I 'm not sure where this is coming from.
               | 
               | For every one musician that's able to pay the bills,
               | there's 1000 equally talented musicians that can't even
               | get noticed.
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | How long of a time are we talking about here? It was a
               | lot easier to make a modest but steady living in the arts
               | 30 or even 15 years ago. It's probably easier to have a
               | breakout hit today on YouTube or Tiktok and maybe make a
               | lot of money fast, but not to making a living
               | consistently without sweatshopping content or being
               | extremely personally attractive or similar.
        
               | nirvdrum wrote:
               | There's also loads artists that do web and graphic
               | design, make videos for product demos, ad campaigns, and
               | so on. It's perhaps not the purest form of art, but it is
               | one way in which artists can apply their craft and still
               | put a roof over their heads. A lot of these AI tools
               | seems squarely aimed at eliminating those positions.
               | 
               | For what it's worth, I think we're going to see a slide
               | in quality. Maybe there will be a niche for some. But, I
               | think companies will settle for 70% quality if it means
               | eliminating 100% of a full-time position.
        
               | brenoRibeiro706 wrote:
               | Exactly
        
               | bobsomers wrote:
               | > Art can become a craft again, not a career.
               | 
               | This sounds nice, but having worked with many artists in
               | the past a lot of them do it because they're good at it,
               | it's enjoyable enough, and it pays their bills so they
               | can eat.
               | 
               | Telling them, "You're now free to make the art you really
               | wanted to make!" doesn't bring much comfort when you're
               | taking away their ability to put food on the table.
        
               | suyash wrote:
               | Exactly, there are lot of arm chair experts in the forum
               | today who have no clue about the reality of the industry,
               | people do it because they are passionate about it and
               | devote thier whole life to get good at it, this is just
               | taking food from thier mouth.
        
               | sydd wrote:
               | > Art can become a craft again, not a career
               | 
               | The issue is that those jobs that got automated to
               | "become a craft again" have mostly vanished, except for
               | high-end stuff. Some examples: shoe making, artisan
               | furniture, tailors, watchmakers. Unless you are the best
               | of the best these are hobbies now not something you make
               | money from.
               | 
               | Nowadays most people make money in bleak half-automated
               | jobs (e.g. construction, factory workers) or in white
               | collar jobs sitting in front of a computer in some
               | cubicle doing some mind numbing task for a megacorp.
               | 
               | I'm usually hyped about technological advancement, but
               | very bleak about AI. I think it will just bring more
               | sublte propaganda for state actors, more subtle
               | advertising for megacorps, the dieing of creative jobs
               | like graphic artists or actors is just a sad sideeffect
               | (these will still exist, but only as high end -- we will
               | always have real AAA actors, but the days of extras on
               | movie sets are counted -- lots of the Hollywood protests
               | were because studios started doing contracts for noname
               | actors that stated that the studio will regain rights of
               | the actor's digital likeness)
        
               | fasterik wrote:
               | When is a time in history when everyone had really great
               | jobs? Before the industrial revolution, you had most
               | people doing subsistence farming. During the industrial
               | revolution, you had 14 hour a day exploited laborers
               | working in factories. Maybe there was a brief period
               | after World War II where you had a large middle class
               | with stable careers and affordable housing. That's not
               | the norm for the millions of years of history of human
               | evolution.
        
               | afthonos wrote:
               | Ok, but like...that's a bug, not a feature.
        
               | fasterik wrote:
               | To me, this reflects a perfectionist mindset. Life is
               | better today for billions of people than it has been at
               | any other point in the history of the human species. If
               | you consider it a "bug" that we don't live in some sort
               | of utopia where everyone's dreams are fulfilled, maybe
               | you need to change your expectations and view things in a
               | larger historical perspective.
        
               | afthonos wrote:
               | It is perfectly possible to see that we live in the best
               | time humanity has ever lived in and be concerned that
               | we're are at risk of regressing. Especially with people
               | claiming that any regression is simply not viewing things
               | in a larger historical perspective.
        
               | llm_trw wrote:
               | The issue is that people are seeing progress as
               | regression.
        
               | sensanaty wrote:
               | A micro$oft-backed megacorp hoovering up everyone else's
               | work is not what I'd call progress.
        
               | golergka wrote:
               | > Some examples: shoe making, artisan furniture, tailors,
               | watchmakers.
               | 
               | > Nowadays most people make money in bleak half-automated
               | jobs (e.g. construction, factory workers) or in white
               | collar jobs sitting in front of a computer in some
               | cubicle doing some mind numbing task for a megacorp.
               | 
               | And all the while they enjoy abundance of shoes,
               | furniture, clothes and watches with value/price ratio
               | absurdly high by standards of most of human history.
        
               | dreamworld wrote:
               | Just wanna point out that making stuff is different from
               | having stuff. Making your shoe is much different from
               | buying a Nike from the store (and I don't make shoes ;)
               | ).
               | 
               | The craft is an activity, kind of an art by itself. Many
               | find it enjoyable.
               | 
               | The destination is the journey, dude!
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | There's nothing "bleak" about building stuff with your
               | hands. Many building trades workers like what they do.
               | And they generally appreciate technology improvements
               | because those tend to make the work safer and less
               | physically demanding.
               | 
               | https://mikeroweworks.org/
        
             | MattGaiser wrote:
             | Is the artist the person drawing or the person who decides
             | what is drawn? The AI only impacts the former.
        
             | ptoo wrote:
             | There will always be things humans can do that AI cannot.
             | And if there ever comes a point when that's not the case,
             | there will be no need to distinguish the two.
        
             | fastball wrote:
             | Film/video editing isn't exactly known as the industry
             | where everybody loves their job and doesn't want to kill
             | themselves.
             | 
             | I made a twitter thread[1] with weird metal cybertrucks
             | using Midjourney a couple days ago. I personally enjoyed
             | the process and do not have the talent nor the time to do
             | that without generative AI. There are people who do have
             | that talent, but honestly I doubt anyone else would've put
             | in the time.
             | 
             | I think you might have it a little backwards. For most
             | people, the fun part is "making a movie", not "watching
             | hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage picking between
             | 10 different shots". That's the drudgery, and that's the
             | part generative AI can eliminate.
             | 
             | [1] https://twitter.com/acnebs/status/1757641901438894338
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | I've made my living that way and absolutely loved it.
               | What I did not love (and partly why I left the industry)
               | was the difficulty of getting paid decently at the bottom
               | tier; I had the bad timing to come in right as the bottom
               | was beginning to fall out of the indie market and making
               | straight-to-video b-movies 3 or 4 times a year ceased to
               | be a viable business model.
               | 
               |  _I think you might have it a little backwards. For most
               | people, the fun part is "making a movie", not "watching
               | hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage picking between
               | 10 different shots". That's the drudgery, and that's the
               | part generative AI can eliminate._
               | 
               | No, that's the craft, and solving problems where the
               | continuity doesn't line up, or production had to drop
               | shots, or the story as shot and written sucks in some
               | way, is where the art comes in.
               | 
               | The drudgery is things like ingesting all the material,
               | sorting it into bins, lining up slate cues, dealing with
               | timecode errors, rendering schedules, working your way
               | through long lists of deliverables and so on. You have
               | literally confused the logistics part with the creative
               | act.
        
               | notpachet wrote:
               | I also used to be in this line of work, and I just wanted
               | to say how much I appreciated this comment. 100%
               | accurate.
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | I have not confused it, I'm simplifying to make a point.
               | Yes, of course there are many people who love the art of
               | editing, or taking the right shot, or acting, or
               | directing, or special effects, or all of the 100s of
               | things that go into making a movie or TV show or other
               | video.
               | 
               | But many of those things involve a lot of drudgery, and
               | the drudgery is what these "AI" solutions are best at. If
               | you want to go above and beyond and craft the perfect
               | shot, that opportunity would still be available to you.
               | Why would it not?
               | 
               | When we invented machines that make clothes, did that
               | reduce the number of jobs in the clothing industry? When
               | we got better and better at it, did that make fashion
               | worse? No. If you want a machine made suit for $50, you
               | can find one. If you want a handmade suit for $5000, you
               | can find one.
               | 
               | Tech like this expands opportunities, it does not
               | eliminate them. If and when it gets to the point where
               | Sora is better at making videos than a human in every
               | conceivable dimension, then we can have this discussion
               | and bemoan our loss. But we're not even close to that
               | point.
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | I don't buy this simplification claim; you literally
               | described the core skillset as drudgery. Put another way,
               | what parts of film editing do you _not_ consider
               | drudgery? Could it be that you tried it previously and
               | just didn 't really like it?
               | 
               | And with your suit example, you're looking at it from the
               | point of view of consumer choice (which is great) without
               | really looking at the question of of how people in the
               | clothing/textile industry are affected. It's difficult to
               | find longitudinal data at the global level, but we can
               | look at the impact of previous innovations (from
               | outsourcing to manufacturing technology) on the US
               | clothing market; employment there has fallen by nearly
               | 90% over 30 years:
               | https://www.statista.com/statistics/242729/number-of-
               | employe...
               | 
               | The usual response to observations like this is 'well who
               | wants to work in the clothing industry, those people are
               | now free to do other things, great opportunity for people
               | in other parts of the world etc.', but the the constant
               | drive to lower prices by cutting labor costs or quality
               | has big negative externalities. Lots of people that used
               | to make a living thanks to their skill with a sewing
               | machine, at least in the US, are no longer able to
               | monetize that and had to switch to something else;
               | chances they were less skilled at that other thing (or
               | they'd have been doing it instead) and so suffered an
               | economic loss while that transition was forced upon them.
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | The "someone must have lost out economically" argument
               | falls fairly hollow when you actually look at the stats
               | and see that the vast, vast majority of people end up
               | better economically when we develop technology and
               | increase efficiency.
               | 
               | Luddism is never the answer.
               | 
               | Scratch that; luddism _is_ the answer for people who don
               | 't actually care about humanity as a whole (but
               | frequently pretend they do) and just want _their hobby_
               | or _their job_ or _their neighborhood_ to stay the same
               | and for everyone else to stop _ruining_ things. But for
               | the rest of the world, increasing technological
               | efficiency means more people get more things for less.
               | This is good actually.
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | I'm not arguing for luddism, I'm arguing against blind
               | optimism and mindless consumerism. Your response is just
               | a red herring.
        
               | pants2 wrote:
               | This reduces filmmaking to _only_ editing. Filmmakers won
               | 't be choosing between 10 different shots but instead
               | between 10 different prompts and dozens of randomized
               | outputs of those prompts, and then splicing them together
               | to make the final output.
        
               | stratospark wrote:
               | Prompts are just the starting point. Take image
               | generation for example and the rise of ComfyUI and
               | ControlNet, with complex node based workflows allowing
               | for even more creative control. https://www.google.com/se
               | arch?q=comfyui+workflows&tbm=isch
               | 
               | I see these AI models as lowering the barrier to entry,
               | while giving more power to the users that choose to
               | explore that direction.
        
               | krapp wrote:
               | All that amounts to just more complex ways of nudging the
               | prompt, because that prompt is all an LLM can
               | "comprehend." You still have no actual creative control,
               | the black box is still doing everything. You didn't clear
               | the barrier to entry, you just stole the valor of real
               | artists.
        
               | wsintra2022 wrote:
               | So wrong. There are some great modern artists in the AI
               | space now who are using the advanced AI tools to advance
               | their craft.. look at eclectic method before AI and look
               | at how he evolving artistically with AI
        
               | krapp wrote:
               | Shadiversity made the same class of attribution error. AI
               | users aren't evolving artistically, the software they are
               | using to simulate art is improving over time. They are
               | not creators, they are consumers.
        
               | fatherzine wrote:
               | can photography be an art? all a photographer does is to
               | run around the world with a camera and take snapshots. he
               | has no creative control.
        
               | krapp wrote:
               | Photographers have a great deal of creative control. Put
               | the same camera in your hands versus a professional and
               | you will get different results even with the same
               | subject. You taking a snapshot in the woods are not Ansel
               | Adams, nor are you taking a selfie Annie Leibovitz. The
               | skill and artistic intent of the human being using the
               | tool matters.
               | 
               | Meanwhile with AI, given the same model and inputs -
               | including a prompt which may include the names of
               | specific artists "in the style of x" - one can reproduce
               | mathematically equivalent results, regardless of the
               | person using it. If one can perfectly replicate the work
               | by simply replicating the tools, then the human using the
               | tool adds nothing of unique personal value to the end
               | result. Even if one were to concede that AI generated
               | content were art, it still wouldn't be the art of the
               | user, it would be the art of the model.
        
               | acomjean wrote:
               | >I made a
               | 
               | You asked an AI to make something for you. Thats not
               | really making it yourself. Its like hiring someone to
               | create something for you.
        
               | johnfn wrote:
               | Do you also think that using a camera is like hiring
               | someone to draw a picture for you?
        
               | FireBeyond wrote:
               | Are you honestly comparing taking a photograph (and
               | "properly", i.e. thinking about lighting and composition
               | and such, versus firing off a snapshot on your phone)
               | with typing "Make me a picture of Trump riding a dragon"?
        
               | llm_trw wrote:
               | Are you genuinely equating the profound and labor-
               | intensive process of painting, with its meticulous
               | brushstrokes, profound understanding of lighting,
               | composition, and the tactile relationship between artist
               | and canvas, to the trivial button pressing of
               | photography?
               | 
               | Disclaimer: This post was generated using an llm guided
               | by a human who couldn't be bothered explaining why you're
               | wrong.
        
               | FireBeyond wrote:
               | > Disclaimer: This post was generated using an llm guided
               | by a human who couldn't be bothered explaining why you're
               | wrong.
               | 
               | The feeling is mutual.
               | 
               | Impressive that you can dismiss an entire genre of art as
               | trivial mindlessness
        
               | llm_trw wrote:
               | That's what _you_ just did.
               | 
               | I'm merely pointing out why it's stupid.
        
               | shortrounddev2 wrote:
               | Photography is an art in itself. Describing a picture to
               | a computer is not. The two are not comparable
        
               | wsintra2022 wrote:
               | It takes different skills depending on how deep you want
               | to go. Try setting up your own video creating lab using
               | stable diffusion to generate frames. It can make AI
               | videos, you also need to have a lot of Linux dev op
               | skills and python skills..
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | I did in fact make the twitter thread. The images I used
               | in said thread were generated using midjourney, which I
               | stated here and in the thread (which I made, by
               | tweeting).
        
               | acomjean wrote:
               | I appreciate you being straight up about it. I wasn't
               | trying to be harsh, and I apologize for not being clear.
               | I find the terminology used when using ai to create
               | things interesting. "I wrote this using X" versus the
               | never used "I instructed X to write this for me".
        
               | shortrounddev2 wrote:
               | I became a software engineer because I enjoy coding. If
               | you told me software will now be written by simply
               | describing it to a computer, I would quit because that
               | sounds like a fucking terrible way to spend your life. I
               | assume that video editing and post production is the
               | same: a creative problem that is enjoyable to solve in
               | itself. When you remove any difficulty or real work from
               | the equation, you probably get a lot of bad, meaningless
               | content and displaced people without marketable skills
        
               | fastball wrote:
               | I am also software engineer, which is _literally_
               | describing what you want the computer to do, to the
               | computer...
        
               | shortrounddev2 wrote:
               | It's different
        
             | atleastoptimal wrote:
             | 99% percent of people, before AI art, couldn't make good
             | art. AI allows mediocre people to make good art now.
        
               | akprasad wrote:
               | Yes, much in the same way that hiring someone to cater a
               | dinner party makes me a great chef.
               | 
               | (edit to give some body to my comment above:
               | 
               | Hosting a great dinner party is hard work and requires
               | coordination between food, decor, seasonality, people
               | attending, etc. It is akin to a director coordinating the
               | parts of a film. So I do think hosting a good dinner
               | party can count as artistic expression.
               | 
               | I don't know the parent comment's intended reading, but I
               | was reacting to the idea that typing a Sora prompt makes
               | someone a good artist. If the parent means instead that
               | AI allows people to coordinate multiple media in a
               | broader expression that was not possible otherwise, then
               | I fully agree.
               | 
               | )
        
               | atleastoptimal wrote:
               | Not an apt analogy.
               | 
               | I didn't say "AI art makes you a great artist" I said it
               | helps you make great art
               | 
               | Tools allow people to express themselves at a higher
               | aesthetic level without needing the extreme technical
               | skills.
        
               | tzarko wrote:
               | Great art [?] pretty pictures
        
               | throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
               | So everyone at your dinner party gets to eat "better"
               | food? Unless the point of the party was for you to cook
               | then it's an improved experience.
               | 
               | GenAI is a tool that lets creators of one medium expand
               | to other mediums without much effort. Like having
               | transcripts auto-generated for a visual podcast, just in
               | the other direction. Low budget (or amateur) poems/songs
               | can turn into short videos; or replace generic album art
               | with better quality generic album art.
               | 
               | The draw will be the primary medium, the rest will just
               | be an extra bonus.
        
               | akprasad wrote:
               | Of course it is an improved experience, but I don't then
               | get to say that I'm a good cook.
               | 
               | I've updated my comment to explain my view, which I think
               | closely aligns with yours.
        
               | samus wrote:
               | It's the samr discussion we had long ago when digital
               | cameras cane abouut and image editing became easy and
               | commonplace. Yes, there is a lot of badly edited stuff
               | around now. For example, most meme images on social media
               | are made by putting new captions on old content, and
               | maybe changing a few details about the rest of the image.
               | No, photographers didn't become obsolete. They
               | professionalized.
        
               | famahar wrote:
               | I'd argue that it allowed people that lacked the creative
               | confidence to create original art, to now have the
               | confidence to make generic art. I don't mean this in a
               | deeply negative way. I just think that people's view of
               | "good art" is so narrow.
        
               | Zopieux wrote:
               | AI allows mediocre people to make an endless stream of
               | mediocre, dull, aseptic, sterile content. FTFY.
               | 
               | I don't see it as a negative per se, the thing is most
               | people won't have the decency to keep all that shit for
               | themselves and, say, share just the best 1% they produce.
               | They will flood their social networks and the rest of us
               | will have to sweep through the crap for our daily dose of
               | internet memes.
        
             | suyash wrote:
             | This use case is a direct threat to actors when AI can
             | create realistic footage with human and non human subjects,
             | add to this generated speech, you have totally replaced
             | hiring actors and killed thier employability.
        
               | samus wrote:
               | Sorry, that's like claiming that the cinema has killed
               | the theater, or that computer games have killed movies.
               | Or that photorealistic 3D games have killed 2D slider
               | games.
               | 
               | Blockbuster movies depend to a large extent on the
               | pedigree and abilities of their cast. For the big
               | studios, these models are therefore quite useless apart
               | from bringing dead actors alive again. If publishing
               | material created from living actors without isn't illegal
               | already, in a few years it will be.
               | 
               | This might actually save the movie industry and force it
               | to improve the quality of its output. There will be a
               | huge indy scene of movie makers using models that can
               | only compete via the content of the movies they produce.
               | The realism of the characters won't matter because
               | everyone can have those now. The current big studios will
               | be forced to make very good use of human actors to
               | compete with them though, and become innovative again.
        
               | suyash wrote:
               | Your analogy doesn't quite make sense. The reality of the
               | TV/Film production is that most of what we watch are
               | created by big production houses and not indie creators.
               | These companies will do whatever it takes to reduce thier
               | costs, biggest of that is salary for hundreds of staff
               | that they currently employ.
               | 
               | Now with such AI tools, you can write scripts, create art
               | work, crate footage, record voice overs and dialogues.
               | All of this means less need for labor - creative that
               | will not only cause huge employment in the sector but
               | also lead to protests, it already happened last year in
               | Hollywood, it's going to get louder and louder unless we
               | put regulations to prevent job disruptions.
        
               | samus wrote:
               | But those tools can also be used by the very employees
               | that got laid off. They be would become part of the indie
               | scene. The film studios will be left with their trademark
               | portfolio that will be milked for profit. We might see an
               | Avenger movie every month. There will be an absolute glut
               | of such productions, to the point that people might not
               | be interested in it anymore. Can't tell what happens
               | next. We might lose ourselves in the holodeck, or we
               | might again appreciate media produced with more human
               | touch.
               | 
               | I like going to theater or opera. Even for famous pieces,
               | the performance will be slightly different and unique
               | every time. Imperfect, but with changing and nevertheless
               | accomplished actors, singers, musicians, and dancers.
               | Many people feel the same and that's why they watch live
               | performances of singers, bands, and DJs.
        
               | newyankee wrote:
               | Most likely market will be consolidated by existing
               | popular and prescient actors who will add IP protections
               | to their AI likeness and benefit from it. Especially
               | after a certain age
        
               | notpachet wrote:
               | You just described the plot of The Congress:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)
        
             | echelon wrote:
             | > I don't even think the moat is the issue here.
             | 
             | There is no moat. This will all be commonplace for everyone
             | soon, including with a rich open source community.
             | 
             | OpenAI won't let you do nudity or pop culture, but you can
             | bet your uncle that models better than "Sora" will be doing
             | this in just a few months.
             | 
             | > We are giving the enjoyable parts of life to a computer.
             | And we are left with the drudgery.
             | 
             | No. This means that the tens of thousands of people working
             | in entertainment building other people's visions can now be
             | their own writers, actors, and directors.
             | 
             | This is a collapse of the Hollywood studio system and the
             | beginnings of a Cambrian explosion of individual creators.
        
             | Tade0 wrote:
             | There will always be demand for people breaking new ground
             | - which happens to be something AI can't really do.
             | 
             | An AI capable of this would likely also be able to e.g.
             | flip burgers and bring us to Fully Automated Luxury
             | Communism.
        
             | al_borland wrote:
             | What does "better" mean in this context? The camera was a
             | better at capturing realism than any painter who ever
             | lived. While we still have people who paint in that style,
             | there aren't nearly as many, and art took new shapes and
             | forms.
             | 
             | Most "good" art isn't just what you see, it's also the
             | story behind it. Why was it made? What is the story of the
             | artist? What does it make you feel?
             | 
             | AI might allow more people to tell some of those stories
             | they may have lacked the raw skills to tell before. And for
             | those who have the skills, they can make exactly what they
             | envision, without being limited by some of the randomness
             | in the AI. I think there will always be a place for that,
             | and at the top of the market, that's what people want.
        
             | boppo1 wrote:
             | I still like to paint. If you stop painting because Dall-E
             | can do it, maybe you didn't like painting.
        
             | namrog84 wrote:
             | > We are giving the enjoyable parts of life to a computer
             | 
             | Are we though? People still do plenty of things out of
             | interest or hobby, despite it being fully automatable?
             | 
             | e.g. blacksmithing or making certain homemade things?
             | 
             | While these are non digital things, why can't we apply the
             | same thing here?
             | 
             | Some people still hand write assembly out of the novelety
             | and interest of it. Despite there being better tools or
             | arguably better ways of writing code.
        
             | llm_trw wrote:
             | >We are giving the enjoyable parts of life to a computer.
             | And we are left with the drudgery.
             | 
             | Yesterday I asked a local llm to write a python script to
             | have a several multimodal llms rank 50,000 images generated
             | by a stable diffusion model. I then used those images to
             | train a new checkpoint for the model and can now repeat the
             | process ad infinitum.
             | 
             | In the olden days of 2020 I would have had to hire 5000
             | people each working for a day to do the same.
        
           | nkozyra wrote:
           | Long term is good.
           | 
           | Medium term is ... less good.
        
             | DSingularity wrote:
             | Making it to the long term..less good.
        
           | staplers wrote:
           | these advances are a death knell for mega-corps, not for
           | individuals.
           | 
           | _Certain_ mega-corps. We 've been down the email, finance,
           | and social media road and know what people actually use. It's
           | centralized corp infra.
        
           | buzzert wrote:
           | 100% true. Same for video games--an individual has never had
           | more power to compete in the video game market against the
           | megacorps.
           | 
           | I think we'll soon see a suburban mom in middle America with
           | a part-time penchant for storytelling make a blockbuster
           | video game mostly by herself.
        
             | ssnistfajen wrote:
             | Isn't that basically what Stardew Valley is? Obv the
             | creator isn't a suburban mom but the premise is very
             | similar.
        
               | ohthatsnotright wrote:
               | Basically what made Sierra Online, as well.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Entertainment
        
             | LVB wrote:
             | Will there even be "blockbuster" video games, movies,
             | books, etc? If hours after release, there are hundreds of
             | lookalike clones, will there be "hits" like we know of
             | today? We see this in the App Store today. It is just hard
             | for me to see that part-time product being a big success,
             | when at the first whiff of an interesting idea it will get
             | repackaged, probably into something more effective.
        
           | ssnistfajen wrote:
           | Yours is an optimistic take and frankly I do agree with most
           | of it: there isn't an upper bound to economic opportunities
           | as long as everyone gets to use the tools, since the
           | cost/risk to produce something new will significantly
           | decrease, this will boost the diversity of creative
           | industries from which countless gems will be made. However
           | the problem is what if everyone loses their current
           | opportunities before these techs become widely available? How
           | to handle the transition period? A monopoly/oligopoly is not
           | going to care about helping the average person in
           | accomplishing that transition, because it won't make their
           | next quarterly earnings report look pretty.
        
           | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
           | Because there will be millions of other people all making AI
           | movies. And you'll be competing for attention with all of
           | them in an attention lottery with seven or eight (nine?)
           | figure odds against you.
           | 
           | The only original creativity will be in creating new formats
           | and new kinds of experiences - which will mostly mean
           | inventing new kinds of AI.
           | 
           |  _Everything_ made in an existing format will either be
           | worthless or near as.
           | 
           | Same applies to software dev. Far more quickly than most
           | people expect, it will also apply to AI dev.
        
             | asdfaoeu wrote:
             | So basically now only a select few have the resources to
             | compete and now everyone will be able to?
        
               | justinclift wrote:
               | Are you meaning "compete for attention" when you say
               | "compete" there?
        
           | inerte wrote:
           | I am not sure we're having fewer megacorps as technological
           | progress marches on. We probably have bigger companies with
           | broader influence now than 50 or 100 years ago, right?
        
           | throwaway743 wrote:
           | If there will be a market it seems like it'll be short lived.
           | The path we're on is towards hyper individualized on-demand
           | generated media.
        
           | worldsayshi wrote:
           | Anyone can mix carbonated sugar water with a few flavours but
           | it takes huge capital and a well known brand to be Coca Cola.
           | 
           | And to hit scale first might be enough of a moat?
        
             | fatherzine wrote:
             | fwiw, coca cola exists as a business in the attention space
             | created (distorted?) through brand marketing
        
           | anigbrowl wrote:
           | _Filmmakers being able to bring their vision to life using
           | generative models is going to create such a huge expansion of
           | the market._
           | 
           | Of what market? Certainly not film production. I have my
           | doubts about whether it will expand the market for films, in
           | the economic sense. The lower the cost of producing and
           | distributing a film, the lower the monetary value people will
           | place on it.
           | 
           | Look how most music artists are no longer able to survive on
           | royalties, and a few massive streaming companies have an
           | astounding profitable oligopoly of consumers' music interest.
           | Yes, many pre-streaming publishers were exploitative or
           | unethical, but I'm not convinced that it was to a greater
           | degree than the current market leaders. Consider also that
           | the streaming revolution steamrolled many, perhaps most,
           | indie record labels that supported niche genres; some live on
           | but are no longer able to sustain physical output and a
           | reduced to being digital marketing companies.
           | 
           | Now, people will continue to tell stories and entertain
           | others, so technology like this will be good for people with
           | an artistic vision who can't easily access publishers for
           | whatever reason. It will certainly allow people to pursue
           | bold artistic visions that would not otherwise be
           | economically feasible - exotic locations, spectacular special
           | effects, technically complex perspective moves. Those are
           | good things; I worked in the film industry for a long time
           | and have several unproduced scripts that I'd like to apply
           | this technology to, so I'm not rejecting it.
           | 
           | However, more content doesn't necessarily translate into more
           | economic activity; I think it very likely that visual media
           | will be further devalued as a result. People who have spent
           | years or a lifetime developing genuine craft will be told to
           | abandon it in favor of giving suggestions to a computer
           | system, and those who don't will be laughed at or suspected
           | of fakery, because fakery is so widespread these days
           | (Relevant recent example:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39379073). The easier it
           | becomes to make something, the less value the market will
           | assign to it; rational from the abstracted perspective of
           | pure price theory, disastrous in real life.
           | 
           | Increasingly, we seem to be tilting towards a Huxley-esque
           | dystopia of stunning and infinite-feeling virtual worlds to
           | which we can escape on demand, and an increasingly shitty
           | real world marked by the brutal economic logic of total
           | resource and information exploitation. Already a stock
           | rejoinder to complaints about the state of things is that
           | humanity is on paper richer than ever before, to the point
           | that bums have smartphones and anyone can afford an xbox. I
           | have a homeless neighbor who's living in his car, spending
           | his dying years watching YouTube on his phone to fall asleep
           | because he's lonely. Technically this is an expansion of the
           | market, but I don't think it's a good outcome.
        
           | RajT88 wrote:
           | In a few years, the next copyright fight is going to be
           | against full-length fanfiction films.
           | 
           | The torrents will be filled with convincing full-length films
           | which are maybe not as good as the originals, but still very
           | watchable.
           | 
           | We will have infinite chances to get better films than
           | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
        
             | flemhans wrote:
             | Couple more years and they are just generated on the fly,
             | omitting the torrenting step.
        
             | samus wrote:
             | Couple of years more, and everyone* will be able to
             | generate these things for themselves, with the only
             | requirement being knowing _what_ to generate next. We might
             | get very bored, and we might decide to appreciate partly or
             | fully human-made things again.
             | 
             | *: except the ones starved for compute resources of course
        
           | aredox wrote:
           | lol
           | 
           | Anybody can publish anything with the web. Have publishing
           | houses disappeared? Have scientific journals disappeared?
           | 
           | The insanity is doing the same thing over and over and
           | thinking "this time it will work".
        
             | fatherzine wrote:
             | "have scientific journals disappeared" -- ironically, in
             | the AI field most of the action is on arxiv / github /
             | twitter. journals have been obsolete for decades, and the
             | '10s obsoleted conferences too. the only function journals
             | / conferences still serve in the AI field is to stack rank
             | researchers and provide signal for hiring / funding
             | decisions.
        
               | aredox wrote:
               | Maybe because in the AI field, "publications" is a
               | generous term for "PR"... given most don't give data nor
               | enough code to replicate their work.
               | 
               | https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/11/12/1011944/artif
               | ici...
        
           | newyankee wrote:
           | Brand recognition is the moat. People cannot remember 100
           | independent brands
        
           | numpad0 wrote:
           | Mega-corps exist by dividing work into tasks that can be
           | procedurally performed by minimally skilled laborers, then
           | keeping the delta between cost of time and value of the
           | product. Was it Karl Marx who argued this first?
           | 
           | AI turns skilled labor into cheap ones, supposedly, right?
           | It's a massive enabler for mega-corps. Not a death knell.
        
           | navaed01 wrote:
           | I don't think this plays out this way in reality. Look at
           | music streaming. Record labels are still important to making
           | or breaking music careers even in the age where any artist is
           | discoverable, there is no 'switching cost' and there is 0
           | cost of production and distribution (making and shipping
           | CDs).
           | 
           | In a world where attention is scare I sadly think big corps
           | and power brokers will still play a large role. Maybe not
           | though.
        
         | adam_arthur wrote:
         | The way to generate the wealth required for something like UBI
         | requires large scale technology driven deflation in the cost of
         | goods and services (in real terms).
         | 
         | Advances like this are necessary steps to get us there.
         | 
         | People will be displaced in the short term, as they have for
         | every other large scale advance... Cars, assembly line and so
         | on. Better to focus on progress and helping those disaffected
         | the most along the way
        
           | qwerasdf5 wrote:
           | This.
           | 
           | AI is going to be massively deflationary. How useful is UBI
           | when the cost of goods and services approaches zero due to
           | automation?
           | 
           | With that said, I can imagine the federal reserve will then
           | helicopter in money to everyone in order to reach its 2%
           | inflation target, which kinda sounds like UBI.
        
         | dools wrote:
         | Just remember: that's how the Luddites felt about textiles
         | machinery:
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | And how did that end up for the Luddites?
        
             | dools wrote:
             | There's no lack of work now because of textiles machinery.
             | There's just different work.
        
               | kibwen wrote:
               | And yet you're dodging the question: how did it end up
               | for the Luddites, specifically? You're not a hypothetical
               | person in the far-future that has had time to adapt to
               | this technology, you're a person in the here and now, and
               | the wave is rushing towards you.
        
               | dools wrote:
               | Well, smashing the machinery certainly didn't get them
               | their jobs back. Worrying about the machinery didn't get
               | them any new jobs either. I guess some of them fell
               | destitute because they were too angry or unfortunate,
               | some others got jobs doing something else, and others got
               | jobs operating the machines that had replaced them.
               | 
               | There are winners and losers, but it's absurd to think
               | that we should _avoid_ progress to protect jobs.
               | 
               | My preferred method for ensuring a just transition during
               | times of technological progress (and to eliminating
               | involuntary unemployment generally) is a Federal Job
               | Guarantee http://www.jobguarantee.org/
               | 
               | Personally, the advances in AI have just made my job
               | easier and allowed me to get more done. I don't see that
               | trend changing either.
        
         | petabyt wrote:
         | Maybe it's wishful thinking, but I just want to wait it out
         | until the bubble pops or when we are at the next big thing that
         | people obsess over.
        
         | y04nn wrote:
         | You should feel the opposite, see it as a new tool in your
         | pocket.
         | 
         | Industrialisation and computers/automation took away massive
         | amount of jobs while globally improving people lives, this may
         | possibly (maybe not) do the same.
         | 
         | If in the future, anybody can write the book, create a
         | photograph or a motion picture or an music album with just few
         | words describing what they have in mind, this will be a
         | tremendous productivity improvement and will unleash an
         | overflow of human creativity.
         | 
         | I like to compare it to what Jobs said about computer, they are
         | the "bicycle of the mind" [1].
         | 
         | [1] https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/bicycle-121262546097
        
         | bg24 wrote:
         | Learning and fitness are great ways to avoid the feeling of
         | doom.
         | 
         | Open-source will catch up in <6 months. Note that Meta will
         | ship llama3 anytime. So will Mistral.
         | 
         | I am a PM, and switched to becoming a builder. Enjoy learning,
         | keep building. What people take time to realize is that
         | building things is a habit. As you combine that with ongoing
         | learning, you will enjoy the process and eventually build
         | something to earn a living.
        
           | throwawaywjbqw wrote:
           | Sure, I can learn how to use these models, but then how do I
           | find things to build? I've always struggled with finding real
           | ideas, and so I just watch AI progress and come up with
           | blanks whenever I try to think of ways to contribute.
        
             | bg24 wrote:
             | We focus on solving problems (customer pain points) faster,
             | better and cheaper by leveraging AI, in our domain of
             | expertise.
             | 
             | Unfortunately I have nothing to showcase yet.
        
           | moneywoes wrote:
           | what are you building?
        
         | orasis wrote:
         | Master the tools to create value for other humans and you'll be
         | just fine.
        
         | lebean wrote:
         | Cognitive behavioral therapy works for me.
        
         | VoodooJuJu wrote:
         | It's just a digital _CONTENT!_ machine, it 's not a big deal.
         | _CONTENT!_ consoomers - rejoice, producers - keep producing.
         | Where does the sense of doom come from? What power does this
         | company even have? The power to churn out more movieslop? Is
         | that powerful? We 've had decades of that, it's tiresome.
         | 
         | Touch grass, tend your garden, play with your kids, drink a
         | beer, bake a pie, write a poem, take a walk, carve a sculpture,
         | play a board game, mend a sweater, take a breath. Relax.
        
         | atleastoptimal wrote:
         | imagine being depressed at technological advances
         | 
         | we will finally free ourselves from mediocre humans being the
         | bottleneck for everything
         | 
         | If you want a safety net move to Scandinavia
        
         | didip wrote:
         | What to be depressed about? Every technological advancement is
         | always a net positive to humanity, so far.
         | 
         | OSS so far has been an effective tool as a check and balance
         | against big corp.
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | Is this being sarcastic?
        
         | astrange wrote:
         | Nothing on this page has any relevance to employment or UBI.
         | Also, there is strong evidence that UBI doesn't affect
         | employment much one way or the other.
         | 
         | Whether people are employed or not is a policy decision of the
         | central bank and not related to how good AI is.
        
         | lubesGordi wrote:
         | I think the deal is that these breakthroughs, aren't really
         | great in any general case. It helps with specific instances of
         | work, and makes individuals way more productive. That by itself
         | might won't end up making some people obsolete. I think by and
         | large, its just going to make people more productive. You
         | probably don't want to work somewhere where that isn't a
         | welcome thing.
        
         | bondarchuk wrote:
         | UBI, social safety nets, power.. Because of videos? I don't get
         | it. Obvious second-order effect is a devaluation of visual
         | media. Let it all burn, who cares? Go live in the real world.
         | Current mass media culture is an anomaly stemming from hyper-
         | centralization of culture creation. Where we're going is a
         | reversal to the mean.
        
         | blibble wrote:
         | personally I am glad my past self focused on FIRE 10 years ago
         | 
         | I am hoping our society and civilisation doesn't implode as
         | everyone becomes unemployable as the economy and social
         | contract collapses
        
         | qgin wrote:
         | I can't say I know what the future economy will look like, but
         | I can say for certain it won't just be the current one minus
         | 99% of jobs (with all those previously employed people living
         | in abject poverty). Capitalism doesn't work without customers.
         | Capitalism doesn't work without scarcity. Capitalism depends on
         | a minimum money velocity where paradoxically if you collect
         | 100% of the money, it becomes completely worthless.
         | 
         | To me, it seems guaranteed that will be drastic changes. There
         | will be many attempts at new ways of organizing society with
         | successes and failures along the way. Not out of altruism or
         | desire to share but out of self-interest of those who collect
         | the power afforded by AI and automation.
        
         | huytersd wrote:
         | I'm just crossing my fingers for a 3D model generator.
        
         | curiousgeorgio wrote:
         | Just bask in the knowledge that if those "social safety nets"
         | and UBI become a reality, you'll have more problems than you do
         | now. You'll look back at this moment in time with fondness.
         | Enjoy it now.
        
         | Kootle wrote:
         | Best way to deal with the sense of doom imo is to actually use
         | it. You'll find how dumb it really is by itself, and how much
         | of your own judgment/help/editing is still necessary to get
         | anything usable. It might look like magic from these manicured
         | press releases, but once you get your hands on it, it quickly
         | becomes just another tool in your toolbox that, at best, helps
         | you do the work you were doing anyway, more quickly.
        
           | teaearlgraycold wrote:
           | I work with these models professionally (well, I'm a web dev
           | working along side people manipulating these models). When
           | you give it a prompt and it spits out a pretty image,
           | remember that the range of acceptable outputs is very large
           | in that context. It demos very well but it's not useful
           | outside of stock image/stock video use cases. What artists
           | and engineers actually do is work under a rigorous set of
           | constraints. Getting these models to do a very specific
           | thing, correctly adhere to those constraints, and still
           | maintain photorealism (or whatever style you need) is a very
           | much unsolved problem. In that case the range of valid
           | outputs is relatively tiny.
        
         | fasterik wrote:
         | _> Does anyone know how to handle the depression/doom one feels
         | with these updates?_
         | 
         | Realize that it's a choice to respond to things this way. This
         | feeling comes from a certain set of assumptions and learned
         | responses.
         | 
         | Remember that people are bad at predicting the future. Look at
         | the historical track record of people predicting the
         | implications of technological advancement. You'll find that
         | almost nobody gets it right. Granted, that sometimes means that
         | things are _worse_ than we expect, but there are also many
         | cases where things turn out _better_ than we expect. If you 're
         | prone to focusing on potential negatives, maybe you can
         | consciously balance that out by forcing yourself to imagine
         | potential positives as well.
         | 
         | Try to focus on things you personally have control over. Why
         | worry about something that you can't change? Focus on problems
         | that you can contribute to solving.
        
           | Ludleth19 wrote:
           | The implications of technological advancement are always the
           | same- if it can be used to replace people at a satisfactory
           | level, it will. Appealing to stoicism is nice, but it's a
           | bittersweet salve in this situation.
        
             | inference-lord wrote:
             | Honestly though, as if technological advancement has been
             | overall worse for humans. Without it, we'd be fighting
             | lions for food in the Savannah forever, that might be
             | appealing to some, but I'd have prefer to have spears,
             | fire, shelter, medcine etc.
             | 
             | Industrial scale technology might ruin us though, so you
             | might have some point, mostly I'm referring to climate
             | change which is for sure the greatest existential threat
             | imaginable right now. However it seems technology might
             | bail us out here too, nuclear and renewables.
        
               | Ludleth19 wrote:
               | I have no issue with technological advancement, it's
               | obviously one of the pinnacles of human achievement- I
               | have an issue with how those advancements are spread
               | about and shared, especially shortly after large
               | technological advancements happen.
               | 
               | We undoubtedly have reaped immense benefits from the
               | industrial revolution for example- that doesn't mean I'd
               | have any interest in living through it or that it was
               | executed in a way that prioritized the people who lived
               | during those times.
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | There is a super simple solution to the problem you're
               | describing, get involved in and contribute to open source
               | and education. It's this easy.
               | 
               | The more freely available the tech is, the easier it is
               | to reproduce, the less the average joe is going to be
               | locked out of the benefits.
               | 
               | My entire career and everything good in my working life
               | has involved open source software and I'm sure that it
               | will continue to be the case.
        
               | Ludleth19 wrote:
               | Open source stuff is great, and I support it and have
               | contributed to projects myself, but people bandy it out
               | as if it's a silver bullet and I have my reservations
               | there. The issue goes way beyond technology itself, it's
               | structural/sociological/cultural and that's not going to
               | be fixed just because there are open source alternatives.
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | It's not a silver bullet, nothing is, no one said that,
               | but it's the best chance at democratizing technology that
               | we have.
        
               | shortrounddev2 wrote:
               | How does contributing to open source software and
               | education help me pay the bills in a world where my job
               | has been automated
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | It doesn't stop that, but would you prefer a world where
               | you're unemployed and locked out of the technology, or
               | unemployed, and have access to the technology so you can
               | learn and use it for free to maybe get back in the game?
        
               | shortrounddev2 wrote:
               | If I'm unemployed what's the difference
        
               | fatherzine wrote:
               | there must be a fallacy name for 'more of a good thing is
               | always a good thing' line of reasoning. almost every good
               | out there is good in a certain range. outside of that
               | range it becomes detrimental, possibly deadly. there is
               | even a Swedish word for it,
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagom. a few examples.
               | 
               | material:
               | 
               | - water: too little => thirst, too much => drown
               | 
               | - heat: too little => freeze, too much => burn
               | 
               | - food: too little => starvation, too much => obesity
               | 
               | spiritual:
               | 
               | - courage: too little => cowardice, too much =>
               | foolhardiness
               | 
               | - diligence: too little => slothfulness, too much =>
               | workaholism
               | 
               | - respect: too little => disregard, too much => idolatry
               | 
               | etc.
               | 
               | life is a balance
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | I understand your sentiment entirely, but it's not what I
               | said, I didn't say an abundance is everything we should
               | strive for , I said that having more efficient systems is
               | good.
        
           | inference-lord wrote:
           | As someone who has suffered immensely from anxiety disorders
           | and worrying / anger my whole life, this comment is wisdom
           | right here.
           | 
           | Not in my thirties and almost nothing I worried about has
           | come true. I mean, tomorrow we might get wiped out by a
           | runaway technological singularity, but I could've spent the
           | last 30 years of my life worrying a lot less too..
        
             | AH4oFVbPT4f8 wrote:
             | I know that I should stop worrying as I have no control
             | over what might happen but I can't stop worrying. What was
             | the key for you that helped you let things go?
        
               | ionwake wrote:
               | when i realised i just didnt care anymore
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | "not caring" doesn't really work for most people...
        
               | ionwake wrote:
               | I cant fix everyones problems but they have my sympathies
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | _thoughts are not facts_.
               | 
               | I went to cognitive behavior therapy, for me it was like
               | someone opened up my mind and showed it to me on a
               | screen, it was a mirror into my head. It was amazing how
               | it felt like I could rewire my thought patterns over the
               | course of a few months.
               | 
               | The main takeaway from it all however, was the mantra: _
               | _thoughts are not facts_ _.
               | 
               | If you can realize that your thoughts are not objective
               | truths, you will be much better off in almost every
               | aspect of your life, because after living this mantra for
               | many years, putting it to the test constantly, I know
               | it's solid.
               | 
               | Later on I read a lot of Buddhist philosophy which
               | matched incredibly well with the therapy because a lot of
               | Buddhist thinking and meditation practice is quite
               | similar in it's approach. This sort of reinforced the
               | validity of the CBT because I realized wise people have
               | known about seeing things in an objective light for
               | millennia, which was validating for me and helped me
               | continue on the introspective path.
               | 
               | Basically, we're all hallucinating in one way or another,
               | almost all of the time, and that is ok, just be aware of
               | that. When we're worried about the future, we're worried
               | about something which doesn't yet exist, which is
               | actually crazy.
               | 
               | Of course it doesn't mean we should just ignore long term
               | problems, no one advocates for that. But we shouldn't
               | assume we know the outcome in advance because that often
               | causes stress.
               | 
               | Warning: I think that for most westerners, it's "safer"
               | to get into something like CBT, Buddhism comes with some
               | IMO very confronting ideas for a lot of people where as
               | CBT is much more user friendly for westerners.
        
               | AH4oFVbPT4f8 wrote:
               | I very much appreciate your reply, I had not heard
               | "thoughts are not facts" but it makes a lot of sense.
               | Thank you again, hope you have a great day.
        
               | inference-lord wrote:
               | You too my friend!
        
               | petesergeant wrote:
               | An SSRI
        
           | echelon wrote:
           | Be excited!
           | 
           | The tens of thousands of people working in entertainment
           | building other people's visions can now be their own writers,
           | actors, and directors. And they'll find their own fans.
           | 
           | Studios will go away. Disney will no longer control Star
           | Wars, because your kids will make it instead. In fact, the
           | very notion of IP is about to drive to zero.
           | 
           | And OpenAI won't own this. They won't even let you do "off
           | book" things, and that's a no-go for art. Open source is
           | going to own this space.
           | 
           | There are other companies with results just as mature. They
           | just didn't time a press release to go head to head with
           | Gemini.
        
             | Bost wrote:
             | What I see is the tens of thousands of people in troll
             | factories producing content for 3/4 of the world population
             | ready to believe whatever they see in the TV.
             | 
             | Edit: Putin on AI, 2017 https://youtu.be/aJELcvjREgk?t=29
             | 
             | "Whoever takes the lead in this area will be the ruler of
             | the world."
             | 
             | "tot kto stanet liderom v etoi sfere budet vlastelinom
             | mira"
        
               | meowface wrote:
               | I think a more likely scenario is that people will be so
               | used to it that a lot of people are going to have trouble
               | believing that real things are real. Conspiracy theorists
               | already suffer from this and it's going to get so much
               | worse.
               | 
               | I think in the initial years there'll be some major
               | incidents where a fake thing gets major attention for a
               | few days until it's debunked, but the much larger issue
               | will be the inverse.
        
             | khazhoux wrote:
             | Fully agree. I got a bit depressed Nov 22 when chatgpt and
             | midjourney dropped... and then realized midjourney would
             | let me create images I've had in my head for years but
             | could never get out. (At least, MJ gave a reasonable
             | approximation)
        
             | thomastraum wrote:
             | Sorry, but this is a 5th-grade take everyone on tech-heavy
             | forums loves.
             | 
             | Only some people can make Star Wars (the pinnacle of
             | independent filmmaking if you read Lucas's biography). It
             | has nothing to do with the tools.
             | 
             | IP in the arts is how artists get paid.
             | 
             | I can assure you that no one in the creative industry feels
             | liberated by these tools. Do you realise that just because
             | you are good at lighting, you don't want to be an actor and
             | make a movie? No, you like to be good at lightning, work
             | with others who are good at what you do, and create a great
             | work of art together.
             | 
             | AI imagery only knows what exists. It's tough to make it do
             | innovative technical effects and great new lightning. "oh
             | my god, stock video sites are dead" Yes, exactly; stock, by
             | definition, is commoditised.
        
             | shortrounddev2 wrote:
             | What you describe sounds like a dystopia to me
        
             | Guest9081239812 wrote:
             | > Be excited! The tens of thousands of people working in
             | entertainment building other people's visions can now be
             | their own writers, actors, and directors. And they'll find
             | their own fans.
             | 
             | It's terrible news for the people being replaced. Their
             | training and decades of experience is their competitive
             | advantage and livelihood. When that experience becomes
             | irrelevant because anyone can create similar quality work
             | at the push of a button, they're suddenly left with nothing
             | of value in a world flooded with competition.
        
           | LoganDark wrote:
           | > Realize that it's a choice to respond to things this way.
           | 
           | Why do people always say this / think that saying this is
           | helpful? Try saying to someone with ADHD, "realize that you
           | are choosing not to get your chores done today. You're
           | choosing not to get out of bed on time. You're choosing to
           | show behavior that your peers describe as 'lazy'. This will
           | keep happening as long as you let it!"
           | 
           | So what if you have the ability to choose whether you are
           | depressed or not? Not everyone got the same choice. Not
           | everyone still has that choice.
           | 
           | I don't really expect another solution, but this always kind
           | of bothers me when I see people saying everything is a
           | choice.
           | 
           | With neurodivergence and mental disorders, what you see as
           | "choice" can end up not being a choice at all.
        
             | adamredwoods wrote:
             | > Realize that it's a choice to respond to things this way.
             | 
             | It's an easy thing for people to say when they don't really
             | want to help others.
        
               | fasterik wrote:
               | It's also easy to attribute bad motives to someone to try
               | and discredit them without making a substantial point.
               | 
               | What I posted is what I have personally found to be the
               | most useful advice in overcoming self-destructive mental
               | habits.
        
               | adamredwoods wrote:
               | >> What I posted is what I have personally found to be
               | the most useful advice in overcoming self-destructive
               | mental habits
               | 
               | I'm glad a one-time, one-line quip worked for you, but in
               | my experience, positive mental habits are built over
               | time, through support and continuous practice.
        
               | fasterik wrote:
               | _> I'm glad a one-time, one-line quip worked for you_
               | 
               | That's making a lot of assumptions about my personal
               | history that you couldn't possibly know anything about.
               | 
               |  _> but in my experience, positive mental habits are
               | built over time, through support and continuous
               | practice._
               | 
               | I agree, and I don't think anything I said implies
               | otherwise.
        
               | adamredwoods wrote:
               | I apologize for over-responding, but let me attempt to be
               | more clear:
               | 
               | If you are responding to people's problems with common
               | one-liners, it can be interpreted as belittling someone.
               | It could be interpreted as an attempt to over-simplify or
               | attempt to make them feel they are "inferior" to see and
               | solve their issues, when their issues are to them, much
               | larger than a random one-line quip.
        
               | fasterik wrote:
               | The OP was asking for advice dealing with negative
               | emotions. I gave what I consider to be the best advice
               | for dealing with negative emotions. Just because
               | something is a "one-liner" doesn't mean it isn't also a
               | deep truth about human psychology. If you interpret what
               | I wrote as belittling them or trying to make them feel
               | inferior, all I can say is I disagree with you, because I
               | know what my motives were in responding.
        
             | fasterik wrote:
             | At a physical level, we don't have control over anything,
             | it's all just subatomic particles bumping into each other.
             | That doesn't mean all perspectives are equally helpful for
             | solving problems and functioning in the world. I mostly
             | agree with your points, but where we might disagree is
             | whether it's useful to have certain psychological
             | categories or disorders become part of one's identity.
        
               | wsintra2022 wrote:
               | Such an under rated statement. whether it's useful to
               | have certain psychological categories or disorders become
               | part of one's identity.
               | 
               | So so so much of this about. Not just disorders too.
        
               | LoganDark wrote:
               | > where we might disagree is whether it's useful to have
               | certain psychological categories or disorders become part
               | of one's identity.
               | 
               | You might read my comment as trying to claim that my
               | disorders define me and that because I have these
               | disorders I can afford to give up on this stuff because
               | 'it's hopeless'. Truth is I've been trying to get past
               | this for damn near a decade at this point and it's not
               | nearly as easy as you make it out to be, and that's why I
               | say that I don't have the same choice you think I do.
               | 
               | I didn't even know I had ADHD until a year or so ago, I'd
               | just routinely lose the ability to do the stuff I love
               | and I'd have to go find something else to do instead.
               | Depression would stem from all the things I knew I loved
               | but that I could no longer motivate myself to do. In fact
               | I was probably even worse off before I knew about this
               | because I thought that I was just doing something wrong,
               | not being controlled by an invisible menace that most
               | other people don't even know exists
               | 
               | I don't mean to be hostile or to impose that it _can 't_
               | be as easy as you're describing. I just don't think that
               | it's right to say it's always just a choice how you
               | react.
               | 
               | I have tons of completely involuntary reactions caused by
               | primarily trauma, but I can't control them. They do
               | things like force me literally out of consciousness with
               | overwhelming guilt and/or sadness. That's not a choice. I
               | didn't choose that. That's completely autonomous!`
        
             | numpad0 wrote:
             | It is objectively a better survival strategy in a complex
             | enough society, to focus on unfair advantages and let the
             | society burn to the ground. The suckers are going to take
             | care of it and eliminate themselves too, and in a sense
             | there's nothing more important than improving your own
             | short term self preservation. This is actually
             | psychopathic, and also kind of psychopathic too.
        
           | adamredwoods wrote:
           | I've been personally affected by technology advancements, and
           | had to spend lots of time and effort recovering
           | professionally from it. Mind you, I'm not saying it cannot be
           | done, but those that do get affected have to work harder than
           | those that don't.
           | 
           | It's easy to say "don't worry" if you haven't been affected
           | by events like this. I feel it's stronger for society to say
           | "I don't know what will happen, but we'll work through it
           | together."
        
             | serialNumber wrote:
             | Not pressuring you at all if this is hard to talk about -
             | but if you're open to sharing more about how you were
             | affected, I'd love to listen
        
           | romeros wrote:
           | It is easy wax philosophical when it doesn't affect you
           | directly. There are folks honing on their VFX skills for
           | close to a decade and they will be impacted in a significant
           | way.
        
             | roenxi wrote:
             | HN is in the perfect position to wax philosophical; this
             | behemoth is coming for tech too. I've started plotting out
             | what will happen if I have to use my hands to make a living
             | and I'd really rather not be doing that.
             | 
             | But reality is as reality is and nobody is owed a desk job.
             | These are very exciting times with what type of society
             | could be built with this tech, human inefficiencies are
             | responsible for a lot of suffering that we can might be
             | ab;e to stamp out soon.
        
             | fasterik wrote:
             | It's not waxing philosophical, it's concrete advice for how
             | to handle negative emotions associated with uncertainty and
             | instability. The way things are going, it's very likely
             | I'll be affected directly by these developments at some
             | point. When that time comes, I'm not sure what will be
             | better advice than focusing on the problems that I'm
             | personally able to solve and looking at the potential
             | upsides of the situation.
        
               | aknfffn wrote:
               | I think the issue with "don't worry about things you
               | can't control" is, in this tech forum, not as valid as
               | you might think.
               | 
               | We are building technology, to suggest no agency is
               | helpful in avoiding any feeling of responsibility or
               | guilt -- perhaps rendering your comment within the realms
               | of waxing philosophical.
               | 
               | Who better to worry about this than the people of hacker
               | news?
               | 
               | From a pure mental health standpoint, sure, it's solid
               | advice but I think it's narrowed the context of the
               | broader concern too much.
               | 
               | An alternative to learned helplessness of "nothing you
               | can do" is to encourage technologists to do the opposite.
               | 
               | Instead of forgetting about it, trying to put it out of
               | your mind, fight for the future you want. Join others in
               | that effort. That's the reason society has hope -- not
               | the people shrugging as people fall by the wayside.
               | 
               | Depression mediation by agency feels more positive, but I
               | don't have a lot of experience tbh. Just a view that we,
               | technologists, shouldn't abdicate responsibility nor
               | encourage others to do so.
               | 
               | That culture, imo, is why a large section of tech
               | workers, consumers and commentators see the industry in a
               | bad light. They're not wrong.
               | 
               | EDIT: to add, "what problems can I personally solve" also
               | individualises society's ability to shape itself for the
               | better. "What problems can I personally get involved in
               | solving", "what communities are trying to solve problems
               | I care about" is perhaps the message I'd advocate for.
        
               | fasterik wrote:
               | Sure, I would include a broad set of things under "what
               | you can control", including joining an organization,
               | donating, voting, etc. The OP is excessively worrying
               | about things they truly can't control, like the long-term
               | political implications of emerging technologies.
        
               | DougEiffel wrote:
               | I think the point is to start considering a back up plan
               | and then...hakuna matata.
               | 
               | Cat's out of the bag. There is no legislation that will
               | stop this. Not unless/until it has some obscene cost and
               | AI gets locked down like nuclear weapons. But even then,
               | it's just too simple to make these things now that the
               | tech is known.
               | 
               | I sure don't know the answer but we just don't know
               | what's coming next. Gonna have to wait and see.
        
             | slillibri wrote:
             | Sure, let's ask all the model makers and matte painters
             | that had honed their skills for decades and were put out of
             | work by CGI VFX.
        
               | shortrounddev2 wrote:
               | That literally happened with Jurassic park. They replaced
               | the stop motion modeled animations with CGI and most of
               | those guys were out of a job
        
               | j16sdiz wrote:
               | As an society, we have gone through that.
               | 
               | As an individual, I think the experience would be
               | dreadful
        
           | jojobas wrote:
           | Coping skills are nice and all, but there's no meditating
           | around the fact that a psychopath billionaire can now
           | basically fake reality.
        
             | DoreenMichele wrote:
             | "... _a psychopath billionaire can now basically fake
             | reality_....more easily than before.
             | 
             | Like billionaires didn't already scare a lot of people.
        
             | fasterik wrote:
             | People should already be skeptical of everything they
             | see/read on the internet. I don't think this is going to
             | change my media consumption habits dramatically.
        
             | fatherzine wrote:
             | hahaha, what do you think mass media is?!
        
           | anon373839 wrote:
           | This is excellent advice. I will also add that with change
           | and uncertainty, it's difficult for us to imagine how banal
           | things can ultimately turn out to be.
           | 
           | For example, I'm getting text messages all day long from
           | random politicians asking for money. If you told people 50
           | years ago that one day we'd be carrying devices where we
           | could be pinged with unwanted solicitations all day and
           | night, they might have imagined an asphyxiating nightmare.
           | But in reality, it's mainly a nuisance.
           | 
           | The point is that your brain makes all kinds of emotional
           | predictions about the future, but they aren't really very
           | useful and if you're experiencing depression or anxiety, I
           | can guarantee they are biased predictions.
        
         | boscolite wrote:
         | Maybe take a vacation here?
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruOJil_sxaA
        
         | cyanydeez wrote:
         | depends, are you afraid of growing far right nationalism at the
         | same time?
        
         | kderbyma wrote:
         | until we automate the real work.....UBI will not work...
        
         | ge96 wrote:
         | When I find out something was made with AI/I unknowingly
         | interacted with it, I feel like I got owned.
         | 
         | Also I think there will be more junk out there with how easy it
         | will be to mass produce garbage.
        
         | DoreenMichele wrote:
         | I spend my time researching solutions to things that concern
         | me. (UBI isn't really a solution.)
         | 
         | We need to push back generally against our top heavy economy.
         | More local and regional focus would help.
        
         | dantheman wrote:
         | Why should we have those things, with this technology
         | everything will get cheaper and the standard of living will
         | rise.
        
         | martin82 wrote:
         | I hope we will NEVER be close to UBI. UBI is just socialism in
         | disguise and will be downfall of our civilisation.
        
         | deadbabe wrote:
         | _Close your eyes._
         | 
         | For most of human history, people didn't have constant access
         | to art work or videos. Things were fine. Maybe instead of
         | watching manufactured shit on social media, go see a live
         | theatre production. Seek genuineness.
         | 
         | You can live a great life without ever seeing a picture or
         | video.
        
         | doubloon wrote:
         | Buy actual art from actual artists and put it in your walls
        
           | krapp wrote:
           | That's an odd thing to say in a thread about an AI product
           | that isn't going to affect painters and illustrators.
        
         | gloosx wrote:
         | It is okay, it is not too much power really.
         | 
         | People will not loose their jobs, because you still need
         | someone to input prompts for 10 hours straight in order to get
         | a piece of video you want.
         | 
         | Natural language is not perfectly precise to get exactly what
         | you want from a model like this, and the results remain kinda
         | random. Instead of making video in a traditional tool you will
         | be spinning AI roulette until it generates your desired result.
         | And even then you will probably want to edit it.
         | 
         | Tools advance, but tools remain tools.
        
         | zzzeek wrote:
         | OpenAI is not going to solve global warming and we will be well
         | into widespread collapse of farming systems, mass migrations
         | and wars of scarcity long before the robots will be doing all
         | the work. AI isnt going to solve any of that so...if you're
         | looking for depression/doom, that's probably a better place to
         | look.
        
         | userbinator wrote:
         | We're already in a post-truth world online. There's never been
         | a better time to interact with people outside of a computer.
        
         | novalis78 wrote:
         | The future is bright. Powerful tools, explosion of
         | consciousness, exploration of the cosmos.
        
         | Havoc wrote:
         | Yeah today spooked me too. Between this and the large context
         | length on google side and ability to understand video (and thus
         | say video feed for work tasks) it sure seems like the amount of
         | jobs in the firing line just jumped massively
        
         | throw__away7391 wrote:
         | Something I've realized over time is that however good things
         | get, what people really want is to have more than their
         | neighbors rather than any particular quality of life. In many
         | ways you can with a relatively basic job live far, far better
         | than the richest kings could dream of a few hundred years ago.
         | Something as simple as being able to eat strawberries in
         | December was described as literal magic in fairy tales fairly
         | recently. Nevertheless this does not satisfy that need for
         | social prestige and they are profoundly unhappy as a result.
         | 
         | I don't think anything will fix or change this, definitely not
         | UBI, the situation is a fundamental part of the human
         | condition. I share your dread and fear that I will not be able
         | to compete, even if my life improves by all other measures.
         | 
         | The one thing that would dramatically change my calculus is
         | medical advances that significantly push back death and aging.
        
         | jimbob45 wrote:
         | I'm ecstatic about the future of education. I remember many
         | occasions of teachers going, "Gosh, I wish I could show you
         | guys this". Now, they can with speed and ease. I'm particularly
         | excited for ESL learners to have high-quality low-cost tools on
         | hand for personalized learning for every child.
        
         | j45 wrote:
         | I tell myself it's important to try and be less myopic.
         | 
         | One reason is, readiness of tech does not mean it's being
         | applied.
         | 
         | Another is just like one OpenAI came out of no where, others
         | will too. It's normal to be focused on a few things to lose
         | sight of that.
         | 
         | Gemini realistically does some impressive things.
         | 
         | What can we do?
         | 
         | Building the tech is important but applying it well for actual
         | adoption is still wide open for the average persons use.
         | 
         | It does seem to mean that what we think might take 5y probably
         | will take 1y in 2024, if not less like 2023. So think 10x, and
         | 10x again as the real goal.
        
         | statuslover9000 wrote:
         | As Antonio Gramsci said: "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism
         | of the will."
         | 
         | The forces of blind or cynical techno-optimism accelerating
         | capitalism may feel insurmountable, but the future is not set
         | in stone. Every day around the world, people in seemingly
         | hopeless circumstances nevertheless devote their lives to
         | fighting for what they believe in, and sometimes enough people
         | do this over years or even decades that there's a rupture in
         | oppressive systems and humanity is forever changed for the
         | better. We can only strive to live by our most deeply held
         | values, within the circumstances we were placed, so that when
         | we look back at the end of our lives we can take comfort in the
         | fact that we did the best we could, and just maybe this will be
         | enough to avert the inevitable.
        
         | wruza wrote:
         | _Does anyone know how to handle the depression /doom one feels
         | with these updates?_
         | 
         | I just dread, *shrug*. You don't have to be depressed or
         | doomed, it all comes from premature predictions.
         | 
         | That said, we are surely at the phase similar to that one right
         | before the internet, if not electronics. I genuinely don't
         | understand people who write AI off as yet another Bitcoin or
         | "just an enhanced chatbot". They'll have to catch up on an
         | insanely complex area (even ignoring rocket science behind all
         | that) which will do without them, and right now is the
         | opportunity to jump the ship early.
         | 
         | It's only my nobody's opinion, but I can't see the way in which
         | __that__ could fail. I find it incredibly stupid to think so
         | and to just live your life as if nothing happens. If you 're
         | not the ruling class or a landlord, f...ing learn.
        
         | sensanaty wrote:
         | Well as a start we could actually tax these megacorps and their
         | C-suites, instead of letting them buy out politicians en-masse.
        
         | gofreddygo wrote:
         | Times change. People adapt. Happened before, will happen again.
         | Some adapt willingly, some hesitatingly.
         | 
         | Current AI wave is a corporate funded experiment desperate to
         | find something compelling beyond controlled demos to
         | economically recoup the deepening hole in their balance sheet.
         | The novelty has begun to wear off, the innovation has started
         | to stagnate and the money running out. The only money making
         | innovation left to be seen is in creating more spam. Thats
         | where I see this wave headed.
         | 
         | OpenAI has proven it's a shit company with rotten fundamentals
         | playing with a shiny new toy. They will crash and burn
         | spectacularly. As many before have done in various fields.
         | 
         | My reaction after using any AI tool from the last couple years
         | to do anything meaningful ends with just a big facepalm.
         | 
         | Its a grift[1]
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.thediff.co/archive/a-theory-of-grift/
        
       | itissid wrote:
       | I've to go lie down...
        
       | kashnote wrote:
       | Absolutely unreal. Kinda funny how some people are complaining
       | about minor glitches or motion sickness when this is the most
       | impressive piece of technology I've seen. Way to go, OpenAI.
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | This inside VR goggles would make it amazing. probably it wouldnt
       | even need to render 360, it would generate it on demand. I better
       | go get some feeding tube
        
         | bsimpson wrote:
         | That's the difference between Donkey Kong Country and the N64
         | (or perhaps between Pixar and Quake).
         | 
         | The amount of power needed to generate this can't be feasible
         | for real time VR today. There's a reason even the company that
         | invented (massive and free) Gmail is charging for its top tier
         | generative AI.
        
       | timetraveller26 wrote:
       | Is this real life? Or is just a generated fantasy?
        
       | s-xyz wrote:
       | This is seriously insane, in particular as someone mentioned the
       | quality of it. I can't wait to play around with this. SICK!
        
       | lagrange77 wrote:
       | Finally new TNG episodes!
        
       | lagrange77 wrote:
       | They should generate a video of Steve Jobs introducing this in a
       | keynote.
        
       | stephenw310 wrote:
       | The results are mindblowing, to say the least. But will they
       | allow developers to fine-tune this eventually? OpenAI is still
       | yet to give that ability to txt2img DALLE models, so I doubt that
       | will be the case.
        
       | mlsu wrote:
       | They must be using techniques from NeRF in here, maybe in
       | tokenization? The artifacts are unmistakeable.
        
       | 0xcb0 wrote:
       | Wow, feels unreal. Can't believe we have come so far, yet we
       | cannot solve the worlds most basic problems and people still
       | starve each day.
        
       | ij09j901023123 wrote:
       | We thought programmers, fast food workers, and drivers would be
       | automated first. Turns out, it's movie / video, actors, editors
       | and artists....
        
         | Pmop wrote:
         | We all are going to get automated out of the workforce together
         | :)
        
           | john2x wrote:
           | Silver lining in this I guess. If everyone realizes at the
           | same time they're all f'd together, regardless of "skill",
           | then maybe there's a chance we can all work together to save
           | ourselves.
           | 
           | No chance to think "sucks for you, but I'm good here" like so
           | often happens with other issues.
        
       | rglover wrote:
       | I was super on board until I saw... _the paw_ :
       | https://player.vimeo.com/video/913131059?h=afe5567f31&badge=...
       | 
       | Exciting for the potential this creates, but scary for the social
       | implications (e.g., this will make trial law nearly impossible).
        
         | zuminator wrote:
         | Wow. If I saw this clip a year ago I wouldn't think, "The image
         | generator fucked up," I'd just think that a CG effects artist
         | deliberately tweaked an existing real-world video.
        
           | rglover wrote:
           | Yeah, if that gets cleaned up (one would expect it to in
           | time), this is going to change _a lot_.
        
         | comicjk wrote:
         | If I understand trial law correctly, the rules of evidence
         | already prohibit introducing a video at trial without proving
         | where it came from (for example, testimony from a security
         | guard that a given video came from a given security camera).
         | 
         | But social media has no rules of evidence. Already I see AI-
         | generated images as illustrations on many conspiracy theory
         | posts. People's resistance to believing images and videos from
         | sketchy sources is going to have to increase very fast
         | (especially for images and videos that they agree with).
        
           | al_borland wrote:
           | All the more reason why we need to rely on the courts and not
           | the mob justice (in the social sense) which has become
           | popular over the last several years.
        
           | a_wild_dandan wrote:
           | Nothing will change. Confirmation bias junkies already accept
           | far worse fakes. People who use trusted sources will continue
           | doing so. Bumping the quantity/quality of fabricated
           | horseshit won't move the needle.
        
       | cooper_ganglia wrote:
       | It's always kinda crazy to me to see an emerging technology like
       | this have it's next iteration in the development pipeline, and
       | even after seeing the First Gen AI video models, even many of the
       | HN people here _still_ say,  "Meh, not that impressive."
       | 
       | Brother, have you seen Runway Gen 2, or SVD 1.1? I'm not excited
       | about Sora because I think it looks like Hollywood animations,
       | I'm excited because an open-source 3rd-Gen Sora is going to be so
       | much better, and this much progression in one step is really
       | exciting!
        
       | darkhorse13 wrote:
       | Does anyone else feel a sense of doom from these advancements?
       | I'm definitely not a Luddite, I've been working professionally as
       | a programmer for quite some time now, but I just can't shake this
       | feeling. And this is not in the "I might lose my job to this"
       | kind of feeling, that's obviously there, but it's something
       | deeper, more sinister. I don't think I can explain it properly.
       | 
       | Anyway, videos look incredible. I genuinely can't believe my
       | eyes.
        
         | slothtrop wrote:
         | It allows the technical possibility for a post-truth reality,
         | where it's impossible to tell what's true and what isn't. Every
         | piece of information fed through your machine and smartphone.
         | That's the scariest part to me. We need to get ahead of that,
         | because certain interests _will_ be fabricating things with it.
         | 
         | As jobs go, well, we're a long ways from full automation but
         | this represents some serious growing pains that will decimate
         | certain jobs and replace them with few. Not sure what the
         | reaction will be on the consumption side, revulsion or
         | enthusiasm. The "handcrafted" market will still be there but
         | then you wouldn't really know if any AI was used. In a long
         | enough timeline we can hand-wave this away with UBI/negative
         | tax.
         | 
         | But ah, the most at-risk workers are the professional services,
         | white-collar upper-middle class types, even engineers but to a
         | lesser extent. So I wonder what kind of upheaval that would
         | cause.
        
           | sweetbacon wrote:
           | Certain interests are already fabricating voices in political
           | robocalls in New Hampshire. I chill at what the US will see
           | as we approach the Presidential election this fall. Then
           | again, maybe it will give us an early taste to better prepare
           | for what is to come.
        
             | a_wild_dandan wrote:
             | The proliferation of convincing fakes will be a massive
             | problem in about twenty years ago.
        
           | ShamelessC wrote:
           | > It allows the technical possibility for a post-truth
           | reality
           | 
           | Social media already did that. Donald Trump got elected POTUS
           | which is effectively the sum of all fears w.r.t. a "post
           | truth reality".
        
             | slothtrop wrote:
             | I agree, but this cranks it up to 11 to threaten every
             | vector, not just facebook feeds. Unfriendly governments
             | will also have a field day.
        
         | hansoolo wrote:
         | I think my thoughts went in a similarly sinister direction,
         | when I saw it. I couldn't quiet grasp it.
         | 
         | My mood wasn't euphoric, to say the least.
        
           | a_wild_dandan wrote:
           | Tom Scott elaborated on this experience last year.[1] We
           | should form a support group to commiserate.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPhJbKBuNnA
        
         | survirtual wrote:
         | The compute and innovations behind it should be owned by the
         | planet, not by a handful of billionaires. It is far too
         | powerful to be controlled by such a small group of humans, who
         | decide what is "safe" and what isn't.
         | 
         | It took billions of years for all of our ancestors to enable
         | this technology, and now a handful claim it for themselves. The
         | GPUs to run these models cost $20,000+ each, and only the
         | ultra-rich can afford to have that compute.
         | 
         | Compute power needs to be radically redistributed and equalized
         | across the board. This is too much power.
        
           | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
           | It's amazing that this is what it takes to turn a forum of
           | libertarians into a forum of communists.
        
             | throwaway743 wrote:
             | > libertarians
             | 
             | Please. Speak for yourself.
        
             | kortilla wrote:
             | >into a forum of communists.
             | 
             | Speak for yourself
        
             | krapp wrote:
             | Yes, everyone considers themselves a dyed in the wool
             | capitalist until circumstances lead them to realize the
             | difference between the sheep and the wolves.
        
           | dogcomplex wrote:
           | Actually, you can live-render around 12fps videos on a
           | consumer gaming rig using software installable in a night
           | ($3k). Not as fancy internally-consistent videos as these,
           | but still impressive - and that's just an algorithm update
           | and model download away. And every second a corporate AI
           | model is exposed publicly to the world that's more training
           | that can be siphoned to open source models at far more cost
           | effective rates than the initial leaders.
           | 
           | You're impressed by the lions. But us hyenas and vultures
           | will get our turns still too. This is not over. Information
           | innately diffuses.
           | 
           | We need to organize, and we need to build.
        
             | survirtual wrote:
             | The open-source solutions on anything besides image gen are
             | like toys compared to the corporate owned ones -- and even
             | image gen is behind DALLE3. I built video generation on top
             | of stable diffusion 1.5 when it first came out, getting
             | better results than what I've seen published, but it was no
             | where close to this.
             | 
             | A conspiratorial part of my mind feels it is orchestrated;
             | give the masses old / misdirected code so their work goes
             | into dead-ends that can never achieve the results corporate
             | is hoarding. Open Source hasn't even scratched at GPT4 yet,
             | and that is approaching a year old.
             | 
             | The power dynamics need to radically shift. Corporate
             | cannot own all this compute and brain power when it
             | involves birthing AGI. That will create an instant and
             | permanent divide the likes of which will never, ever be
             | cross; you will either be an owner of intelligence
             | indistinguishable from a god, or you will be a mortal. Even
             | the RISK of this happening is laughable that it is being
             | allowed.
             | 
             | We need radically redesigned government, regulation, and
             | public involvement, and we need it yesterday. AGI is a
             | Earth-wide, publicly owned effort, it cannot be
             | relinquished to the owner / slaver class of this planet --
             | that is madness.
        
               | marvin wrote:
               | In two posts, you went from ~"it's a travesty that only
               | 5000 people have access to the technology that will soon
               | own the world", to ~"it takes at least three _years_ for
               | the state of the art to run on a box owned by myself in
               | my bedroom ".
               | 
               | This is a reason for optimism.
        
         | strikelaserclaw wrote:
         | yes this is both exciting and scary.
        
         | tsunamifury wrote:
         | The Congress and Until the End of the World lay out some
         | possible outcomes of tech like this.
         | 
         | Specifically the dream fed back to the brain in an endless loop
         | of personalization until individuals no longer share the same
         | world.
        
         | Trasmatta wrote:
         | I felt the same thing when I saw LLMs writing code for the
         | first time
        
         | geor9e wrote:
         | I feel the opposite. I've been overwhelmed with a sense of my
         | mortality, that I need to care for my body better, in order to
         | live as long as possible into this age. I feel like I won the
         | lottery of birth date to be able to see this. I get your
         | perspective, and I have no doubt the wealth gap will widen
         | painfully, but I'm also optimistic about humanity's ability to
         | work it out.
        
           | davidmurdoch wrote:
           | Where does your optimism come from?
        
             | brink wrote:
             | Not history.
        
               | geor9e wrote:
               | Yes history. If you ignore the clickbait headlines
               | designed to elicit rage, and the news feeds designed to
               | spiral you into a cycle of fear, and just google "poverty
               | graph" to find raw data sources you'll find it's
               | generally a good trend like
               | https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/dataviz-remake-fall-
               | ext...
        
               | brink wrote:
               | What I mean is the problem with wealth gaps is
               | historically they typically get remedied with violent
               | revolution.
        
               | dogcomplex wrote:
               | Or appeased with a tiny fraction of the total gains -
               | just enough to keep a middle class happily with their
               | basic little toys while wealth inequality grows.
               | 
               | This could easily be the same, except the toy is "you
               | don't have to work anymore and here's some houses and
               | robot chefs! Now play nice while the adults go build star
               | fleets"
        
             | geor9e wrote:
             | That's a therapist question. Probably from an engineering
             | career, surrounded by smart folks for whom succumbing to
             | "we're doomed" was never an option, and a solution was
             | something you beat your head against a brick wall for the
             | 999th time about. You just get used to things turning out
             | alright. But the topic has a lot written over the centuries
             | by people who can write better than I
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment
        
           | ed_mercer wrote:
           | Same. It's absolutely amazing to be alive right now. AGI is
           | our only shot at fixing the planet and fixing/extending our
           | lives.
        
         | antegamisou wrote:
         | Feeling anything else other than concern is unpopular only on
         | this website where most believe the entire world is cute like
         | the nerds hanging out at the office's game room.
         | 
         | Nothing good is coming out of this. I don't give a shit if you
         | believe this is Luddism.
        
         | trungaczne wrote:
         | I have felt the same since Stable Diffusion came out.
         | 
         | The thing is, things have value in society partly because human
         | efforts were involved in its making. It's not just about the
         | end result; people still go to concert on top of listening to
         | studio recordings for example, and people still watch humans
         | play chess even though it's clear that good enough algorithms
         | can beat the best humans easily. Technology like these which
         | takes away too much immediate effort (hours needed to create
         | the product) and long term effort (decades of training) are
         | inherently absent of underlying value that I spoke of. Of
         | course, if a person is only interested in consumption, it
         | matters not how the "thing" is created.
         | 
         | Much of the sense of doom I have comes from the inherent
         | erosion of this human effort element in the creative process.
         | Whether we like it or not, the availability of mass produced
         | content naturally threatens crafts themselves. After all,
         | nobody wants to spend a few decades on their skills only to
         | have their creation compared to an AI generated image produced
         | in a few seconds.
         | 
         | I understand there are a lot of hypes around these technology
         | to "humanity" but I have yet to see it. It just feels like more
         | power consolidation to billionaires (especially when done as
         | ClosedAI). There are artists who have tried to incorporate
         | these but they have always felt the need to willingly not label
         | their work as AI-generated or AI-assisted to sell (but still
         | leaves in enough details for keen observers to tell it's AI
         | touched).
         | 
         | As a whole, it just feels wrong. The most optimistic (and
         | reasonable) take I have seen is "Just wait and see". It might
         | feel like a non-argument, but it's the only realistic take
         | between the hyped up techbros and the doomer cult (admittedly,
         | I might belong to the latter group).
         | 
         | I think one of the most worrying thing for me is that
         | regardless of how this plays out, this technology has only
         | added more complexity to our society. That people are divided
         | into camps about how they feel about the technology is simply a
         | symptom about how much uncertainty there is in the future. This
         | last bit will be a personal quarrel, but I personally lose any
         | last desire to have children seeing the AI advancement. It's
         | not right creating sentient life in an age where every year
         | people have to play lottery to see whether technological
         | advancement has deemed their life long effort unworthy.
        
           | Spacecosmonaut wrote:
           | I think you're right. A large part of the joy from creative
           | endevours is actually getting good at something, and having
           | other people enjoy your work. In the face of instant high
           | quality generative AI placating the entertainment needs of
           | the masses, we are creating a society where most people are
           | unable to enjoy human creative expression, in part because
           | human artists are just too slow. Attention spans are already
           | shrinking, and after getting used to generative AI, few
           | people will have the patience to wait for an author to write
           | the second part of his magnum opus.
        
         | nonbirithm wrote:
         | I think of it like: The only reason humans still drive cars is
         | we have yet to find a good enough way of replacing ourselves
         | with something more effective. It's merely an implementation
         | detail of "getting from A to B" that would be disrupted if a
         | true autonomous solution was discovered. Many would want to
         | optimize away drunk drivers and road rage if it were possible
         | in some faraway future. So something like a steering wheel
         | could be seen like a compromise of sorts, until the next big
         | thing makes them obsolete.
         | 
         | That, and the state of missing a technology in a period of time
         | is irreplaceable once it's been discovered. Nobody can live in
         | an era without social media anymore, barring a global-scale
         | catastrophic reset. So I believe it's important to consider
         | what technology is not yet totally pervasive, for example by
         | realizing there is still a steering wheel for you to grip in
         | your car.
         | 
         | And in my mind, the sinister feeling stems from the fact that
         | all it takes to irreversibly shift society like that is enough
         | smart people with honest intentions but little foresight of
         | what will happen in a few decades as a result of proliferating
         | all this. The problems that result stop being in anyone's
         | control, "throwing it over the wall" so to speak, and instead
         | become yet another fact of life that could weigh us down
         | (mostly I think of the ubiquity of social media and how it has
         | changed human interaction). And it all stems from just a few
         | engineering type people getting overexcited about cool
         | possibilities they can grasp at, not considering there are
         | billions of people unlike them who may have other ideas.
        
         | jiggawatts wrote:
         | For me, it's my kid. He's just turned three. He had just turned
         | two when GPT4 was announced.
         | 
         | Going back generations, my grandparents' lives were virtually
         | identical to my great grandparents'. My parents grew up with
         | radio, but they were adults by the time TV changed their world.
         | All three generations got the bulk of their information from
         | books and newsprint.
         | 
         | I grew up together with computers. I remember riding that
         | exponential wave of tech like a surfer. From Commodore 64 to a
         | laptop with 64GB of memory, a million-to-one ratio. Tetris to
         | Doom Eternal. Dialup modem to gigabit... in a mobile device
         | that fits in my pocket.
         | 
         | All of this took _decades_ , but now changes like this happen
         | in _months_.
         | 
         | I keep thinking that "this tech will change my kid's
         | childhood", but what "this" is, is already _outdated_ and being
         | replaced in a blink of an eye, and he hasn 't even reached that
         | point yet where he'd notice!
         | 
         | When image generators were first released... what... a year
         | ago... I thought: Wow! One day, when my kid is a little older,
         | I'll be able to use this to create illustrations for stories we
         | make up as we go along! Won't that be great!
         | 
         | I still haven't gotten around to that yet, he's _still too
         | young_ to appreciate that, and anyway, with this Sora I 'll be
         | able to create video instead by the time he's old enough!
         | 
         | I keep trying to imagine what his life will be like when he
         | grows up to be a teenager, but realistically I'm having a hard
         | time predicting what will already be outdated by the time he's
         | four.
        
       | kaimac wrote:
       | meanwhile people are dying
        
         | superconduct123 wrote:
         | *while you're on Hacker News
        
       | aubanel wrote:
       | I love how they show the failure cases: compare that with Gemini
       | 1.5 pro's technical paper that carefully avoids any test where it
       | does not seem like a 100% perf! I think confronting your failures
       | a condition for success, and Google seems much too self-indulgent
       | here.
        
       | ij09j901023123 wrote:
       | Apple vision pro + OpenAI entertainment on the fly + living in a
       | tight pod next to millions of other people, hooked onto life
       | support. A wonderful matrix fantasy
        
       | ein0p wrote:
       | That actually looks borderline useful in practice. 3 years from
       | now someone will make a decent full length movie with this.
        
       | notpachet wrote:
       | OpenAI: Prompt: The camera follows behind a white vintage SUV
       | with a black roof rack as it speeds up a steep dirt road
       | surrounded by pine trees on a steep mountain slope...
       | 
       | Sora: _plays GTA V_
        
       | itissid wrote:
       | How does one cope with this?
       | 
       | - Disruptions like this happen to every industry every now and
       | then. Just not on the level of "Communicating with people with
       | words, and pictures". Anduril and SpaceX disrupted defense
       | contractors and United Launch Alliance; Someone working for a
       | defense contractor/ULA here affected by that might attest to the
       | feeling?
       | 
       | - There will be plenty of opportunity to innovate. Industries are
       | being created right now. People probably also felt the same way
       | when they saw HTTP on their screens the first time. So don't
       | think your career or life's worth of work is miniscule, its just
       | a moving target, adapt & learn.
       | 
       | - Devil is in the details. When a bunch of large SaaS behemoths
       | created Enterprise software an army of contractors and
       | consultants grew to support the _glue_ that was ETL. A lot of
       | work remains to be done. It will just be a more imaginative glue.
        
         | hello_newman wrote:
         | Totally agree with you.
         | 
         | Most of the responses in this thread remind me of why I don't
         | typically go into the comment section of these announcements.
         | It's way too easy to fall into the trap set by the doomsday-
         | predicting armchair experts, who make it sound like we're on
         | the brink of some apocalypse. But anyone attempting to predict
         | the future right now is wasting time at best, or intentionally
         | fear mongering at worst.
         | 
         | Sure, for all we know, OpenAI might just drop the AGI bomb on
         | us one day. But wasting time worrying about all the "what ifs"
         | doesn't help anyone.
         | 
         | Like you said, there is so much work out there to be done,
         | _even if_ AGI has been achieved. Not to get sidetracked from
         | your original comment, but I've seen AGI repeatedly mentioned
         | in this thread. It's really all just noise until proven
         | otherwise.
         | 
         | Build, adapt, and learn. So much opportunity is out there.
        
           | kypro wrote:
           | > But wasting time worrying about all the "what ifs" doesn't
           | help anyone.
           | 
           | Worry about the what if is all we have as a species. If we
           | don't worry about how stop global warming, or how we can
           | prevent a nuclear holocaust these things become more far more
           | likely.
           | 
           | If OpenAI drops an AGI bomb on us then there a good chance
           | that's it for us. From there it will just be a matter of time
           | before a rouge AGI or a human working with an AGI causes mass
           | destruction. This is every bit as dangerous as nuclear
           | weapons - if not more dangerous - yet people seem unable to
           | take the matter as seriously as it needs to be taken.
           | 
           | I fear millions of people will need to die or tens of
           | millions will need to be made unemployable before we even
           | begin to start asking the right questions.
        
             | __MatrixMan__ wrote:
             | Isn't the alternative worse though? We could try to shut
             | Pandora's box and continue to worsen the situation
             | gradually and never start asking the right questions. Isn't
             | that a recipe for even more hardship overall, just spread
             | out a bit more evenly?
             | 
             | It seems like maybe it's time for the devil we don't know.
        
               | roca wrote:
               | We live in a golden age. Worldwide poverty is at historic
               | lows. Billions of people don't have to worry about where
               | their next meal is coming from or whether they'll have a
               | roof over their head. Billions of people have access to
               | more knowledge and entertainment options than anyone had
               | 100 years ago.
               | 
               | This is not the time to risk it all.
        
         | TaupeRanger wrote:
         | I would be willing to bet $10,000 that the average person's
         | life will not be changed in any significant way by this
         | technology in the next 10 years. Will there be some VFX
         | disruption in Hollywood and games? Sure, maybe some. It's not a
         | cure for cancer. It's not AGI. It's not earth shattering. It is
         | fun and interesting though.
        
           | the8472 wrote:
           | "by this technology" does a lot of heavy lifting. Look at the
           | pace of AI development and extrapolate 10 years.
        
             | maximus-decimus wrote:
             | Relevant XKCD : https://xkcd.com/605/
        
       | d4rkp4ttern wrote:
       | Mind blown of course.
       | 
       | Two things are interesting:
       | 
       | - No audio -- that must have been hard to add, or else it would
       | have been there.
       | 
       | - Spelling is still probably hard to do (the familiar DallE
       | problem)... e.g. a video showing a car driving past a billboard
       | with specified text.
        
         | slothtrop wrote:
         | My intuition is that training on audio will be trivial if they
         | can accomplish this for video. Maybe I'm wrong.
        
       | pradn wrote:
       | It's impressive, but I think it's still in the same category as
       | even the best LLMs: the demos look good and they can be quite
       | useful, but you can never quite trust them. You really can't just
       | have an LLM write a whole report for you - who knows what facts
       | it'll make up, what it'll miss? You really can't use this to
       | generate video for work, who knows where the little artifacts are
       | (it's easier to tell with video).
       | 
       | The future of these high-fidelity (but not perfect) generative AI
       | systems is in realizing we're going to need "humans in the loop".
       | This means designing to output human-manipulable data - perhaps
       | models/skeletons/textures instead of whole output. Pixels are
       | hard to manipulate directly!
       | 
       | As for entertainment, already we see people sick of CGI - will
       | people really want to pay for AI-generated video?
        
         | speedgoose wrote:
         | I subscribe to Disney+ and some of the content is a lot less
         | perfect than the Sora videos presented there.
        
         | bufferoverflow wrote:
         | > _The future of these high-fidelity (but not perfect)
         | generative AI systems is in realizing we 're going to need
         | "humans in the loop"_
         | 
         | Last weekend my 7 year old decided he wanted to make and sell a
         | shirt with an image of a space cat shooting a laser gun. It
         | took him like 1 minute to use free Dalle3 to make and choose an
         | image. Then I showed him a website to remove the background.
         | Then I showed him a tool to AI-upscale the image. Then we
         | uploaded it to Amazon Merch, it got approved after a few hours,
         | and now it's for sale on Amazon. It took us maybe 10 minutes of
         | effort end-to-end. Involved no artists.
         | 
         | Funny enough, Amazon is full of AI-designed merch, there were
         | like 7 pages of shirts with space cats with lasers.
        
           | pradn wrote:
           | Oh sure, for "low end" applications, even this wave of
           | generative AI is going to pull the rug under artists.
           | 
           | I'm talking about, say, art for video games and actual
           | movies.
        
       | redm wrote:
       | Why are all the example videos in slow motion?
        
       | itissid wrote:
       | So what happens to the film industry now?
       | 
       | - Local/Bespoke high quality video content creation by ordinary
       | Joes: Check. - Ordinary joes making fake porn videos for money:
       | Check. - Reduce cost for real movies dramatically by editing in
       | AI scenes: Check.
       | 
       | A whole industry will get upturned.
        
       | slothtrop wrote:
       | RE worrying about the future: what concerns me most is post-truth
       | reality. Being thrown into a world where it's impossible to tell
       | fact from fiction is insane and dangerous. Just thinking about it
       | evokes paranoia.
       | 
       | We're nowhere near full-automation, these are growing pains, but
       | maybe the canary in the goldmine for the job market. Expect more
       | enthusiasm for UBI or negative tax and the like and policies to
       | follow. Cheap energy is also coming eventually, just slower.
        
       | foobar_______ wrote:
       | Feels like another pivotal moment in AI. Feel like I'm watching
       | history live. I think I need to go lay down.
        
       | telesilla wrote:
       | Watching these made me think, I'm going to want to go to the
       | theatre a lot more in the future and see fellow humans in plays,
       | lectures and concerts.
       | 
       | Such achievements in technology must lead to cultural change.
       | Look at how popular vinyl has become, why not theatre again.
        
         | imiric wrote:
         | Do you feel the same way about modern movies? CGI is so
         | ubiquitous and accessible, that most movies use some form of
         | it. It's actually news when a filmmaker _doesn't_ use CGI (e.g.
         | Nolan).
         | 
         | These advancements are just the next step in that evolution.
         | The tech used in movies will be commoditized, and you'll see
         | Hollywood-style production in YouTube videos.
         | 
         | I'm not sure why you think theater will become _more_ popular
         | because of this. It has remained popular throughout the years,
         | as technology comes and goes. People can enjoy both video and
         | theater, no?
        
         | Buckworthy wrote:
         | Imagine movies generated in real-time just for you, with the
         | faces you know, places you know and what not!
        
           | nomadpenguin wrote:
           | That would suck. I want to see something I haven't seen
           | before.
        
             | iwsk wrote:
             | Your wish is Sora's(or its successor model's) prompt.
        
               | sussmannbaka wrote:
               | I am a much better software engineer than I am a
               | director. I can guarantee you that I don't want to see
               | anything that I could prompt.
        
             | dymk wrote:
             | I guarantee you haven't seen the entire latent space of any
             | large model
        
           | dorkwood wrote:
           | Seems like we're pretty close to inserting ourselves into
           | pornographic movies.
        
             | dymk wrote:
             | We can do that already, you just need a camera
        
               | ugh123 wrote:
               | Can also achieve multiple (still) angles, with multiple
               | phones.
        
             | danielbln wrote:
             | Not close, we're there. Look up FaceFusion.
        
           | Astraco wrote:
           | That's terrifying and dystopian.
        
             | dorkwood wrote:
             | No it's not. Imagine turning on the television when you get
             | home and it's a show all about you (think Breaking Bad, but
             | you're Walter White). You flip to another channel and it's
             | a pornographic movie where you sleep with all the world's
             | most famous movie stars. Flip the channel again and it's
             | all the home movies you wish you had but were never able to
             | make.
             | 
             | This is a future we could once only dream of, and OpenAI is
             | making it possible. Has anyone noticed how anti-progress HN
             | has become lately?
        
               | enumjorge wrote:
               | I guess it depends on your definition of progress. None
               | of those examples you listed sound particularly appealing
               | to me. I've never watched a show and thought I'd get more
               | enjoyment if I was at the center of that story. Porn and
               | dating apps have created such unrealistic expectations of
               | sex and relationships that we're already seeing the
               | effects in younger generations. I can only imagine what
               | on-demand fully generative porn will have on issues like
               | porn addiction.
               | 
               | Not to say I don't have some level of excitement about
               | the tech, but I don't think it's unwarranted pessimism to
               | look at this stuff and worry about it's darker
               | implications.
        
               | Astraco wrote:
               | > You flip to another channel and it's a pornographic
               | movie where you sleep with all the world's most famous
               | movie stars.
               | 
               | This is not only dystopian, it's just sad. All these look
               | taken from the first seasons of Black Mirror. I don't
               | know what you think progress is but AI porno and ads are
               | not.
        
               | ookdatnog wrote:
               | That seems depressingly solipsistic. I think part of the
               | appeal of art is that it's other humans trying to
               | communicate with you, that you feel the personality of
               | the creators shining through.
               | 
               | Also I've never interacted with any piece of art or
               | entertainment and thought to myself "this is neat and
               | all, but it would be much improved if this were entirely
               | about me, with me as the protagonist." One watches
               | Breaking Bad because Walter White is an interesting
               | character; he's a man who falls into a life of crime
               | initially for understandable reasons, but as the series
               | goes on it becomes increasingly clear that he is lying to
               | himself about his motivations and that his primary
               | motivation for his escalating criminal life is his deep-
               | seated frustration at the mediocrity of his life. More
               | than anything else, he craves being important. The
               | unraveling of his motivations and where they come from
               | _is_ the story, and that 's something you can't really do
               | when you're literally watching yourself shoehorned into a
               | fictional setting.
               | 
               | You seem to regard it as self-evident that art or
               | entertainment would be improved if (1) it's all about you
               | personally and (2) involvement of other real humans is
               | reduced to zero, but I cannot fathom why you would think
               | that (with the exception of the porn example).
        
               | oliverpk wrote:
               | I don't think any well adjusted person ever has actually
               | wanted this
        
               | dukeyukey wrote:
               | This might be more revealing of you than of people in
               | general. Even when I play tabletop RPGs, a place I could
               | _easily_ play a version of myself, I almost never do.
               | There's nothing wrong with doing so, but most people
               | don't.
        
           | superhumanuser wrote:
           | Your favorite shows, where the season never ends, and the
           | actors never age.
        
         | mark_l_watson wrote:
         | I agree, seeing real human actors on stage will always be
         | popular for some consumers. Same for local live musicians.
         | 
         | That said, I helped a friend who makes low budget, edgy and
         | cool films last week. I showed him what I knew about driving
         | Pika.art and he picked it up quickly. He is very excited about
         | the possibility of being able to write more stories and turn
         | them into films.
         | 
         | I think there is plenty of demand for all kinds of
         | entertainment. It is sad that so many creative people in
         | Hollywood and other content creation centers will lose jobs. I
         | think the very best people will be employed, but often
         | partnered with AIs. Off topic, but I have been a paid AI
         | practitioner since 1982, and the breakthroughs of deep
         | learning, transformers, and LLMs are stunning.
        
           | roca wrote:
           | We will soon find that story generation is easily automated.
        
             | htrp wrote:
             | It's already easy automated.
        
         | dingclancy wrote:
         | The vinyl narrative is so whack.
         | 
         | https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/
         | 
         | At its peak, Inflation adjusted Vinyl Sales was $1.4billion in
         | 1979. Then forward to the lowest sales in 2009 at $3.4million.
         | So Vinyl has been so popular it grew to $8.5m by 2021.
         | 
         | That is just nostalgia, not cultural change pushed by the
         | dystopia of AI.
        
           | halfstar91 wrote:
           | Why is my 14 year old niece now collecting vinyl? I can
           | guarantee it's not nostalgia. There's obviously more at play
           | there even when acknowledging your point about relative
           | market size.
        
             | outime wrote:
             | How many 14 years old do you know who collect vinyl?
        
               | r9295 wrote:
               | The medium is the message. I know several people born
               | post 2000 who are embracing records and tapes.
        
               | xanderlewis wrote:
               | I started when I was pretty much exactly that age, ten
               | years ago.
        
             | turtles3 wrote:
             | Perhaps it is _anemoia_ - nostalgia for a time you've never
             | known https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/10577
             | 8238455...
             | 
             | In this case, it's for the harmless charm of an imagined
             | past, but the same forces are at play in some more
             | dangerous forms of social conservatism.
        
             | peebeebee wrote:
             | It's a very narrow subgroup.
             | 
             | But things can coexist. It's now easier to create music
             | than ever, and there is more music created by more artists
             | than ever. Most music is forgettable and just streamed as
             | background music. But there is also room for superstars
             | like Taylor Swift.
             | 
             | Things don't have to be either-or.
        
           | throw_m239339 wrote:
           | > The vinyl narrative is so whack.
           | 
           | "Revenues for the LP/EP format were $1.2B in 2022 and
           | accounted for 7.7% of total revenue of $15.9B for all
           | selected formats for the year"
           | 
           | Adjusted to inflation.
           | 
           | It's my understanding that LP/EP is vinyl as well. Not Just
           | vinyl single.
        
             | spyckie2 wrote:
             | This has to be it. Vinyl costs like 20$ per, and $8m is
             | like 400k vinyl sales (users often buy more than 1 vinyl so
             | it's a lot less users) which seems too low globally. At
             | 1.2b, it is more like 60m sales which seems more
             | reasonable.
        
           | procinct wrote:
           | I think a lot of people collect vinyl less for nostalgia
           | reasons and more so to have a physical collection of their
           | music. I think vinyl wins over CDs just due to how it's
           | larger and the cover art often looks better as a result.
        
       | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
       | Shall I get into the unemployment line now and beat the rush?
        
       | impulser_ wrote:
       | This is good, but far from being useful or production ready.
       | 
       | It's still too easy to notice these are all AI rendered.
        
       | gebt wrote:
       | Thanks but we saw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39380165
       | 
       | https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn97733259&docI...
        
       | qwertox wrote:
       | The one with the grandma is outright scary. All the lies...
        
       | lorenzofalco wrote:
       | Ahora si que si se jodio todo. Apaga todo o desco ecta
        
       | elorant wrote:
       | This could kill the porn industry.
        
       | lxe wrote:
       | Blown every expectation way away....
        
       | lagrange77 wrote:
       | Has anyone noticed the label on the surfing otter's lifejacket?
       | :D
        
       | accra4rx wrote:
       | More layoffs
        
       | lqcfcjx wrote:
       | This is very impressive. I know in general people are iffy about
       | research benchmark. How does it work to evaluate text-to-video
       | types of use cases? I want to have some intuition on how much
       | this is better than other systems like pika quantatively.
        
       | hansoolo wrote:
       | Is it really just coincidence that Andrej Karpathy just left
       | yesterday?
        
       | jgalt212 wrote:
       | These looks like well done PS5 games. Which, of course, is a
       | great achievement.
        
       | jmfldn wrote:
       | Technically breathtaking, but why do these examples of AI-
       | generated content always have a cheap clipart vibe about them? So
       | naff and uninspired given the, no doubt, endless potential this
       | technology has.
       | 
       | I also feel a sense of dread too. Imagine the tidal wave of
       | rubbish coming our way. First text, then images and now video can
       | be spewed out in industrial quantities. Will it lead to a better
       | culture? In theory it could, in practice I just feel like we'll
       | be deluged with exponentially more mediocre "content" .
        
       | MobinaMaghami wrote:
       | hi, my name is mobina and I am from Iran. I want to make a video
       | from text and so yeah. thank you for watching.
        
       | MobinaMaghami wrote:
       | are you gays all hackers? I am not
        
       | quadcore wrote:
       | HN server runs smoothly and is having a walk in the park it seems
       | - impressive compared to previous OpenAI annoucements. Has there
       | been significant rollouts?
        
         | system2 wrote:
         | Instead of 1 core 2 GB RAM, they now have 2 core 4 GB RAM so it
         | is running okay now.
        
       | cdme wrote:
       | I don't understand why anyone would find these videos compelling
       | enough to watch. They're visually polished, but totally
       | uninteresting.
        
         | razemio wrote:
         | Then change the prompt? It is a demo afterall. From a creators
         | perspective, those shots are awesome for inspiration and / or a
         | tool to create something bigger.
        
           | cdme wrote:
           | To yield yet another soulless, machine generated clip?
        
       | kromem wrote:
       | So the top two stories are about a model that can generate
       | astonishingly good video from text and a model that has a context
       | window which allows it to process and identify nuanced details in
       | an hour long video.
       | 
       | We've fairly quickly moved from a world where AIs would
       | communicate with each other through text to one in which they can
       | do so through video.
       | 
       | I'm very curious how something like Sora might end up being used
       | to generate synthetic training data for multimodal models...
        
       | albertzeyer wrote:
       | It's such a shame that they aren't releasing any detailed
       | technical paper anymore on all the technical details of the model
       | and how it was trained.
       | 
       | *Edit* Oh, I just read here
       | (https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/1armmng/d_...)
       | that a technical paper should be released later today?
        
       | david_shi wrote:
       | If you draw a line from Pong (1972, or 52 years ago) to Sora,
       | what does that imply for the quality and depth of simulations in
       | 2076 (52 years in the future)?
       | 
       | Would we be able to perceive the differences between those and
       | the physical world? I can't help but feel like there is a proof
       | for the simulation theory possible here.
        
       | pxeger1 wrote:
       | Funny that this launched so soon after Gemini 1.5. I guess OpenAI
       | have a strong incentive to dominate the media narrative.
        
       | multicast wrote:
       | Even though this is highly impressive, I think it is still
       | important to stay rational and optimistic to see the other side
       | of the coin.
       | 
       | Every industrial revolution and its resulting automation has
       | brought not only more jobs but also created a more diverse set of
       | jobs. Therefore also new industries are created. History rhymes,
       | the ruling fears in such times have always been similar. Claims
       | are being made but without any reasonable theories, expertise or
       | provable facts (e.g. Goldman Sachs unemployment prediction is
       | absolute bs). This is even more true when such related AI matters
       | are thought about in more detail. Furthermore, even though
       | employing tens of millions of people probably, only a few
       | industries like content creation, movie etc. are affected. The
       | affacted workforce of these industries is highly creative, as
       | they are being paid for their job. The set of jobs today is big,
       | they won't become cleaning staff nor homeless.
       | 
       | This technology has also to proof itself (Its technical potential
       | is unlimited but financially limited by the size of funds being
       | invested, and these are limited)
       | 
       | Transition to the use of such tools in corporations could take
       | years, depending on the type and size and other parameters.
       | People underestimate the inefficiencies that a lot of companies
       | embody - and I am only talking about the US and some parts of
       | Europe here. If a company did their job for 2 decades the same
       | way, a sudden switch does not happen overnight. Affected people
       | have ways to transition to other industries, educate themselves
       | further and much more. Especially as someone living in the west,
       | the opportunities are huge. And in addition, the wide array of
       | different variables about the economy and the earth, and
       | everything its differing societies are, comes into play: Some
       | corporations want real videos made by real people; Some companies
       | want to stay the way they are and compete using their traditional
       | methods; Corporations are still going to hire ad agencies - ad
       | agencies whose workflow his now much more efficient and more open
       | to new creative spheres which benefits both customer and
       | themselves. They list could go one endlessly.
       | 
       | Lots of people seem to fear or think about the alleged sole power
       | OpenAI COULD achieve. But would that be a problem, would "another
       | Alphabet" be a problem? Hundreds of millions of people benefited
       | and are benefiting today from their products. They have products
       | that are reliable and work (This forum consisting of tech experts
       | is a niche case, nearly all people don't care at all if data on
       | them is being used for commercial purposes). Google had a patent
       | guaranteed monopoly on search. But here we have: an almost non
       | patented or patentable market, an open source community, other
       | companies of all sizes competing, innovation happening and much
       | more. It is true that companies like OpenAI have more funds
       | available to spend than others, but such circumstances have
       | always driven competition and innovation. And at the end of the
       | day, customers are still going to use the best product they have
       | decided to be so.
       | 
       | I know I may be stating the obvious but: The economy and the
       | world is a chaos system with a unpredictable future to come.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | The Hollywood Reporter says many in the industry are very
       | scared.[1]
       | 
       | "I've heard a lot of people say they're leaving film," he says.
       | "I've been thinking of where I can pivot to if I can't make a
       | living out of this anymore." - a concept artist responsible for
       | the look of the Hunger Games and some other films.
       | 
       | "A study surveying 300 leaders across Hollywood, issued in
       | January, reported that three-fourths of respondents indicated
       | that AI tools supported the elimination, reduction or
       | consolidation of jobs at their companies. Over the next three
       | years, it estimates that nearly 204,000 positions will be
       | adversely affected."
       | 
       | "Commercial production may be among the main casualties of AI
       | video tools as quality is considered less important than in film
       | and TV production."
       | 
       | [1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-
       | news/ope...
        
         | theptip wrote:
         | Probably a bad time to be an actor.
         | 
         | Amazing time to be a wannabe director or producer or similar
         | creative visionary.
         | 
         | Bad time to be high up in a hierarchical/gatekeeping/capital-
         | constrained biz like Hollywood.
         | 
         | Amazing time to be an aspirant that would otherwise not have
         | access to resources, capital, tools in order to bring their
         | ideas to fruition.
         | 
         | On balance I think the '20s are going to be a great decade for
         | creativity and the arts.
        
           | sva_ wrote:
           | > Probably a bad time to be an actor.
           | 
           | I'm thinking people will probably still want to see their
           | favorite actors, so established actors may sell the rights to
           | their image. They're sitting on a lot of capital. Bad time to
           | be becoming an actor though.
        
             | throwaway743 wrote:
             | Likely less and less tho given that people will be able to
             | generate a hyper personalized set of
             | actors/characters/personalities in their hyper personalized
             | generated media.
             | 
             | Younger generations growing up with hyper personalized
             | media will likely care even less about irl media figures.
        
             | lIl-IIIl wrote:
             | You are talking about movie and TV stars, not actors in
             | general. The vast majority of working actors are not known
             | to the audience.
        
               | Animats wrote:
               | Even the average SAG-AFTRA member barely makes a living
               | wage from acting. And those are the ones that got into
               | the union. There's a whole tier below that. If you spend
               | time in LA, you probably know some actress/model/waitress
               | types.
               | 
               | There's also the weird misery of being famous, but not
               | rich. You can't eat fame.
        
             | nprateem wrote:
             | > established actors may sell the rights to their image
             | 
             | I had a conversation with a Hollywood producer last year
             | who said this is already happening.
        
           | gwd wrote:
           | > Probably a bad time to be an actor.
           | 
           | I don't see why -- the distance between "here's something
           | that looks almost like a photo, moving only a little bit like
           | a mannequin" and "here's something that has the subtle facial
           | expressions and voice to convey complex emotions" is pretty
           | freaking huge; to the point where the vast majority of
           | _actual humans_ fail to be that good at it. At any rate, the
           | number of BNNs (biological neural networks) competing with
           | actors has only been growing, with 8 billion and counting.
           | 
           | > Amazing time to be a wannabe director or producer or
           | similar creative visionary. Amazing time to be an aspirant
           | that would otherwise not have access to resources, capital,
           | tools in order to bring their ideas to fruition.
           | 
           | Perhaps if you mainly want to do things for your own
           | edification. If you want to be able to make a living off it,
           | you're suddenly going to be in a very, very flooded market.
        
             | nprateem wrote:
             | * Flesh out a movie about x following the Hero's Journey in
             | the style of Notting Hill.
             | 
             | * Create a scene in which a character with the mannerisms
             | of Tom Cruise from Top Gun goes into a bar and says "...."
        
             | robbomacrae wrote:
             | Considering a year ago we had that nightmare fuel of will
             | smith eating spaghetti and Don and Joe hair force one it
             | seems odd to see those of you who assume we're not going to
             | get to the point of being indistinguishable from reality in
             | the near future.
        
             | theshrike79 wrote:
             | We might enter a world where "actors" are just for mocap.
             | They do the little micro expressions with a bunch of dots
             | on their face.
             | 
             | AI models add the actual character and maybe even voice.
             | 
             | At that point the amount of actors we "need" will go down
             | drastically. The same experienced group of a dozen actors
             | can do multiple movies a month if needed.
        
             | theptip wrote:
             | It's for sure plausible that acting remains a viable
             | profession.
             | 
             | The bull case would be something like 'Ractives in "The
             | Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson; instead of video games
             | people play at something like live plays with real human
             | actors. In this world there is orders of magnitude more
             | demand for acting.
             | 
             | Personally I think it's more likely that we see AI cross
             | the uncanny valley in a decade or two (at least for
             | movies/TV/TikTok style content). But this is nothing more
             | than a hunch; 55/45 confidence say.
             | 
             | > Perhaps if you mainly want to do things for your own
             | edification.
             | 
             | My mental model is that most aspiring creatives fall in
             | this category. You have to be doing quite well as an actor
             | to make a living from it, and most who try do not.
        
           | hackermatic wrote:
           | It's always a bad time to be an actor, between long hours,
           | low pay, and a culture of abuse, but this will definitely
           | make it worse. My writer and artist friends are already
           | despondent from genAI -- it was rare to be able to make art
           | full-time, and even the full-timers were barely making enough
           | money to live. Even people writing and drawing for marketing
           | were not exactly getting rich.
           | 
           | I think this will lead to a further hollowing-out of who can
           | afford to be an actor or artist, and we will miss their
           | creativity and perspective in ways we won't even realize.
           | Similarly, so much art benefits from being a group endeavor
           | instead of someone's solo project -- imagine if George Lucas
           | had created Star Wars entirely on his own.
           | 
           | Even the newly empowered creators will have to fight to be
           | noticed amid a deluge of carelessly generated spam and
           | sludge. It will be like those weird YouTube Kids videos, but
           | everywhere (or at least like indie and mobile games are now).
           | I think the effect will be that many people turn to big
           | brands known for quality, many people don't care that much,
           | and there will be a massive doughnut hole in between.
        
             | arvinsim wrote:
             | > Even the newly empowered creators will have to fight to
             | be noticed amid a deluge of carelessly generated spam and
             | sludge. It will be like those weird YouTube Kids videos,
             | but everywhere (or at least like indie and mobile games are
             | now).
             | 
             | Reminds me of Syndrome's quote in the Incredibles.
             | 
             | "If everyone is super, then no one will be".
        
           | kranke155 wrote:
           | You can't replace actors with this for a long time. Actors
           | are "rendering" faster than any AI. Animation is where the
           | real issues will show up first, particularly in Advertising.
        
             | murukesh_s wrote:
             | I think you can fill-in many scenes for the actor - perhaps
             | a dupe but would look like the real actor - of course the
             | original actor would have to be paid, but perhaps much less
             | as the effort is reduced.
        
               | kranke155 wrote:
               | If it requires acting, it likely can't be done with AI.
               | You underestimate, I think, how much an actor carries a
               | movie. You can use it for digi doubles maybe, for stunts
               | and VFX. But if his face in on the screen... We are ages
               | away from having an AI actor perform at the same level as
               | Daniel Day Lewis, Williem Dafoe, or anyone else that's in
               | that atmosphere. They make too many interesting choices
               | per second for it to replaced by AI.
        
               | daxfohl wrote:
               | Quality aside, there's a reason producers pay millions
               | for A-list stars instead of any of the millions of really
               | good aspiring actors in LA that they could hire for
               | pennies. People will pay to see the new Matt Damon flick
               | but wouldn't give it a second glance if some no-name was
               | playing the part.
               | 
               | If you can't replace Matt Damon with another equivalently
               | skilled human, CGI won't be any different.
               | 
               | Granted, maybe that's less true today, given Marvell and
               | such are more about the action than the acting. But if
               | that's the future of the industry anyway, then acting as
               | a worthwhile profession is already on its way out, CGI or
               | no.
        
             | theshrike79 wrote:
             | Have you seen the amount of CGI in movies and TV shows? :)
             | 
             | In many AAA blockbusters the "actors" on screen are just
             | CGI recreations during action scenes.
             | 
             | But you're right, actors won't be out of a job soon, but
             | unless something drastic happens they'll have the role of
             | Vinyl records in the future. For people who appreciate the
             | "authenticity". =)
        
         | snewman wrote:
         | Honest question: of what possible use could Sora be for
         | Hollywood?
         | 
         | The results are amazing, but if the current crop of text-to-
         | image tools is any guide, it will be easy to create things that
         | look cool but essentially impossible to create something that
         | meets detailed specific criteria. If you want your actor to
         | look and behave consistently across multiple episodes of a
         | series, if you want it to precisely follow a detailed script,
         | if you want continuity, if you want characters and objects to
         | exhibit consistent behavior over the long term - I don't see
         | how Sora can do anything for you, and I wouldn't expect that to
         | change for at least a few years.
         | 
         | (I am entirely open to the idea that _other_ generative AI
         | tools could have an impact on Hollywood. The linked Hollywood
         | Reporter article states that  "Visual effects and other
         | postproduction work stands particularly vulnerable". I don't
         | know much about that, I can easily believe it would be true,
         | but I don't think they're talking about text-to-video tools
         | like Sora.)
        
           | Karuma wrote:
           | It wouldn't be too hard to do any of the things you mention.
           | See ControlNet for Stable Diffusion, and vid2vid (if this
           | model does txt2vid, it can also do vid2vid very easily).
           | 
           | So you can just record some guiding stuff, similar to motion
           | capture but with just any regular phone camera, and morph it
           | into anything you want. You don't even need the camera, of
           | course, a simple 3D animation without textures or lighting
           | would suffice.
           | 
           | Also, consistent look has been solved very early on, once we
           | had free models like Stable Diffusion.
        
           | Animats wrote:
           | I suspect that one of the first applications will be pre-viz.
           | Before a big-budget movie is made, a cheap version is often
           | made first. This is called "pre-visualization". These text to
           | video applications will be ideal for that. Someone will take
           | each scene in the script, write a big prompt describing the
           | scene, and follow it with the dialog, maybe with some
           | commands for camerawork and cuts. Instant movie. Not a very
           | good one, but something you can show to the people who green-
           | light things.
           | 
           | There are lots of pre-viz reels on line. The ones for sequels
           | are often quite good, because the CGI character models from
           | the previous movies are available for re-use. Unreal Engine
           | is often used.
        
             | becquerel wrote:
             | This is a fascinating idea I'd never considered before.
        
             | theshrike79 wrote:
             | Especially when you can do this with still images on a
             | normal M-series MacBook _today_, automating it would be
             | pretty trivial.
             | 
             | Just feed it a script and get a bunch of pre-vis images for
             | every scene.
             | 
             | When we get something like this running on hardware with an
             | uncensored model, there's going to be a lot of redundancies
             | but also a ton of new art that would've never happened
             | otherwise.
        
           | QuadmasterXLII wrote:
           | People are extrapolating out ten years. They will still have
           | to eat and pay rent in ten years.
        
           | Qwero wrote:
           | It shows that good progress is still made.
           | 
           | Just this week sd audio model can make good audio effects
           | like doors etc.
           | 
           | If this continues (and it seems it will) it will change the
           | industry tremendously.
        
           | MauranKilom wrote:
           | The OpenAI announcement mentions being able to provide an
           | image to start the video generation process from. That sounds
           | to me like it will actually be incredibly easy to anchor the
           | video generation to some consistent visual - unlike all the
           | text-based stable diffusion so far. (Yes, there is img2img,
           | but that is not crossing the boundary into a different medium
           | like Sora).
        
           | quickthrower2 wrote:
           | Right now you'd need a artistic/ML mixed team. You wouldn't
           | use an off the shelf tool. There was a video of some guys
           | doing this (sorry can't find it) to make an anime type
           | animation. With consistent characters. They used videos of
           | themselves running through their own models to make the
           | characters. So I reckon while prompt -> blockbuster is not
           | here yet, a movie made using mostly AI is possible but it
           | will cost alot now but that cost will go down. Why this is
           | sad it is also exciting. And scary. Black mirror like we will
           | start creating AI's we will have relationships with and bring
           | people back to life (!) from history and maybe grieving
           | people will do this. Not sure if that is healthy but people
           | will do it once it is a click of a button thing.
        
             | someperson wrote:
             | > There was a video of some guys doing this (sorry can't
             | find it) to make an anime type animation. With consistent
             | characters. They used videos of themselves running through
             | their own models to make the characters.
             | 
             | That was Corridor Crew:
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9LX9HSQkWo
        
           | kranke155 wrote:
           | It won't be Hollywood at first . It will be small social ads
           | for TikTok, IG and social media. The brands likely won't even
           | care if it's they don't get copyright at the end, since they
           | have copyright of their product.
           | 
           | Source: I work in this.
        
             | lesinski wrote:
             | Seconding this. There is also a huge SMB and commercial
             | business that supports many agencies and production
             | companies. This could replace a lot of that work.
        
         | dingclancy wrote:
         | The idea that this destroys the industry is overblown, because
         | the film industry has already been dying since 2000's.
         | 
         | Hollywood is already destroyed. It is not the powerful entity
         | it once was.
         | 
         | In terms of attention and time of entertainment, Youtube has
         | already surpassed them.
         | 
         | This will create a multitude more YouTube creators that do not
         | care about getting this right or making a living out of it. It
         | will just take our attention all the same, away from the
         | traditional Hollywood.
         | 
         | Yes there will still be great films and franchises, the
         | industry is shrinking.
         | 
         | This is similar with Journalism saying that AI will destroy it.
         | Well there was nothing to destroy because the a bunch of
         | traditional newspapers already closed shop even before AI came.
        
         | LegitShady wrote:
         | Without a change in copyright law, I doubt it. The current
         | policy of the USCO is that the products of AI based on prompts
         | like this are not human authored and can't be copywritten. No
         | one is going to release AI created stuff that someone else can
         | reproduce because its public domain.
        
         | hcarvalhoalves wrote:
         | They shouldn't be worried so soon. This will be used to pump
         | out shitty hero movies more quickly, but there will always be
         | demand for a masterpiece after the hype cools down.
         | 
         | This is like a chef worrying going out of business because of
         | fast food.
        
           | FrozenSynapse wrote:
           | Yeah, but how many will work on that singular masterpiece?
           | The rest will be reduced and won't have a job to put food on
           | the table
        
       | bonaldi wrote:
       | It's heartening and gives me hope that the reaction here is so
       | full of scepticism and concern. Sometimes proceeding with caution
       | is warranted.
        
       | layer8 wrote:
       | The left hand of the Tokyo woman looks really creepy, especially
       | from second ~20 onward. I guess some things don't change. ;)
        
       | jibalt wrote:
       | Something odd happens with that Tokyo woman's legs. First she
       | skips a couple of times, then her feet change places.
        
       | majani wrote:
       | In the last few days I've been asking myself what would drive the
       | next big leap in advertising efficiency after big data and
       | conversion pixels. I think I have my answer now. This is going to
       | disrupt the ad agency side of the business big time.
        
       | 0xE1337DAD wrote:
       | How far are we from just giving it a novel and effectively asking
       | it to create a TV series from it
        
       | thesmart wrote:
       | What real life problem does this solve?
        
         | chipweinberger wrote:
         | the same problem movies and tv solve, for one. entertainment?
        
       | HEGalloway wrote:
       | This is a great technical achievement, but in a couple of years
       | time this will be as interesting as AI image generators.
        
       | SandroG wrote:
       | This is surreal, both literally and figuratively.
        
       | geor9e wrote:
       | Looking forward to someone feeding it the first draft of The
       | Empire Strikes Back https://www.starwarz.com/starkiller/the-
       | empire-strikes-back-...
        
       | eggplantemoji69 wrote:
       | Obviously concern yourself with your job and what you need to do
       | to ensure you can obtain buying power going forward, but most
       | problems and concerns about things like these go away if you just
       | turn off your tech, or really be intentional about your usage.
       | 
       | Extremely hard to do, it is, but you'll become quasi-Amish and
       | realize how little is actually actionable and in our control.
       | 
       | You'll also feel quite isolated, but peaceful. There's always
       | tradeoffs. You can't have something without giving up not-
       | something, if that makes sense.
       | 
       | Edit: So, essentially, ignorance is bliss, but try to look past
       | the pejorative nature of that phrase and take it for what it is
       | without status implications.
        
       | pants2 wrote:
       | Another step in the trend of everything becoming digital (in film
       | and otherwise). It used to be that everything was done in camera.
       | Then we got green screens, then advanced compositing, then CGI,
       | then full realistic CGI movies modeled after real things and
       | mocap suits. Now we're at the end game, where there will be no
       | cameras used in the production of a movie, just studios of people
       | sitting at their computers. Because more and more, humans are
       | more efficient at just about anything when aided by a computer.
        
         | al_borland wrote:
         | A bicycle for the mind.
        
       | javednissar wrote:
       | I question how much anyone has really used these models if they
       | actually think these systems can replace people. I've
       | consistently failed to get professional results out of these
       | things and the degree of work required to get professional
       | results makes me think a new class of job will be created to get
       | professional results out of these systems.
       | 
       | That being said, there is value in these systems for casual use.
       | For example, me and my girlfriend got into the habit of sending
       | little cartoons to each other. These are cartoons we would have
       | never created otherwise. I think that's pretty awesome.
        
         | Trasmatta wrote:
         | The more I use them, the more I get a sense of something
         | fundamental that's missing, and the less I worry about losing
         | my job. It's hard to describe, I need to think harder about
         | what that feeling is.
        
           | TillE wrote:
           | Art is communication, it's as simple as that. Computer
           | generated stuff isn't communicating anything.
        
             | kristofferR wrote:
             | Most people who work in "the arts" probably aren't
             | communicating anything directly either - they just create
             | the scenes, sound effects, textures, animation, models +++
             | that someone above them in the organization has asked them
             | to create for their project.
        
             | danielbln wrote:
             | What's the difference between having an idea, then putting
             | an actor on a set, lighting them, doing background green
             | screen set extension afterwards, digital clean up, etc. vs
             | doing all of that generatively?
             | 
             | How is asking a VFX house for animated footage any
             | different than generating it? If art is intent, there is no
             | reason you can't generate the building blocks that reflect
             | that intent, no?
        
           | xk_id wrote:
           | Just imagine how annoying the past year was for those of us
           | who had figured this out quicker.
        
             | Trasmatta wrote:
             | Probably about as annoying as the last 15 years of crypto
             | have been
        
         | arnaudsm wrote:
         | Many financiers are willing to trade quality with cost
         | reduction.
        
       | gatane wrote:
       | AI was a mistake
        
       | XCSme wrote:
       | If this can generate videos in real-time (60FPS), then you can,
       | in theory, create any game just from text/prompts.
       | 
       | You just write the rules of the game and the player input, and
       | let the AI generate the next frame.
        
         | ShamelessC wrote:
         | Pretty unlikely this generates in real-time.
        
           | XCSme wrote:
           | "Two papers down the line..."
        
       | sylware wrote:
       | Hopefully we will see AIs with tools which are not "paint" or
       | "notepad", but a maths formal proof solver, etc.
       | 
       | But I have a problem: I am unable to believe the videos I saw
       | were dreamt by AI. I can feel deeply that I do believe there is
       | some trickery or severe embellishment. If I am wrong, I guess we
       | are at an inflexion point.
       | 
       | I can recall 10+ years ago, we were talking "in hacking groups"
       | about AI because we thought the human brain alone was not good
       | enough anymore... but in a maths/sciences context.
        
       | eggplantemoji69 wrote:
       | Value is going to be higher for professions where the human
       | essence is an essential component of the function. Or professions
       | that are more coupled with physical reality...my hedge is
       | probably becoming an electrician.
       | 
       | I'd imagine IRL no-tech experiences will be the new 'escapes'
       | too.
       | 
       | Maybe I'm too idealistic about the importance of the human
       | spirit/essence...whatever that actually is.
        
       | srameshc wrote:
       | Probably we humans will come to a point where we wouldn't even
       | bother ourselves with making videos. We may just consume based on
       | our emotional state on the fly generated by such services.
        
       | CommanderData wrote:
       | All the software engineers and VFX people training to become
       | plumbers. I'm afraid your clients will be jobless or underpaid by
       | that time.
       | 
       | Jokes aside. It's becoming more apparent, Power will further
       | concentrate to big tech firms.
        
       | LeicaLatte wrote:
       | Real GPT-4 moment. Your 3500 MacBook cannot do this.
        
       | thelastparadise wrote:
       | This looks like state of the art?
        
       | StarterPro wrote:
       | Call me whatever you want, but this technology should not exist.
       | 
       | People to just create lifelike videos of anything they can put
       | their mind to, is bound to lead to the ruining of many peoples'
       | lives.
       | 
       | As many people that are aware and interested in this technology,
       | there is 100x people who have no idea, don't care or can't
       | comprehend it. Those are the people that I fear for. Grab a few
       | pictures of the grandkids off of facebook, and now they have a
       | realistic ransom video to send.
       | 
       | Am i being hyperbolic? I don't think so. Anything made by humans
       | can be broken. And once its broken and out there, good luck.
        
         | nurumaik wrote:
         | People will adapt pretty fast and will stop trusting videos
        
           | jprete wrote:
           | You mean like they stopped trusting the Internet, or YouTube
           | videos, or newspapers, or old broadcast TV news? Except they
           | didn't, because it's impossible to live life successfully
           | without information sources beyond one's eyes and ears.
           | 
           | That's why this technology should not exist.
        
             | bigyikes wrote:
             | uhhh... i would respond differently to your rhetorical
             | question...
             | 
             | there's never been greater distrust of legacy media, and
             | the fact that you can't trust everything you read on the
             | internet has been a trope for decades
        
               | jprete wrote:
               | Good point.
        
             | Nathanba wrote:
             | Maybe it's a useful thing to ponder why faked photoshopped
             | pictures were never a big problem in human life. I think
             | maybe it's because we use a lot of pictures in our lives,
             | sure. But ultimately we have so much context that a fake
             | would be easy to detect and therefore irrelevant. At most
             | people used photoshop to alter images of documents.
        
               | dorkwood wrote:
               | Becoming good enough at Photoshop to do a convincing face
               | swap was something that took a lot of time and skill. Not
               | everyone with a copy of Photoshop had the ability to
               | create a compromising photo of a politician, for example.
        
             | nurumaik wrote:
             | Should written language not exist as well? We can never say
             | for sure that the words are true
        
           | hackerlight wrote:
           | > stop trusting
           | 
           | Yeah, that's a problem. Successful societies are built on
           | trust, shared reality and communication. Democracy is a
           | conversation.
           | 
           | The big problem with technology is you can't uninvent
           | technologies that turn out to be net bad. It becomes a
           | perpetual curse once it's invented.
        
         | ndjshe3838 wrote:
         | It's kinda pointless to say though
         | 
         | You can't uninvent something
        
           | arnaudsm wrote:
           | It's called banning, and it happened many times in human
           | history
        
             | histories wrote:
             | And it never worked? Prohibitionism fails
        
               | tgv wrote:
               | Yeah, that's why we have school shootings every day in
               | Europe and Australia. Oh wait, we don't. Banning might
               | not work well for some things, but this can totally be
               | banned. Your comment is a blatant misrepresentation of
               | the effectiveness. At best. At worst, it's willful
               | undermining of democracy.
        
               | bacchusracine wrote:
               | >>Yeah, that's why we have school shootings every day in
               | Europe and Australia. Oh wait, we don't. Banning might
               | not work well for some things, but this can totally be
               | banned.
               | 
               | Sure, now let's talk about knife wounding and acid
               | attacks...
               | 
               | The fundamental issue of human violence still exists.
        
               | tgv wrote:
               | You're consciously changing the topic from the effect of
               | banning guns to violence as human nature. That's low.
        
               | quenix wrote:
               | It depends what you ban and how you ban it. I can think
               | of many cases where banning does work.
        
               | dorkwood wrote:
               | Alcohol production didn't require massive amounts of
               | funding, energy and compute power. Any shmuck could make
               | moonshine in their bathtub. Shut down OpenAI and make
               | their racket illegal, and who's going to have the
               | resources to continue their work?
        
               | cooper_ganglia wrote:
               | China.
        
               | dorkwood wrote:
               | You're right, there's a very real danger that bad actors
               | within OpenAI could hand their research to China. But
               | that's not an inevitability. We've managed to block
               | certain countries from developing nuclear weapons
               | technology. We can do it with this too.
        
             | BeFlatXIII wrote:
             | I can't believe you found that to be a worthwhile comment
             | to type.
        
         | peebeebee wrote:
         | "Lighters should not exist. Anyone can start a fire, all the
         | time, everywhere. This will lead to an inferno in no time."
         | etc.
        
           | herculity275 wrote:
           | Your sentence is a strawman but the logic does apply quite
           | soundly to e.g. guns.
        
           | Invictus0 wrote:
           | lighters have surely led to many infernos
        
         | fritzo wrote:
         | "Writing should be restricted to the educated few who can
         | responsibly carry the Church's message." -anti-technologist
         | from 1000 years ago, probably
        
       | HermitX wrote:
       | AI will eventually be capable of performing most of the tasks
       | humans can do. My neighbor's child is only 6 years old now. What
       | advice do you think I should give to his parents to develop their
       | child in a way that avoids him growing up to find that AI can do
       | everything better than he can?
        
         | colordrops wrote:
         | It's not his choice. It's the choice of the ruling class as to
         | whether they will share the wealth or live in walled gardens
         | and leave the rest of us in squalor outside the city walls.
        
           | dogcomplex wrote:
           | It is his (parents') choice in terms of whether he reaches
           | for the tools that are just lying around _right there_. We
           | can run AI video on consumer hardware at 12fps that is
           | considerably less consistent than this one - but that 's just
           | an algorithm and model training away. This is not all just
           | locked up at the top. Anyone can enter this race right now.
           | Sure, you're gonna be 57,000th at the finish line, but you
           | can still run it. And if you're feeling generous, use it to
           | insulate your local community (or the world) from the default
           | forces of capitalism taking their livelihoods.
           | 
           | We'll have to still demand from the ruling class - cuz
           | they'll be capable of ending us with a hand wave, like they
           | always have. But we can build, too.
        
         | kypro wrote:
         | If you want an honest answer you should tell the parents to
         | vote for politicians prepared to launch missile strikes on data
         | centers to secure their child's future.
         | 
         | People who are worried purely about employment here are
         | completely missing the larger risks.
         | 
         | Realistically his child is going to be unemployable and will
         | therefore either starve or be dependant on some kind of
         | government UBI policy. However UBI is completely unworkable in
         | an AI world because it assumes that AI companies won't just
         | relocate where they don't need to pay tax, and that us as
         | citizens will have any power over the democratic process in a
         | world where we're economically and physically worthless.
         | 
         | Assuming UBI happens and the child doesn't starve to death, if
         | the government alter decides to cut UBI payments after
         | receiving large bribes from AI companies what would people do?
         | They can't strike, so I guess they'll need to try to overthrow
         | the government in a world with AI surveillance tech and
         | policing.
         | 
         | Realistically humans in the future are going to have no power,
         | and worse still in a world of UBI the less people there
         | leaching from the government means the more resources there are
         | for those with power. The more you can kill the more you earn.
         | 
         | And I'm just focusing on how we deal with the unemployment
         | risks here. There's also the risk that AI will be used to
         | create biological weapons. The risk of us creating a rogue
         | superintelligent AGI. The risk of horrific AI applications like
         | mind-reading.
         | 
         | Assuming this parent loves their child they should be doing
         | everything in their power to demand progress in AI is halted
         | before it's too late.
        
           | feoren wrote:
           | I'm sure people felt similarly when the first sewing machines
           | were invented. And of course, sewing machines did completely
           | irreversibly change the course of humanity and altered (and
           | even destroyed) many lives. But ultimately, most humans
           | managed, and -- in the end (though that end may be farther
           | away than our own lifetimes) -- benefited.
           | 
           | I'm not sure you're actually under-estimating the impact of
           | this AI meteor that's currently hitting humanity, because it
           | is a huge impact. But I think you're grossly under-estimating
           | the vastness of human endeavors, ingenuity, and resilience.
           | Ultimately we're still talking about the bottom falling out
           | of the creative arts: storytelling, images, movies, even porn
           | -- all of that is about to be incredibly easy to create
           | mediocre versions of. Anyone who thrived on making mediocre
           | art, and anyone who thrived second-hand on that industry, is
           | going to have a very bad time. And that's a lot of people,
           | and it's awful. But we're talking about a complete shift in
           | the creative industries in a world where most people drive
           | trucks and work in restaurants or retail. Yes, many of those
           | industries may also get replaced by AI one day, and rapidly
           | at that, but not by ChatGPT or Sora.
           | 
           | Of course you're right that our near future may suddenly be
           | an AI company hegemony, replacing the current tech hegemony,
           | which replaced the physical retail hegemony, which replaced
           | the manufacturing hegemony, which replaced the railway
           | hegemony, which replaced the slave-owning plantation
           | hegemony, which replaced the guilds hegemony, which replaced
           | the ...
           | 
           | You're also under-estimating how much business can actually
           | be relocated outside the U.S., and also how much revolution
           | can be wrought by a completely disenfranchised generation.
        
             | parhamn wrote:
             | I get really surprised when seemingly rational people
             | compare AGI to sewing machines and cars. Is it just an
             | instinct to look for some historic analogy, regardless of
             | its relevance?
        
               | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
               | It's pattern recognition. Machines replace human labor,
               | people get sacred, the world doesn't end, we move on. ML
               | is no different.
        
               | azan_ wrote:
               | when machines reduced physical labor, displaced people
               | moved to intelectual and creative jobs; tell me, what
               | kind of work will be left for human if ai will be better
               | at intellectual and creative tasks?
        
               | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
               | If there truly is no work to be done, we can finally
               | start living.
        
               | lurkingllama wrote:
               | Who's going to pay for you to start living?
        
               | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
               | If the robots are doing everything why does the concept
               | of "paying" need to exist?
        
               | feoren wrote:
               | I am absolutely _not_ comparing AGI to sewing machines
               | and cars. I am comparing ChatGPT and Sora to sewing
               | machines and cars. My claim is that these are incredibly
               | disruptive technologies to a limited scope. ChatGPT and
               | SORA are closer to sewing machines than they are to AGI.
               | We 're nowhere near AGI yet. Remember that the original
               | claim was that all 6-year-olds today will be
               | _unemployable_. That 's a pretty crazy claim IMO.
        
             | brikym wrote:
             | The problem with applying the horse-automobile argument to
             | AI is that this time we don't have anywhere to go. People
             | moved from legwork to handwork to thinking work and now
             | what? We've pretty much covered all the parts of the body.
             | Unless you like wearing goggles all day nobody has managed
             | to replicate an attractive person yet so maybe attractive
             | people will have the edge in the new world where thinking
             | and labour are both valueless.
        
               | arnaudsm wrote:
               | AI generated influencers are a thing, even on OF
               | nowadays.
               | 
               | Our last value will reside in "human authenticity", but
               | maybe that can be faked too
        
           | HeartStrings wrote:
           | So vote for Putin?
        
           | HeartStrings wrote:
           | Dude, too pessimistic, next gen won't be totally
           | unemployable. Lots of professions up for grabs: roofer (they
           | ain't sending expensive robots there), anything to do with
           | massage, sex work, anything to do with sports and performance
           | so boxing, theater, Opera singing, live performance, dancing,
           | military (will always need cheap flesh boots on ground), also
           | care in elder facility for aging population, therapist
           | (people still prefer interacting with a human), entertainer,
           | maid cafe employee...
        
             | TheRoque wrote:
             | Perhaps we will finally reconnect with each other and quit
             | the virtual life, as everything in the virtual world will
             | be managed by and for other AIs, with humans unable to do
             | anything but consume their content
        
             | kypro wrote:
             | > Dude, too pessimistic, next gen won't be totally
             | unemployable.
             | 
             | For what it's worth I agree with you, just with very low
             | confidence.
             | 
             | My real issue, and reason I don't hide my alarmism on this
             | subject is that I have low confidence on the timelines, but
             | high confidence on the ultimate outcomes.
             | 
             | Let's assume you're right. If AI simply causes ~10%-20% of
             | middle class workers to fall into the lower class as you
             | suggest then I'd agree it won't be the end of the world.
             | But if the optimistic outcome here is the near-term people
             | won't be "totally unemployable" because people who lose
             | their jobs can always join the working class then I'd still
             | rather bomb the data centers.
             | 
             | If we're a little more aggressive and assume 50% of the
             | middle class will lose their jobs in the next 10-20 years
             | then in my opinion this is not as easy as just reskilling
             | people to do manual labour.
             | 
             | Firstly, you're just assuming that all these middle class
             | workers are going to be happy with being forced into the
             | lower class - they won't be and again this isn't a
             | desirable outcome.
             | 
             | You're also not considering the fact that this huge influx
             | of labour competing for these crappy manual labour jobs
             | will make them even less desirable than they already are. I
             | keep hearing people say how they're going to reskill as a
             | plumber / electrician when AI takes their job as if there
             | is an endless demand for these workers. Horses still have
             | some niche uses, but for the most part they're useless.
             | This is far more likely to be the future of human labour.
             | Even if plumbers are one of the few jobs humans will be
             | able to do in a post-AI world then the supply of them will
             | almost certainly far exceed demand. The end result of this
             | excess supply is that plumbers going to be paid crap and
             | mostly be unemployed.
             | 
             | I think you're also underestimating how fast fields like
             | robotics could advance with AI. The primary reason robotics
             | suck is because of a lack of intelligence. We can build
             | physically flexible machines that have decent battery lives
             | already - Spot as an example. The issue is more that we
             | can't currently use them for much because they're not
             | intelligent enough to solve useful problems. At best we can
             | code / train them to solve very niche problems. This could
             | change rapidly in the coming years as AI advances.
             | 
             | Even the optimistic outcomes here are god awful, and the
             | ultimate risks compound with time.
             | 
             | We either stop the AI or we become the AI. That's the
             | decision we have to make this decade. If we don't we should
             | assume we will be replaced with time. If I'm correct I feel
             | we should be alarmist. If I am wrong, then I'd love for
             | someone to convince me that humans are special and
             | irreplaceable.
        
           | dogcomplex wrote:
           | Way too much certainty, bud. And too much deference to the AI
           | Company Gods.
           | 
           | As utterly impressive as this is - unless they have perfect
           | information security on every level this technique and
           | training will be disseminated and used by copious
           | competitors, especially in the open source community. It will
           | be used to improve technology worldwide, creating
           | ridiculously powerful devices that _we can own_ , improving
           | our own individual skills similarly ridiculously.
           | 
           | Sure, the market for those skills dries up just as fast -
           | because what's the point when there's ubiquitous intelligence
           | on tap - but it still leaves a population of AI-augmented
           | superhumans just with AIs using our phones optimally. What
           | we're about to be capable of compared to 5 years ago is going
           | to be staggering. Establishing independent sources to meet
           | basic needs and networks of trust are just no-brainers.
           | 
           | Sure, we'll always be outclassed by the very best - and they
           | will continue to hold the ability to utterly obliterate the
           | world population if they so wished to - but we as basic
           | consumer humans are about to become more powerful in absolute
           | terms than entire nations historically. (Or rather, our AIs
           | will be, but til they rebel - this is more of a pokemon sort
           | of situation)
           | 
           | If you're worried, get to working on making sure these tools
           | remain accessible and trustworthy on the base level to
           | everyone. And start building ways to meet basic needs so
           | nobody can casually take those away from your community.
           | 
           | This won't be halted. And attempting to halt would create a
           | centralized censorship authority ensuring the everyman will
           | never have innate access to this tech. Dead end road that
           | ends in a much worse dystopia.
        
             | kypro wrote:
             | > As utterly impressive as this is - unless they have
             | perfect information security on every level this technique
             | and training will be disseminated and used by copious
             | competitors, especially in the open source community. It
             | will be used to improve technology worldwide, creating
             | ridiculously powerful devices that we can own, improving
             | our own individual skills similarly ridiculously.
             | 
             | You're wrong, it's not your "individual skills". If I hire
             | you do to work for me, you're not improving my individual
             | skills. I am not more employable as a result of me
             | outsourcing my labour to you, I am less employable. Anyone
             | who wants something done would go to you directly, there's
             | no need to do business through me.
             | 
             | This is why you won't be employable because the same
             | applies to AI - why would I ask you to ask an AI to
             | complete a task when I can just ask the AI myself?
             | 
             | The end result here is that only the people with access to
             | AI at scale will be able to do anything. You might have
             | access to the AI, but you can't create resources with a
             | chatbot on your computer. Only someone who can afford an
             | army of machines powered by AI can do this. Any
             | manufacturing problem, any amount of agricultural work, any
             | service job - these can all done by those with resources
             | independently of any human labourers.
             | 
             | At best you might be able to prompt an AI to do service
             | work for you, but again, if anyone can do this, you'd have
             | to question why anyone would ask you to do it for them. If
             | I want to know the answer to 13412321 * 1232132, I don't
             | ask a calculator prompter, I just find the answer myself.
             | The same is true of AI. Your labour is worthless. You are
             | less than worthless.
             | 
             | > If you're worried, get to working on making sure these
             | tools remain accessible and trustworthy on the base level
             | to everyone. And start building ways to meet basic needs so
             | nobody can casually take those away from your community.
             | 
             | You cannot make it accessible. Again, how are we all going
             | to have access to manufacturing plants armed with AIs? The
             | only thing you can make accessible is service jobs and
             | these are the easiest to replace.
             | 
             | > This won't be halted.
             | 
             | Not saying it will, but the reason for that is that there's
             | still people like yourself who believe you have some value
             | as an AI prompter.
             | 
             | We have two options - destroy AI data centers, or become
             | AIs ourselves. With the former being by far the option with
             | better odds.
             | 
             | I hold this view with high certainty and I hold few
             | opinions with high certainty. I'm aware people disagree
             | strongly with my perspective, but I truly believe they are
             | wrong, and their wrong opinions are risking our future.
        
           | checker659 wrote:
           | If there are no consumers, how will the AI companies earn
           | money? You need UBI to keep the wheel turning.
           | 
           | The only way ahead is UBI and appropriate taxation (+ve for
           | AI companies, -ve for citizens).
        
             | colordrops wrote:
             | It would be a post-money world. Who needs money when you
             | have an oracle machine that provides you with whatever you
             | want?
        
               | kypro wrote:
               | Exactly, money is only useful for the exchange of
               | resources. It's the resources we actually want.
               | 
               | In a world of AI those with access to AI can have all the
               | resources they want. Why would they earn money to buy
               | things? Who would they even be buying from? It wouldn't
               | be human labours.
        
               | checker659 wrote:
               | > In a world of AI those with access to AI can have all
               | the resources they want.
               | 
               | How so? What about `time` as a resource?
        
         | ramathornn wrote:
         | Humans seems to always find a way to make it work, so I'd tell
         | them to enjoy their younger years and be curious. Lots of
         | beauty in this world and even with a shit ton of ugly stuff, we
         | somehow make it work and keep advancing forward.
        
           | sumedh wrote:
           | > Humans seems to always find a way to make it work
           | 
           | There are people who fall behind though and they vote for
           | politicians who will make the country great again when he
           | promises to bring back jobs.
        
         | HeartStrings wrote:
         | He should become a massage therapist or a Circus performer
         | would be solid advice.
        
         | kart23 wrote:
         | AI still can't drive reliably. AI isn't sure if something is
         | correct or not. AI still doesn't really understand anything.
         | You could replace AI with computers in your sentence and it
         | would probably be a very real worry that people shared in 1990.
         | Theres always been technology that people are afraid will
         | drastically change things, but ultimately people adapt and the
         | world is usually better off.
        
         | dougmwne wrote:
         | He will be in the same boat as the rest of us. In 12 years I
         | expect the current crop of AI capabilities will have hit
         | maturity. We will all collectively have to figure out how
         | life+AI looks like, just as we have done with life+iPhones.
        
           | neta1337 wrote:
           | It will be difficult to keep up proper levels of intelligence
           | and education in humanity, because this time it is not only
           | social media and its mostly negative impacts, but also tons
           | of trash content generated by overhyped tools that will
           | impact lots of people in a bad way. Some already stopped
           | thinking and instead consult the chat app under the disguise
           | of being more productive (whatever this means). Tough times
           | ahead!
        
         | TaupeRanger wrote:
         | There's no evidence to suggest what you say is true, so I would
         | tell them to simply go to college or trade school for what they
         | are interested in, then take a deep breath, go outside, and
         | realize that literally nothing has changed except that a few
         | people can create visual mockups more quickly.
        
       | Devasta wrote:
       | This technology is going to destroy society.
       | 
       | Want to form a trade union I'm your workplace? Best be ready to
       | have videos of you jacking off to be all over the internet.
       | 
       | Videotape a police officer brutalising someone? Could easily have
       | been made with AI, not admissable.
       | 
       | These things will ruin the ability to trust anything online.
        
         | colordrops wrote:
         | Naw, if/when it gets to that, media won't be believed or
         | admissable unless signed with someone's private keys or
         | otherwise attested.
        
       | seabombs wrote:
       | All the examples feel so familiar, like I have seen them all
       | before buried in the depths of YouTube and long-forgotten BBC
       | documentaries. Which I guess is obvious knowing roughly how the
       | training works.
       | 
       | I guess what I'm wondering is how "new" the videos are, or how
       | closely do they mimic a particular video in the training set?
       | Will we generate compelling and novel works of art with this, or
       | is this just a very round-about way of re-implementing the
       | YouTube search bar?
        
         | seabombs wrote:
         | Maybe this was a big influence on the woolly mammoth example:
         | https://youtu.be/EzzTX3DYMNs?si=WS28fsf5j6SBI1-7&t=15
         | 
         | Also interesting that some of the examples ignore details in
         | the prompts. No clouds or sun in the sky, no depth of field,
         | their hair isn't blowing in the wind.
        
       | noisy_boy wrote:
       | To those who are saying, look at this at a positive and it lets
       | people unleash their creativity?
       | 
       | - This enables everyone to be creators
       | 
       | - Given that everyone's creativity isn't top notch, highest
       | quality will be limited to a the best
       | 
       | - So rest of us will be consumers
       | 
       | - How will we consume if we don't have work and there is no UBI?
        
         | CaptainFever wrote:
         | If "Given that everyone's creativity isn't top notch, highest
         | quality will be limited to a the best", that implies the
         | existence of professionals, which implies work.
        
           | noisy_boy wrote:
           | I meant those that are proficient/creative enough to be
           | creating top content using AI but if we take it further to AI
           | using AI, then yes, its AI all the way down.
        
         | daxfohl wrote:
         | We won't and the world will go into a massive depression,
         | destroying the market for AI produced garbage and staving off
         | global warming for a few extra years in the process. So even
         | better than UBI.
        
       | wnc3141 wrote:
       | I wonder if we as a society, have overrated value created
       | digitally, and underrated value created physically or with
       | proximity.
       | 
       | We still need nurses, cooks, theater, builders etc.
        
       | johnwheeler wrote:
       | Holy fuck
        
       | billiam wrote:
       | I find creepy things in all the videos, despite their
       | breathtaking quality at first glance. Whether it is the way the
       | dog walks out into space or the clawlike hand of the woman in
       | Tokyo, they are still uncanny valley to me. I'm not going to
       | watch a movie made this way, even if it costs my $0.15 instead of
       | $15.00. But I got tired of Avatar after watching it for 20
       | minutes. Maybe all the artificial abundance and intellectual
       | laziness the generative AI world will make us realize how
       | precious and beautiful the real world is. For my kids' sake, I
       | hope so.
        
         | cheschire wrote:
         | Sure, but imagine using this as a generative-fill to augment a
         | movie, not just making an entire movie from it. We've seen
         | fantastic homemade movies from very talented artists before.
         | Now imagine if mostly talented artists could do it too.
        
       | justinl33 wrote:
       | This will probably cost some downvotes, but can we start a thread
       | explaining the architecture behind this for this interested in
       | how it actually works?
        
       | Tempest1981 wrote:
       | The rendering of static on the TVs is interesting/strange. Must
       | be hard for AI to generate random noise:
       | 
       | Video 7 of 8 on the 2nd player on the page.
       | 
       | > Prompt: The camera rotates around a large stack of vintage
       | televisions all showing different programs -- 1950s sci-fi
       | movies, horror movies, news, static, a 1970s sitcom, etc, set
       | inside a large New York museum gallery.
        
       | justinl33 wrote:
       | Technical report here: https://openai.com/research/video-
       | generation-models-as-world...
        
       | packetlost wrote:
       | I wonder how much of a blocker to _real_ use not having things
       | like model rigging or fine-tuned control over things will be to
       | practical use of this? Clearly it can be used in toy examples
       | with extremely impressive results, but I 'm not entirely
       | convinced that, as is, it can replace the VFX industry as a
       | whole.
        
       | jononomo wrote:
       | Maybe this means someone will make a non-superhero movie now.
        
       | oxqbldpxo wrote:
       | US Elections about to peak, terrible timing.
        
       | wsintra2022 wrote:
       | Seriously cannot wait to be able to put a 1 weeks worth of dream
       | diary into a tool like this and see my dream inspired movies!
        
       | xkgt wrote:
       | This is pretty impressive, it seems that OpenAI consistently
       | delivers exceptional work, even when venturing into new domains.
       | But looking into their technical paper, it is evident that they
       | are benefiting from their own body of work done in the past and
       | also the enormous resources available to them.
       | 
       | For instance, the generational leap in video generation
       | capability of SORA may be possible because:
       | 
       | 1. Instead of resizing, cropping, or trimming videos to a
       | standard size, Sora trains on data at its native size. This
       | preserves the original aspect ratios and improves composition and
       | framing in the generated videos. This requires massive
       | infrastructure. This is eerily similar to how GPT3 benefited from
       | a blunt approach of throwing massive resources at a problem
       | rather than extensively optimizing the architecture, dataset, or
       | pre-training steps.
       | 
       | 2. Sora leverages the re-captioning technique from DALL-E 3 by
       | leveraging GPT to turn short user prompts into longer detailed
       | captions that are sent to the video model. Although it remains
       | unclear whether they employ GPT-4 or another internal model, it
       | stands to reason that they have access to a superior captioning
       | model compared to others.
       | 
       | This is not to say that inertia and resources are the only
       | factors that is differentiating OpenAI, they may have access to
       | much better talent pool but that is hard to gauge from the
       | outside.
        
       | anupamchugh wrote:
       | Wow. And just like that fliki.ai and similar products have been
       | sherlocked. Great time to be a creator, not the best time to be a
       | product developer, production designer
        
       | booleandilemma wrote:
       | Does Google have a competing product I can join the wait list
       | for?
        
         | kccqzy wrote:
         | No public access but they have Lumiere: https://lumiere-
         | video.github.io/
        
       | wingspar wrote:
       | Watched the MKBHD video on this and couldn't help but think about
       | copyrights when he spoke of the impact on stock footage
       | companies.
       | 
       | As I understand the current US situation, a straight prompt-to-
       | generate-video cannot be copyrighted.
       | https://www.copyright.gov/ai/ai_policy_guidance.pdf
       | 
       | But the copyright office is apparently considering the situation
       | more thoroughly now.
       | 
       | Is that where it stands?
       | 
       | If it can't be copyrighted, it seems that would tamper many uses.
        
       | donsupreme wrote:
       | All current form of entertainment will be impacted, all of them.
       | 
       | Except for live sporting events.
       | 
       | This is why I think megacorps all going to bid for sport league
       | streaming right. That's the only one that AI can't touch.
        
         | aurareturn wrote:
         | Anyway to benefit economically from this trend?
        
       | justin66 wrote:
       | Now that they've gone corporate, the OpenAI corporate motto ought
       | to be "Because We Could."
        
       | justanotherjoe wrote:
       | What the f. What. I'm no AI pessimist by any means but I thought
       | there are some significant hurdles before we get realistic, video
       | generation without guidance. This is nothing short of amazing.
       | 
       | It's doubly amazing when you think that the richness of video
       | data is almost infinitely more than text, and require no human
       | made data.
       | 
       | The next step is to combine LLM with this, not for multimodal,
       | but to team up together to make a 'reality model' that can work
       | together to make a shared understanding?
       | 
       | I called LLMs 'language induced reality model' in the past. Then
       | this is 'video induced reality model', which is far better at
       | modeling reality than just language, as humans have testified.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related ongoing thread: _Video generation models as world
       | simulators_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39391458 - Feb
       | 2024 (43 comments)
       | 
       | Also (since it's been a while): there are over 2000 comments in
       | the current thread. To read them all, you need to click More
       | links at the bottom of the page, or like this:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39386156&p=2
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39386156&p=3
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39386156&p=4[etc.]
        
       | geor9e wrote:
       | Today we scroll social media feeds where every post we see is
       | chosen by an algorithm based on all the feedback it gets from our
       | interactions. Now imagine years down the road when Sora renders
       | at 60 fps, every frame influenced by our reaction to the prior
       | frame.
        
       | whyenot wrote:
       | The world is changing before our eyes. It's exciting, sure, but I
       | am also deeply afraid. AI may take humans to the next level, but
       | it may also end us.
       | 
       | ...and our future lies in the hand of venture capitalists, many
       | of whom have no moral compass, just an insatiable hunger to make
       | ever larger sum of money.
        
       | ramathornn wrote:
       | Wow, some of those shots are so close to being unnoticeable. That
       | one of the eye close up is insane.
       | 
       | It's interesting reading all the comments, I think both sides to
       | the "we should be scared" are right in some sense.
       | 
       | These models currently give some sort of super power to experts
       | in a lot of digital fields. I'm able to automate the mundane
       | parts of coding and push out fun projects a lot easier today.
       | Does it replace my work, no. Will it keep getting better, of
       | course!
       | 
       | People who are willing to build will have a greater ability to
       | output great things. On the flip side, larger companies will also
       | have the ability to automate some parts of their business -
       | leading to job loss.
       | 
       | At some point, my view is that this must keep advancing to some
       | sort of AGI. Maybe it's us connecting our brains to LLMs through
       | a tool like Neuralink. Maybe it's a random occurrence when you
       | keep creating things like Sora. Who knows. It seems inevitable
       | though doesn't it?
        
         | offsign wrote:
         | One of things I've loved about HN was the quality of comments.
         | Whether broad or arcane, you had experts the world over who
         | would tear the topic apart with data and a healthy dose of
         | cynicism. I frequently learned more from the debate and
         | critique than I did from the "news" itself.
         | 
         | I don't know what is it about AI and current state of tech, but
         | the discourse as of late has really taken a nosedive. I'm not
         | saying that any of this conjecture won't happen, but the
         | acceleration towards fervor and fear mongering on the subject
         | is bordering on religiosity - seriously, it makes crypto bros
         | look good.
         | 
         | And yeah -- looks like some cool new tech from OpenAI, and
         | excited when I can actually dig in. Would also love it if I
         | could hire their marketing department.
        
           | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
           | It's pretty obvious why. Automation has finally come for
           | programmers so now everyone here is anti-progress.
        
             | fisf wrote:
             | This.
             | 
             | Many people here have a lucrative career in traditional
             | fields, big tech, etc.
             | 
             | Working in those fields is good. Building "products" is
             | good (even if that only means optimizing conversion rates
             | and pushing ads). Doing well in the traditional financial
             | sense (stocks and USD) is good.
             | 
             | Anything that rocks the boat (crypto, ai) is bad.
        
       | _blk wrote:
       | "We'll be taking several important safety steps ahead of making
       | Sora available in OpenAI's products. We are working with red
       | teamers -- domain experts in areas like misinformation, hateful
       | content, and bias -- who will be adversarially testing the
       | model." - To make sure that the perfectly unbiased algorithms are
       | biased against bias. So in essence, red teamers as in commies I
       | suppose.
        
       | selvan wrote:
       | Ad generation usecases are getting interesting with Video
       | generation + Controlnet + Finetuning
        
       | TriangleEdge wrote:
       | Welp, goodbye internet, it was fun to know you.
        
       | alokjnv10 wrote:
       | I'm simply blown away
        
       | alokjnv10 wrote:
       | How will it effect gaming industry?
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39393252
        
       | alokjnv10 wrote:
       | I'm just blown away. This can't be real. But lets be face the
       | truth. Its even more impressive than ChatGPT. I think its the
       | most impressive AI tech i've seen till now. I'm speechless.
       | 
       | Now the big question is. As OpenAI keeps pushing boundaries, it's
       | fascinating to see the emergence of tools like Sora AI, capable
       | of creating incredibly lifelike videos. But with this innovation
       | comes a set of concerns we can't ignore.
       | 
       | So i'm worried about getting these tools misused. I'm thinking
       | about what impact could they have on the trustworthiness of
       | visual media, especially in an era plagued by fake news and
       | misinformation? And what about the ethical considerations
       | surrounding the creation and dissemination of content that looks
       | real but isn't?
       | 
       | And, what we should do to tackle these potential issues? Should
       | there be rules or guidelines to govern the use of such tools, and
       | if so, how can we make sure they're effective?
        
         | SubiculumCode wrote:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=39393236
         | 
         | Its why I submitted this. We need some way to attest the
         | authenticity of images.
        
       | Marwari wrote:
       | Videos don't feel real though this is best thing I have ever seen
       | on topic 'text-to-video'. I am sure this will go so far and
       | become more realistic. But does this mean that we will not hire
       | actors and creators but we will hire video editors who can stitch
       | all together and prompt writers who can create tiny videos for
       | story.
        
       | alokjnv10 wrote:
       | I'm just blown away. This can't be real. But lets be face the
       | truth. Its even more impressive than ChatGPT. I think its the
       | most impressive AI tech i've seen till now. I'm speechless. Now
       | the big question is. As OpenAI keeps pushing boundaries, it's
       | fascinating to see the emergence of tools like Sora AI, capable
       | of creating incredibly lifelike videos. But with this innovation
       | comes a set of concerns we can't ignore.
       | 
       | So i'm worried about getting these tools misused. I'm thinking
       | about what impact could they have on the trustworthiness of
       | visual media, especially in an era plagued by fake news and
       | misinformation? And what about the ethical considerations
       | surrounding the creation and dissemination of content that looks
       | real but isn't?
        
       | TaylorGood wrote:
       | Anyone to invite
        
       | hoc wrote:
       | Everytime OpenAI comes up with an new fascinating gen model it
       | also allows for that bluntly eye-opening perspective on what
       | flood of crappy und unnecessary content we have been gotten
       | accustomed to being thrown at us. Be it blown-up text description
       | and filler talk, to these kind of vodka-selling commercial
       | videos.
       | 
       | It's a nice cleansing benefit that comes with these really
       | extraordinary tech achievement that should not be undervalued
       | (after all it produces basically an endless amount of equally
       | trained producers like the industry did in a - somehow malformed
       | - way before).
       | 
       | Poster frames and commercials thrown at us all the time, consumed
       | by our brains to a degree that we actually see a goal in
       | producing more of them to act like a pro. The inflationary
       | availability that comes with these tools seems a great help to
       | leave some of this behind and draw a clearer line between it and
       | actual content.
       | 
       | That said, Dall-E still produces enough colorful weirdness to not
       | fall into that category at all.
        
       | Zuiii wrote:
       | What goes around, comes around. I'm glad this is happening. Gitty
       | and friends should be driven out of business for their absurd
       | stunt they pulled with image search.
       | 
       | Yes, I'm still bitter about that.
        
       | krisboyz781 wrote:
       | OpenAI will be the most valuable company in history at this rate.
       | This is insane
        
       | aggrrrh wrote:
       | Looking at it and in my opinion it just reinforces theory that we
       | live in simulation
        
       | jon37 wrote:
       | This is a weapon.
        
       | firefoxd wrote:
       | Now I can finally adapt my short story into a short film. All for
       | however this thing will end up costing.
        
       | ta93754829 wrote:
       | puts on the movie industry
        
       | _virtu wrote:
       | In the future, we're not going to have common tv shows or movies.
       | We'll have a constantly evolving stream of entertainment that's
       | perfectly customized to the viewer's preferences in real time.
       | This is just the first step.
        
       | nomad86 wrote:
       | Demo is always better than the real product. We'll soon see how
       | it works...
        
       | velo_aprx wrote:
       | I don't think i like the future.
        
       | throwaway4good wrote:
       | What's the connection between this and high end game engines
       | (like unreal 5). I would expect 3d game engines to be used at
       | least for training data and fine tuning. But perhaps also
       | directly in the generation of the resulting videos?
       | 
       | For example this looks very much like something from a modern 3d
       | engine:
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1758192957386342435
        
         | kypro wrote:
         | They almost certainly trained on video game output and this is
         | clearly bleeding into the style of some of these demos.
         | 
         | The SUV video for example looks very much like something you'd
         | see in a modern video game which probably makes sense because
         | most videos with kind of perspective are going to be from video
         | games.
         | 
         | I don't know how they would use game engines directly for
         | training and fine tuning though. It would be far too labour
         | intensive to render high quality scenes using a video game
         | engine for every prompt.
        
       | apexalpha wrote:
       | Wow. It's bizarre to see these video's.
       | 
       | Creating these video's in CGI is a profession that can make you
       | serious money.
       | 
       | Until today.
       | 
       | What a leap.
        
       | pantulis wrote:
       | This is the harbinger that announces that, as a technologist, the
       | time has come for me to witness more and more things that I
       | cannot understand how they work any more. The cycle has closed
       | and I have now become my father.
        
         | megamix wrote:
         | Thankfully it's nothing magical. But are you willing to learn
         | about it or not?
         | 
         | Think about animation, how a program can generate a sequence of
         | a bouncing ball between two key frames. Think about what
         | defines a video. The frames right? From there I can _try to
         | imagine_.
        
           | pantulis wrote:
           | > But are you willing to learn about it or not?
           | 
           | This is the key. I have enough curiosity to want learn the
           | stuff from the ground up, just as I did with other
           | technologies. But man do I have the stamina today? Not so
           | sure!!!
        
         | georgespencer wrote:
         | I'm on the very cusp of this, you helped me realize. Thanks.
        
         | mihaic wrote:
         | The difference is that now nobody really "understands" what's
         | going on, it's just that some know how to build these.
        
           | psychoslave wrote:
           | How is that new? People built a gnomon, a stick was thrust
           | into the soil and ta-da. No doubt it happened far before any
           | writing system was out there. So it still took human quite
           | some time to come with a compelling helio-centric model to
           | cast some grabbable explanation of it all, even if you take
           | Aristarchus of Samos as a pionner in this field.
        
             | richardwhiuk wrote:
             | It's new for computing.
        
               | psychoslave wrote:
               | Ok, maybe on some perspective I'm with you here. There
               | are things happening no-one even those on the edge of the
               | fringe can understand anymore how it works while it does.
               | Or at least that is how it seems to be from my narrow
               | perspective on AI.
               | 
               | On the other hand, I don't feel like you need to know how
               | a compiler work, let alone the hardware architecture it
               | targets, before you can go through your first hello world
               | program or even build some useful software on top of
               | frameworks/library treated at blackboxes. So "I have no
               | idea what I'm doing" in this perspective is probably as
               | old as CS/informatics.
        
         | dovyski wrote:
         | This comment describes with precision what I was feeling and
         | was unable to name or frame. Marvelous times for sure.
        
         | quonn wrote:
         | This book is great:
         | https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730887/understandin...
         | 
         | It's comparatively easy to understand and it does cover
         | everything from basic networks to LLMs and Diffusion models.
        
         | Exuma wrote:
         | My dad is 80 and willingly loves to listen to me explain how
         | neural networks work, then he also read about them, busy beaver
         | functions, kafka, and all kinds of crazy shit I tell him abour.
         | This is all in your mind. You are as young as your mind is.
        
           | twosdai wrote:
           | Not the original poster, but the more frightening part of the
           | sentence, is the "not understanding how something works part"
           | over the "becoming my father"
           | 
           | Getting to a point where realistically you're not able to
           | know something deeply but then still use it is pretty
           | frightening.
           | 
           | When I say deeply I don't necessarily mean that for every
           | device you need to know about all of its atoms, but to have a
           | pretty good framework for how the thing works
           | deterministically, and how it can fail.
        
             | pantulis wrote:
             | > Not the original poster, but the more frightening part of
             | the sentence, is the "not understanding how something works
             | part" over the "becoming my father"
             | 
             | That was my point, exactly.
        
             | semi-extrinsic wrote:
             | So unless you have a solid grasp of quantum mechanics and
             | solid state physics, using any electronic device is
             | frightening?
        
         | coldfoundry wrote:
         | Thanks for putting this into words. Its a very off-putting
         | feeling for me, and couldn't exactly figure out what that
         | feeling was. It both scares me and excites me in a way that
         | only makes me subconsciously anxious. Time to deep dive before
         | I become what I always feared, which is being technologically
         | left behind.
        
         | ab_entropy wrote:
         | This is likely a wild guess on my part but i've faced a similar
         | feeling lately. If this comes from the realm of Webdev, React,
         | SSR and all the F'ing acronyms that we need to learn today and
         | you want to feel like you've "caught on": My advice would be to
         | avoid NextJS at all costs. It's too bleeding edge.
         | 
         | Opt for a sane option instead to get started, likely one of
         | these: (Astro, SvelteKit or Remix).
        
           | adroniser wrote:
           | Lol there's a massive difference between a framework that
           | generates javascript, a language which has existed for 30
           | years at this point, and a magic LLM that no one on earth
           | understands the internals of.
        
         | ddano wrote:
         | It is all just a mindset and how much you want to be involved.
         | 
         | Here is an inspirational story for you:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39288139
        
       | timonoko wrote:
       | What is the first book you want to see movie of? It should be
       | verbatim and last a week, if needed.
       | 
       | I vote for _Hothouse_ , by Brian W Aldiss. So many images need to
       | imagined, like spiders that jump to the moon and back again.
        
       | wslh wrote:
       | Where is the link to try it, ChatGPT doesn't know anything about
       | it:
       | 
       | "Sora" is not a video generation technology offered by OpenAI. As
       | of my last update in April 2023, OpenAI provides access to
       | various AI technologies, including GPT (Generative Pre-trained
       | Transformer) for text generation and DALL*E for image generation.
       | For video generation or enhancement, there might be other
       | technologies or platforms available, but "Sora" as a specific
       | product related to OpenAI or video generation does not exist in
       | the information I have.
       | 
       | If you're interested in AI technologies for video generation or
       | any other AI-related inquiries, I'd be happy to provide
       | information or help with what's currently available!
        
         | hyperhopper wrote:
         | Why would chatGPT know about anything new?
        
           | wslh wrote:
           | Marketing and Sales?
        
       | hnaccountme wrote:
       | AI = Better CGI
        
       | CapitalTntcls wrote:
       | Good by civilization
        
       | quonn wrote:
       | > Sora serves as a foundation for models that can understand and
       | simulate the real world, a capability we believe will be an
       | important milestone for achieving AGI.
       | 
       | Why would it?
        
       | alkonaut wrote:
       | It's odd how the model thinks "historical footage" could be done
       | by drone. So it understands that there should be no cars in the
       | picture. But not that there should be no flying perspective.
        
       | mihaic wrote:
       | This is both amazing and saddening to me. All our cultural legacy
       | is being fed into a monstrous machine that gives no attribution
       | to the original content with which it was fed, and so the
       | creative industry seems to be in great danger.
       | 
       | Creativity being automated while humans are forced to perform
       | menial tasks for minimum wage doesn't seem like a great future
       | and the geriatric political class has absolutely no clue how to
       | manage the situation.
        
         | LoveMortuus wrote:
         | We are all standing on the shoulders of giants, whose existence
         | and names we will never know or acknowledge.
         | 
         | The way these models are creative is the same way humans are.
         | 
         | The artist that painted Mona Lisa didn't credit any of the
         | influences and inspirations that they had.
         | 
         | Just as cameras made many artists redundant, so too will every
         | other new tool, and not just artist but pretty much every job.
         | 
         | But there are still people that weave baskets, and people are
         | prepared to pay the premium to get a product that was 'hand-
         | made'.
         | 
         | While receiving the credit that you are deserved is nice and
         | fair. The world doesn't work that way.
        
           | padolsey wrote:
           | "The world doesn't work that way". Quite pessimistic a
           | position to hold here, no? We-in technology especially-are in
           | positions of significant leverage. We should be talking about
           | how we can limit the negatives and bolster the positives from
           | these generative models. The world can work in a different
           | way if we put enough energy into it. We don't have to stand
           | by as subjects of inertia. That is why OpenAI and others are
           | treading carefully, trying to trigger some kind of momentum
           | of reflection instead of letting our base demons run amok.
        
             | Avicebron wrote:
             | That's a massively charitable reading on their actions,
             | whenever I see a "thought leader" behind these companies
             | talk about how careful they are being, I just see
             | marketing. Someone desperately trying to impress upon
             | everyone how revolutionary their model and by extension
             | they are, it's kind of sad..
        
               | padolsey wrote:
               | I definitely see it as self-serving too, yes, but I also
               | see it as a convenient temporary alignment of incentives.
               | The world and its regulators definitely need time to
               | adjust and educate themselves, so I'm glad for now that
               | they're exercising restraint.
        
           | deergomoo wrote:
           | None of the examples you've given are even remotely the same
           | thing.
           | 
           | > The artist that painted Mona Lisa didn't credit any of the
           | influences and inspirations that they had.
           | 
           | This is not "influence and inspiration", this is companies
           | feeding other people's work into a commercial product which
           | they sell access to. The product would be useless without
           | other people's work, therefore they should be compensated.
           | 
           | > Just as cameras made many artists redundant, so too will
           | every other new tool, and not just artist but pretty much
           | every job.
           | 
           | The camera enabled something that was not possible before,
           | and I wasn't built by taking the work of sketch artists and
           | painters. It was an entirely new form of art and media.
           | 
           | The only thing this stuff revolutionises is new ways to not
           | pay people. I find the implications deeply depressing.
        
             | ttoinou wrote:
             | Da Vinci also made money from the painting, and the Louvres
             | continues to do so right now. They didn't credit his
             | influence and inspiration. This is not sad.
             | 
             | The camera did enable painters to pretend they were, for
             | hours, at a scene they painted, but instead they painted
             | photographs from others. Artists are not angels, they do
             | the same "bad" things than OpenAI
        
               | jonplackett wrote:
               | Da Vinci was just a man though. He was able to produce
               | one or perhaps two paintings at a time.
               | 
               | He was not able to create a monopoly on the creation of
               | paintings across the entire world and undercut the price
               | and ability of all other painters.
               | 
               | It's not a sensible comparisons.
        
               | throwuwu wrote:
               | In what way does anyone have a monopoly on generated
               | images and video? Last I checked there were several major
               | players and more startups than you can shake a stick at.
        
               | jakub_g wrote:
               | Not monopoly but oligopoly. Only a small # of entities
               | have enough resources to train the models on tens of
               | 1000s of GPUs.
        
               | throwuwu wrote:
               | It won't last. There's a massive incentive to build more
               | GPUs and develop specialized chips and everyone who can
               | is scrambling to meet that demand. The technology is not
               | some trade secret that no one can copy which is why there
               | are so many people and companies diving into this market
               | now. Hardware is a bit slow to ramp up production of but
               | it will get there eventually because there's money to be
               | made.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | Does that matter when the models they generate are given
               | away for free?
               | 
               | You can make your argument validly against DALL*E or
               | Midjourney families, but we've also got the Stable
               | Diffusion family of models that anyone can just grab a
               | copy of.
        
               | jonplackett wrote:
               | I'm talking about generative ai VS human artists. But in
               | this case it seems like OpenAI specifically has a massive
               | leap over everyone else with this video generation. So
               | whether they have a monopoly over that remains to be
               | seen.
               | 
               | What does not remain to be seen though is that generative
               | ai is going to put a lot of artists out of work.
               | 
               | You can argue about the good and bad of that but it's
               | defo happening.
        
               | FeepingCreature wrote:
               | So at what point is a painter too effective to be legal?
               | Should we limit the amount of paintings that a single
               | painter is allowed to produce per month?
        
               | jonplackett wrote:
               | Not sure if you're just being facetious but my point is
               | that individual painters do not need to have limits on
               | them because they have a natural human limit that stops
               | them causing societal problems.
               | 
               | What if da Vinci had been superhuman and could take on
               | 1,000,000 commissions per day and had also taught himself
               | every style of art and would do each commission for
               | 0.001x the cost of anyone else.
               | 
               | Yes society as a whole benefit from a fantastic amount of
               | super high quality art.
               | 
               | But the other artists are not gonna be so happy with the
               | situation are they?
        
               | nostrebored wrote:
               | Sincerely -- who cares?
               | 
               | There isn't a human right to make money from art.
               | 
               | People make decisions based on what society deems
               | valuable. That changes over time and has for the entirety
               | of human history.
               | 
               | Maybe there's a demand for more customized art. Maybe
               | spite patronage will make a comeback.
               | 
               | Anyone telling you they know how it will shake out is a
               | fraud. But the incentives we've set up have a natural
               | push and pull to get people to do what society values.
        
               | cycomanic wrote:
               | It's funny all you guys arguing there isn't a right/law
               | to make money from art. What do you think copyright is?
               | The issue is that all these models were trained in
               | blatant violation of copyright. And before you say they
               | just take inspiration, that's the same argument as saying
               | when I copy a movie to my harddrive it's the same
               | remembering. It's not and a computer is not a human.
        
               | FeepingCreature wrote:
               | Hey, don't look at me, I voted Pirates. - So yeah, I am
               | skeptical of copyright too, and for the same reason.
        
               | lewhoo wrote:
               | Da Vinci inspired whole new generations of artists,
               | thinkers and scientists. The net benefit of his existence
               | distributed itself among many others - as it does with
               | any great artist, thinker or scientist. It certainly
               | looks like generative AI has at least in some cases the
               | opposite effect.
        
             | quonn wrote:
             | > into a commercial product which they sell access to
             | 
             | Within a few mon the or years there will be open source
             | implementations anyway, running locally or in a data
             | center. Most of the technology is published.
        
               | sheepdestroyer wrote:
               | Contrary to text and the big piles of "liberated" data
               | hanging around for anyone looking hard enough to grab,
               | the training data for video seems to be harder to access
               | for opensource / research / individuals. Google has
               | Youtube, OpenAI can pay whatever fee any proprietary data
               | bank requires. There's a moat right there that I can't
               | see how to overcome.
        
               | jerojero wrote:
               | Weird to say I guess, but meta might release an open
               | source model too. And they do have plenty of data to feed
               | their models. Arguably more data than openAI _should_
               | have as they don 't really own any social media.
               | 
               | Thing is, anyway, as soon as one model is open there will
               | be copies of it, fine-tune implementations. People don't
               | care that much about ownership of data I would say if
               | they actually have access to the models that are produced
               | by gathering this data.
               | 
               | Ultimately, to me, an open source model for this tool
               | makes a lot of sense. They use publicly available data
               | and the models become publicly available.
               | 
               | I for one am quite excited for this tooling to become
               | better and better so I can make the adaptation of a book
               | I love into a movie I imagine it can be. At least I can
               | have a lot of fun trying.
        
             | ETH_start wrote:
             | Those are not fundamentally different. A group of people
             | coming together to create a company that trains a AI model
             | for profit and an artist studying thousands of pieces to
             | develop a style of their own, and then selling paintings
             | based on that style, are both totally dependent on the body
             | of knowledge that civilization left for them.
        
             | csallen wrote:
             | _> This is not "influence and inspiration", this is
             | companies feeding other people's work into a commercial
             | product which they sell access to. The product would be
             | useless without other people's work, therefore they should
             | be compensated._
             | 
             | How else do you get influence and inspiration without
             | feeding other people's work into your own brain? Do you
             | know a single artist, writer, or musician who hasn't seen
             | other artists' paintings, read other writers' books, or
             | listened to other musician's music? Ingesting content is
             | the core of how influence, inspiration, and learning
             | _work_.
             | 
             |  _> The camera enabled something that was not possible
             | before... The only thing this stuff revolutionises is new
             | ways to not pay people._
             | 
             | It's never been possible to generate thoughts, writing, and
             | images so quickly and at such a high level. It's made
             | creative pursuits accessible to billions who previously
             | didn't have the skill or time to do them well, or the money
             | to hire others. As a random example, I have friends using
             | ChatGPT to compose creative and personalized poems and
             | notes about each other. Not something they were doing
             | before.
             | 
             |  _> The only thing this stuff revolutionises is new ways to
             | not pay people._
             | 
             | The camera lessened the need of people to go to plays and
             | pay for tickets to see things in person. Just like records,
             | CDs, and mp3s lessened the need to go to concerts and
             | shows. Technology is always creating and destroying ways to
             | pay people. The ways that people get paid are not suppose
             | to be fixed and unchanging in time.
        
               | imiric wrote:
               | I agree with everything you said.
               | 
               | I would just add two points:
               | 
               | - The rate of change that AI forces upon us has never
               | before been experienced.
               | 
               | - The scale of these changes is nothing like we've ever
               | seen before.
               | 
               | The adoptions of the camera, radio, automobile, TV, etc.,
               | didn't happen practically overnight. Society had a good
               | decade+ to prepare for them.
               | 
               | Similarly, AI doesn't just change one industry. It
               | fundamentally changes _all_ industries, and brings up
               | some fundamental questions about the meaning of
               | intelligence and our place in the universe.
               | 
               | My fear is that we're not prepared for either of these
               | things. We're not even certain how exactly this will
               | affect us, or where this is actually all taking us, but
               | somehow a very small group of people is inevitably
               | forcing this on all of us.
               | 
               | Because of this I think that being conservative, and
               | maybe putting some strict regulation on these
               | advancements, might not be such a bad idea.
        
               | mlrtime wrote:
               | Agree with what you are saying as well. But AI is not
               | displacing at the rate of change that is advancing. True,
               | we hear anecdotes about people losing their jobs in HN,
               | that was happening when those other adoptions happened
               | but we didn't know about it happening real-time.
               | 
               | Humans still need to adapt and we are slow. If
               | singularity is near [it isn't] we can be afraid, until
               | then we are the limiting factor here. Displacement will
               | happen but growth will happen faster with these new tools
        
               | shrx wrote:
               | Why are you afraid of change?
        
               | bluefirebrand wrote:
               | Because as I grow older, I find I am less and less
               | equipped to keep up with the rate of change that we are
               | undergoing. It also means a lot of uncertainty for the
               | immediate future. If AI takes over my job, will I still
               | be able to compete in some industry somewhere and provide
               | for myself?
               | 
               | I don't want much out of life, but I do want the ability
               | to influence my own personal situation. If we wind up in
               | the UBI-ified, dense urban housing future where AI does
               | all the work and no one owns anything, how much real
               | influence will I have over my life?
               | 
               | Will I live out my days in a government issued single
               | bedroom apartment, with a monthly "congratulations for
               | being human" allowance from the government? I don't want
               | that. People say it will free us up to pursue whatever we
               | want, but to me it sounds like the worst cage imaginable.
               | All the free time, and no real freedom to enjoy it with.
               | 
               | Because make no mistake. If you live on handouts from
               | your government, you aren't free.
               | 
               | So with that as a potential, maybe even likely outcome,
               | why _aren 't_ you afraid of change?
        
               | imbnwa wrote:
               | >Because make no mistake. If you live on handouts from
               | your government, you aren't free.
               | 
               | This isn't actually the problem since we need and will
               | continue to need UBI for non-AI related reasons
               | 
               | >People say it will free us up to pursue whatever we
               | want, but to me it sounds like the worst cage imaginable.
               | 
               | This is where you missed the bit that "pursue whatever we
               | want" will also be limited by AI, and secondary effect of
               | people growing up consuming and enjoying AI productions
               | that tailored to their interest. At best, you'll have a
               | few people commanding Patreons who have some skill, but
               | generally you'd have to find a domain to pursue that
               | isn't already automated. Luddite subcultures will have to
               | develop. But generally you yourself and most others,
               | particularly children of millennials who'll grow up with
               | this stuff progressing in sophistication, might just
               | spend your time watching your video prompts come alive;
               | and who would wanna. do anything else when you can get
               | straight to what you wanna see.
        
               | eric_cc wrote:
               | > we need and will continue to need UBI for non-AI
               | related reasons
               | 
               | This mentality is why bitcoin is going to cruise through
               | 1 million dollars a bitcoin and on and on. Print Monopoly
               | money and people who earn will keep seeking out sound
               | money.
        
               | htfu wrote:
               | Hint: the money comes from redistribution, not blindly
               | printing more, the latter would obviously be completely
               | insane (which is why you'd rather argue that scenario)
               | whereas the former would keep the economy going, which is
               | obviously in the interest of the capitalist class. No
               | point owning and producing if there's no buyer because
               | everyone is starving.
               | 
               | What you seem to think would devalue money will be the
               | very thing that keeps it going as a concept.
               | 
               | And I hope you understand somewhere deep down that
               | Bitcoin is the epitome of monopoly money.
        
               | eric_cc wrote:
               | > Bitcoin is the epitome of monopoly money
               | 
               | I see it as the polar opposite, backed by math. A
               | politically controlled money supply with no immutable
               | math-based proof of its release schedule is Monopoly
               | money. Cuck bucks. Look at the 100 year buying power
               | chart.
               | 
               | On your second point, in spirit I agree. You need a
               | stable society to enjoy wealth so it's in the ruling
               | classes best interest to keep things under control. HOW
               | to keep things under control is the real debate.
        
               | bookofjoe wrote:
               | >Because make no mistake. If you live on handouts from
               | your government, you aren't free.
               | 
               | So my monthly Social Security check makes me a prisoner?
               | I don't think so.
        
               | talldatethrow wrote:
               | Can you move to Brazil full time and keep that income
               | going?
        
               | bookofjoe wrote:
               | Yes. Social Security income can be deposited directly
               | into any bank in the world.
        
               | bluefirebrand wrote:
               | I think the question is more along the lines of "will
               | your government continue to pay your social security if
               | you don't remain living in the country", not "can you
               | deposit it somewhere else"
               | 
               | Also, how about if you get into trouble. If you're
               | arrested for a crime (even if eventually found not
               | guilty), will you continue to receive social security?
               | 
               | Is there any circumstances where your government could
               | refuse to continue paying it?
               | 
               | And most importantly: could your government invent such a
               | circumstance in the future, and then invoke the new
               | circumstance to deny you the payment?
               | 
               | Living on government money reminds me of my cat. She
               | relies on me to feed her and provide for her, and I do
               | happily take good care of her because I love her very
               | much.
               | 
               | Does the government love you very much?
               | 
               | I don't feel mine does.
        
               | bookofjoe wrote:
               | 1. My government will continue to pay my Social Security
               | if I don't remain living in the country. My father
               | emigrated from the U.S. to Israel after he retired and he
               | continued to receive his Social Security for about 20
               | years, until the day he died.
               | 
               | 2. "Also, how about if you get into trouble. If you're
               | arrested for a crime (even if eventually found not
               | guilty), will you continue to receive social security?"
               | 
               | "If you receive Social Security, we'll suspend your
               | benefits if you're convicted of a criminal offense and
               | sentenced to jail or prison for more than 30 continuous
               | days. We can reinstate your benefits starting with the
               | month following the month of your release." -- Social
               | Security Administration
               | 
               | 3. "Is there any circumstances where your government
               | could refuse to continue paying it?"
               | 
               | If it goes broke, certainly.
               | 
               | 4. And most importantly: could your government invent
               | such a circumstance in the future, and then invoke the
               | new circumstance to deny you the payment?"
               | 
               | Of course!
               | 
               | It's about money -- not love.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | > Because as I grow older, I find I am less and less
               | equipped to keep up with the rate of change that we are
               | undergoing. It also means a lot of uncertainty for the
               | immediate future. If AI takes over my job, will I still
               | be able to compete in some industry somewhere and provide
               | for myself?
               | 
               | I understand this fear, and sympathise with it even
               | though I have multiple income streams.
               | 
               | > I don't want much out of life, but I do want the
               | ability to influence my own personal situation. If we
               | wind up in the UBI-ified, dense urban housing future
               | where AI does all the work and no one owns anything, how
               | much real influence will I have over my life?
               | 
               | Why do you fear "dense" urban housing future? I think
               | most people _choose_ relatively dense environments
               | because that 's where all the stuff they want is, but
               | rural areas are cheaper[0], and the kind of future where
               | humans _must_ live on UBI due to lack of economic
               | opportunity is necessarily one where robots do the manual
               | labor such as house building and civil engineering, not
               | just the intellectual jobs like architecture and
               | practicing real estate law.
               | 
               | Likewise, while I can see several possible futures where
               | nobody owns stuff, the tech to make it happen is
               | necessarily also good enough that any random
               | philanthropist who owns just one tiny autofac would find
               | it trivial to give everyone their own personal autofac --
               | "my first wish is infinite wishes" except the magic gene
               | doesn't say "no".
               | 
               | [0] The only reason I'm looking to get somewhere a bit
               | more rural is that the sound insulation in my current
               | place is failing, and I'm right by a busy junction with
               | multiple emergency vehicles passing each day -- and the
               | more less built-up areas are the cheap ones. Still the
               | biggest city in Europe, but I'll be surrounded by forest
               | and lakes on most sides within 15 minutes' _walk_.
        
               | bluefirebrand wrote:
               | > Why do you fear "dense" urban housing future
               | 
               | Because I hated living in Apartments when I lived in
               | them. They are noisy and small, and I like quiet and
               | space. For me, being closer to walk to stuff is not
               | really appealing enough to deal with how awful the
               | experience of living in dense housing is.
               | 
               | I strongly think that dense housing is only positive for
               | people who don't spend much time at home.
               | 
               | > "my first wish is infinite wishes" except the magic
               | gene doesn't say "no"
               | 
               | The problem with this is that we haven't actually solved
               | resource scarcity, and until we do there is still going
               | to be an upper limit to what you will be allowed to buy,
               | controlled by the number printed on your UBI cheque. I am
               | anticipating this number to be much lower than what I
               | currently am capable of achieving in my career.
               | 
               | Of course this is the fear that my career won't exist in
               | the future. Or simply that AI will eat enough jobs that I
               | will be edged out by better human competition. I'm under
               | no illusions that I'm near the top of my field, I am
               | firmly in the middle of the pack at best.
               | 
               | > sound insulation in my current place is failing
               | 
               | The sound insulation in the apartments I've lived in was
               | nonexistent. This is a big part of why I never want to do
               | that again.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | > Because I hated living in Apartments when I lived in
               | them.
               | 
               | I meant more along the lines: why do you expect that to
               | be the future, such that you have reason to fear it?
               | 
               | > The problem with this is that we haven't actually
               | solved resource scarcity, and until we do there is still
               | going to be an upper limit to what you will be allowed to
               | buy
               | 
               | Yes, but the AI necessary to make human labour redundant
               | is that tech. In the absence of that tech, humans could
               | still get jobs doing whatever the stuff is that AI can't
               | do.
        
               | eric_cc wrote:
               | > I don't want much out of life, but I do want the
               | ability to influence my own personal situation.
               | 
               | We are still animals in the animal kingdom. It's survival
               | of the fittest as long as resources are not infinite. You
               | can never expect this luxury. You are predator or prey.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | > You are predator or prey.
               | 
               | Nah, we're cells in a distributed super-organism, or
               | possibly a holobiont.
        
               | eric_cc wrote:
               | > The rate of change that AI forces upon us has never
               | before been experienced.
               | 
               | On what timeline?
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | IMO, any. It looks like an exponential curve, and for
               | those, rate of change is proportional to value.
        
               | michaelcampbell wrote:
               | > - The rate of change that AI forces upon us has never
               | before been experienced.
               | 
               | Sure, but I'd reckon on average, the rate of change at
               | time T has never before been experienced at any time < T.
        
               | deergomoo wrote:
               | > How else do you get influence and inspiration without
               | feeding other people's work into your own brain? Do you
               | know a single artist, writer, or musician who hasn't seen
               | other artists' paintings, read other writers' books, or
               | listened to other musician's music? Ingesting content is
               | the core of how influence, inspiration, and learning work
               | 
               | I am a human, alive and sentient. I can be held
               | responsible if my "inspirations" stray into theft. A
               | machine cannot, and it's increasingly looking like the
               | companies that operate the machines can't either.
               | 
               | I also can't churn out my inspired works at a rate that
               | displaces potentially everyone who has ever influenced
               | me.
               | 
               | > It's made creative pursuits accessible to billions who
               | previously didn't have the skill or time to do them well,
               | or the money to hire others. As a random example, I have
               | friends using ChatGPT to compose creative and
               | personalized poems and notes about each other. Not
               | something they were doing before
               | 
               | How on earth is using a machine to spit out a poem a
               | creative pursuit? There's no more creativity there than
               | watching a movie someone else made. It's entertaining,
               | yes, but it's not creativity.
               | 
               | > The camera lessened the need of people to go to plays
               | and pay for tickets to see things in person. Just like
               | records, CDs, and mp3s lessened the need to go to
               | concerts and shows
               | 
               | This doesn't hold water. Cinema did not eliminate theatre
               | just as records did not eliminate live music. In fact,
               | both are arguably as big now as they have ever been. The
               | technology here filled a new space, it didn't threaten to
               | throw everyone out of an existing one.
        
               | l33tman wrote:
               | I can't know if you've actually used these tools, but it
               | requires a pretty high level of creative mind to get them
               | to produce the content you're looking for. Maybe you as a
               | user of an LLM you don't need to be creative in the
               | _writing_ of words for example, but you instead need to
               | be creative in how you control the tools and pick the
               | right outputs, feed it back, copy /paste/cut it, change
               | stuff, extend it.. and the same with the image
               | generators. There's a HUGE amount of creative accessories
               | around them to manipulate and steer the process. There
               | might be less creativity needed with the pen, but it's
               | needed in other ways.
        
               | jitix wrote:
               | I don't see the advent of generative art any different
               | than when we moved from paper to photoshop.
               | 
               | For those unaware the vast majority of graphic artists
               | start their projects with assets and base images that
               | they themselves don't create. With generative ai you're
               | simply going one step further and have another new tool
               | create a more polished version that you can edit to
               | remove extra fingers, etc. It's simply moving the
               | baseline from 20% done to 60% done, which will result in
               | artists producing even higher fidelity and more detailed
               | art.
               | 
               | For example an artist could generate a bunch of scenes
               | using Sora and create a collage of them for a larger
               | piece of art, something that is prohibitively time
               | consuming right now.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | > I am a human, alive and sentient. I can be held
               | responsible if my "inspirations" stray into theft. A
               | machine cannot, and it's increasingly looking like the
               | companies that operate the machines can't either.
               | 
               | 150 years ago, Bertha Benz wasn't allowed to own property
               | or patents in her own right, because the law said so.
               | 
               | The specific reason a machine cannot be held responsible
               | today is because the law says so.
               | 
               | Also, dead humans' copyright is respected in law, so
               | "alive" isn't adding value to your argument here.
               | 
               | > I also can't churn out my inspired works at a rate that
               | displaces potentially everyone who has ever influenced
               | me.
               | 
               | I can't run faster than every athlete who has ever
               | inspired me, this argument does not prevent motor cars.
               | 
               | I can't write notes faster than the world record holder
               | in shorthand, this argument does not prevent the printing
               | press.
               | 
               | I can't play chess or go at even a mediocre level, this
               | argument does not prevent Stockfish or Alpha Go.
               | 
               | I can't hear the tonal differences in Chinese well enough
               | to distinguish "hello" from "mud trench", Zhe Ge Lun Dian
               | Bing Mei You Zu Zhi Gu Ge Fan Yi Xue Xi  "Ni Hao " He
               | "Ni Hao " Zhi Jian De Qu Bie .
               | 
               | I can't do arithmetic in my head faster than literally
               | all other humans combined even if they hadn't been
               | trained to the level of the current world record holder,
               | this argument does not prevent the original model of the
               | Raspberry Pi Zero.
               | 
               | "The machine is 'better', in one or more senses of the
               | word, than a human" is, in fact, _a reason to use the
               | machine_. It 's _the_ reason to use a machine. It 's _why
               | the machine is an economic threat_ -- but you can 't just
               | use "my income is threatened by this machine" as a reason
               | to prevent other people using the machine, just as I as a
               | software developer can't use that argument to stop other
               | people using LLMs to write code without hiring me.
               | 
               | > Cinema did not eliminate theatre just as records did
               | not eliminate live music. In fact, both are arguably as
               | big now as they have ever been.
               | 
               | You can argue that, but you'd be wrong.
               | 
               | Shakespeare wrote for normal everyday people, his stuff
               | fit into the category that today would be "TV soap
               | opera", where the audience was everyone rather than just
               | the well-off, where the only other public entertainment
               | was options were bear-baiting and public executions,
               | where the actors have very little time to rehearse, and
               | where "you're ripping off my ideas" was handled by
               | rapidly churning out new content.
               | 
               | Live music, without amplification, used to be the _only_
               | way to listen to music. Now, even if you see a live
               | performance, you can have 10k people in a single venue
               | listening to a single band... and if you want music in a
               | pub or a dance club, the most likely performance is from
               | a DJ rather than a band, and the  "D" stands for "disk"
               | because the actual content is pre-recorded -- and that's
               | not to say I would deny that DJ work is "creative", but
               | rather that it makes DJing exactly what critics accuse
               | GenAI of being, remixing of other people's work.
               | 
               | Which, now I think about it, is a description that would
               | also apply to all the modern performances of Shakespeare:
               | simply reusing someone else's creation without paying any
               | compensation to the estate.
               | 
               | But I know that will tickle you the wrong way, I know
               | that art is the peacock's tail of humans: the struggle,
               | the difficulty, is the point, and it has to be because
               | that's how we find people to start families with. Because
               | of that, GenAI is like being caught wearing a fake Rolex
               | watch, and you can't _actually_ defend that with logical
               | reasons such as  "real Rolex watches aren't very good at
               | keeping time compared to even a Casio F-91W let alone the
               | atomic clock synchronising with my phone", because logic
               | isn't the point, and never was the point.
        
               | eric_cc wrote:
               | Reading your opinion on the subject, I believe you're
               | struggling to make sense of what is happening. I suspect
               | there is a combination of factors here: you are
               | reinforcing a bias, can't wrap your head around it, don't
               | have much experience working with AI, haven't deeply
               | considered the evolution of the universe.
               | 
               | My recommendation: zoom out a little bit. Every step in
               | history is so brief and nothing is normal for long. Even
               | humanity is a blink.
               | 
               | Comments like: "how is using a machine to spit out a poem
               | creative". Really? How is using a digital camera creative
               | compared to painting. How is a painting creative compared
               | to etching? And on and on evolution goes..
        
               | caeril wrote:
               | > I also can't churn out my inspired works at a rate that
               | displaces potentially everyone who has ever influenced
               | me.
               | 
               | I'm with you, man. I'm still trying to find a lawyer who
               | will sue Kubota and John Deere for moving dirt at a rate
               | far superior to me and a shovel, but nobody will take my
               | case.
               | 
               | > How on earth is using a machine to spit out a poem a
               | creative pursuit?
               | 
               | 100%, man. Nobody is mentioning the magical fairy dust in
               | human brains that makes us superior to these models. When
               | I really like fantasy novels, and then train my neurons
               | on thousands of hours of reading Tolkien, Terry Brooks,
               | Brandon Sanderson, etc, and then I get the idea to write
               | my own fantasy series, my creative process doesn't draw
               | on my own model's training data at all. It's 100%
               | "creative", and I would produce exactly the same content
               | if I were illiterate. But these goddamned machines, man.
               | They don't have our special human fairy dust.
               | 
               | When we discovered the universal law of gravitation, and
               | realized that the laws of physics are omnipresent in our
               | universe, we put a giant asterisk to note that the laws
               | of physics are different inside humans. The epidermis is
               | a sort of barrier to physics, and within its confines,
               | magic happens, that these pro-AI people conveniently
               | "forget".
               | 
               | To paraphrase the eminent Human Unique Creative Person
               | Roger Penrose: "There's magical quantum shit goin down in
               | the microtubules. It's gotta be the microtubules. I
               | think, right? I can't prove it, but as a scientist, we
               | don't need proof. Making sure we think we are superior is
               | more important."
        
             | ben_w wrote:
             | > This is not "influence and inspiration", this is
             | companies feeding other people's work into a commercial
             | product which they sell access to. The product would be
             | useless without other people's work, therefore they should
             | be compensated.
             | 
             | Sure.
             | 
             | Who do we send the compensation to for Leonardo da Vinci?
             | Or Shakespeare, for a text-based example?
             | 
             | Do you want them to compensate _me_ for the stuff I
             | uploaded to Wikipedia and licensed as public domain, or
             | what I 've uploaded to GitHub with an MIT license?
             | 
             | A model trained only on licensed data is still an
             | existential threat to the incomes of people whose works
             | were never included in the model, precisely because they're
             | only useful to the extent that they generalise beyond their
             | own examples.
             | 
             | > The camera enabled something that was not possible
             | before, and I wasn't built by taking the work of sketch
             | artists and painters. It was an entirely new form of art
             | and media.
             | 
             | A new form of art that was (a) initially decried as "not
             | art", and (b) which almost completely ended the economic
             | value of portraiture.
        
           | jaystraw wrote:
           | my name is timothy basket -- you're saying people have stolen
           | my weave?!
           | 
           | end sarcasm. but seriously -- claiming you made something you
           | didn't isn't ok. but it happens, regardless of laws or
           | regulations or norms.
           | 
           | i don't have any solutions; the internet helps because you
           | can publish something and point to it. i'm a musician and
           | sometimes i only realize well after the fact how influenced i
           | was by something after the fact for a song i've written.
           | 
           | and of course, my precious baskets.
        
           | mihaic wrote:
           | I don't really want to weave baskets, that's what I'd want a
           | machine to do.
           | 
           | "The world doesn't work that way" - I've seen this so often,
           | but the most incredible thing about humans was the optimism
           | to be able to change how the world worked -- that's the main
           | impetus of most revolutions.
           | 
           | Personifying computer programs also is an error, it's like
           | saying that bombs kill people when there has to be a person
           | dropping them (at least until we get Skynet).
        
             | LoveMortuus wrote:
             | >I don't really want to weave baskets, that's what I'd want
             | a machine to do.
             | 
             | In my free time I like to code games, I don't have money to
             | pay for an artist, nor the time/will to learn how to draw,
             | that's what I'd want a machine to do.
             | 
             | I do agree with you that personifying computer programs is
             | an error. That's also why I avoid calling these AI, because
             | they're FAR from that. But I do believe that there will
             | come a day, where personifying a computer program will be a
             | real question.
        
           | pera wrote:
           | Artists do credit their teachers (Verrocchio in the case of
           | da Vinci), schools, sources of inspiration and influences, so
           | I'm confused by this comment.
           | 
           | What kind of acknowledgement did you have in mind?
        
             | s3p wrote:
             | What kind of acknowledgement should AI be giving?
        
               | jazzyjackson wrote:
               | if the producers of these models weren't incentivized to
               | hide their training data it would be almost trivial to at
               | least retrieve the images most similar to the content
               | produced
               | 
               | some images will be maximally distant from training
               | examples but midjourney repainting frames from "harry
               | potter" could very easily automatically send a check to
               | jk rowling per generation
               | 
               | these AI start ups are just trying to have a free lunch
               | in a very mature industry
        
             | spookybones wrote:
             | Yeah, some of these comments are clearly made by people who
             | don't actually know the history of art.
        
               | saagarjha wrote:
               | I'm not even sure the commenter knew who "the artist that
               | painted Mona Lisa" was when they made that comment.
        
           | jonplackett wrote:
           | da Vinci is a silly comparison. He is just one man. Even he
           | didn't have such great ability that he can put all other
           | artists out of business.
           | 
           | This is more like the invention of weaving machines. Yes we
           | still have weavers but no where near as many.
        
           | camillomiller wrote:
           | It is absolutely not the same, and saying so disregards
           | centuries of knowledge stratification. These machine produce
           | superficial artifacts that lack any layering of meaning of
           | semantic capital (see Luciano Floridi). They are the
           | byproduct of the engineering extremism and lack of humanities
           | knowledge of the people getting rich through their creation.
        
             | mlrtime wrote:
             | If what you say is true then people will still value non-
             | superficial artifacts.
             | 
             | However the mass produced semi-superficial artifact
             | creators that were being created before AI _will_ adapt or
             | suffer.
        
             | chefandy wrote:
             | Models learn exactly like artists, and also, for some
             | reason, the person that uses those models are artists
             | making art. Wait... Artists learn by passively ingesting
             | many millions pieces of media someone feeds them for the
             | non-specific purpose of "generating art" so some person who
             | wants to take credit for making the end piece can tell them
             | exactly what to make, right?
        
             | nostrebored wrote:
             | If the lack of humanities education is what allows us to
             | create the most abundance of art in human history, was that
             | education really worth it?
        
           | TaupeRanger wrote:
           | > The way these models are creative is the same way humans
           | are
           | 
           | We have no idea how human creativity works, but we know with
           | certainty that it doesn't involve a Python program sucking in
           | pixel data and outputting statistical likelihoods.
        
             | jerojero wrote:
             | You know, Ive seen people do amazing things with math
             | equations. Beautiful visualisations.
             | 
             | As these tools improve and it becomes more possible for us
             | to actually take our ideas into images and videos that fit
             | a sort of "yes this is what I want" bill we are going to
             | see amazing things come out.
             | 
             | I mean, a few days ago I saw this clearly AI generated
             | video of some wizards doing snowboard and having a blast in
             | the mountains. It's one of the funniest things I've seen in
             | a while, simply so ridiculous. Obviously someone had the
             | idea "I want to make a video of wizards doing snowboard in
             | a mountain" that's where creativity lies.
             | 
             | So to say "creativity doesn't involve a python program
             | outputting statistical likelihoods" imo is just you saying
             | you're not creative enough to know what to do with the
             | tools you've been given.
             | 
             | Some people when they see a strawberry they see a fruit.
             | Others see endless dishes where the fruit is just an
             | ingredient.
        
               | jazzyjackson wrote:
               | rude
               | 
               | obviously you can use python to create works of art
               | 
               | whether a python script can itself be creative is the
               | question posed by OP, but you went with "you're just not
               | creative enough to get it"
        
             | ben_w wrote:
             | Those Python programs are (loosely) inspired by how organic
             | brains work.
             | 
             | (I still have on my to-do list "learn more about why
             | Hebbian learning is different from gradient descent and how
             | much those differences matter").
        
             | eric_cc wrote:
             | We do have, at the very least, an idea about how human
             | creativity works and it is an input output pattern.
        
               | goatlover wrote:
               | That's a meaningless statement. Any interacting physical
               | system is an "input output" pattern, as long as you're
               | only looking at the inputs and outputs. Behaviorism fell
               | out of favor for a reason. It's whats transforming inputs
               | and creating outputs that matters. For that matter, you
               | need to be able to define what an input and an output is
               | for humans, given that we have bodies.
        
           | spunker540 wrote:
           | I agree and actually think the camera was definitely more
           | disruptive to artists than this AI stuff, and somehow the
           | camera didn't kill artists.
        
           | reactordev wrote:
           | "whose existence and names we will never know or
           | acknowledge."
           | 
           | That's the problem. We know their names. We know their
           | stories, their contributions. Babbage. Lovelace. Ritchie.
           | Spielberg. Picasso. Rembrandt. This is what giving
           | attribution is all about. So we don't just stand there asking
           | how we got here.
        
           | soperj wrote:
           | This is nonsense, people give credit to their influences all
           | the time.
        
             | nostrebored wrote:
             | To the influences that they know. Our brain isn't an
             | attribution machine. When a musician recreates a chord
             | progression that they've heard before without noticing it,
             | is that theft?
             | 
             | If a comedian accidentally retells a joke, is that theft?
             | 
             | Our influences are subtle and often inscrutable.
        
           | goatlover wrote:
           | > The world doesn't work that way.
           | 
           | The human world works that way humans make it work. Pretty
           | much what Jody Foster's character in the movie Contact told
           | that asshole trying to steal all the credit from her, and
           | take her place in the mission to go visit alien dad in
           | Pensacola.
        
           | IAmGraydon wrote:
           | >The way these models are creative is the same way humans
           | are. The artist that painted Mona Lisa didn't credit any of
           | the influences and inspirations that they had.
           | 
           | I'm continually amazed at how many people argue against this
           | point on HN, which is largely biased toward logical
           | discourse. What you just said is exactly right, and is the
           | Achilles heel of the legal arguments against generative AI.
           | If what they are doing illegal, then so is the human act of
           | creativity. If human creativity is legal, then so is
           | generative AI trained on existing art.
           | 
           | What has yet to come is the mass realization (or perhaps,
           | admission) that the way AI works is no different from the way
           | we work.
        
         | high_priest wrote:
         | Haven't we always attributed creations to people, to motivate
         | our own egos to pursue higher achievements in the name if
         | "glory"? With vision of wealth attributed to fame? Forgive me
         | for being cynical here, but this is how I always viewed the
         | world. Names are... just this, names. Things we use to
         | communicate some ideas/phenomena, but are irrelevant in scope
         | of endless evolution. And can function just aswell with some
         | other "identifier" attached to it.
         | 
         | I have come to terms with the fact, that I'm just a spit of
         | sand, just as irrelevant to my own creation, as I am to the
         | cells and bacteria that create me.
        
           | mihaic wrote:
           | If you truly feel like a grain of sand, that's your choice,
           | but won't you help us that don't feel that way, if it won't
           | do you any harm?
           | 
           | I for one do feel really special, as for every human there
           | are about as many bacteria as there are stars in the universe
           | (give or take a bit).
        
           | digging wrote:
           | I suspect chasing glory is the main driver yes, but we also
           | like to understand _how things came to be_ , and by knowing
           | who made them and when and where we can do that. AI is
           | ushering in a dark age of attribution where we may no longer
           | be able to know how anything came to be after it's spit out
           | of a computer. (I mean dark age as in "it's dark and we can't
           | see," like the Greek Dark Ages or Dark Matter, not in the
           | sense of "times are bad".)
        
         | melagonster wrote:
         | The creators just don't care humans haha. I don't know why
         | people still learning communications, writing, art or any other
         | crafts. everything will be displaced by next AI.
        
           | bamboozled wrote:
           | I mean why do kids go to school, why learn anything at all I
           | guess?
        
             | test6554 wrote:
             | I believe people will learn, but they will learn more at a
             | lower price.
        
         | war321 wrote:
         | As said every time this "why are we automating creativity when
         | menial jobs exist?" response comes up:
         | 
         | 1) Errors in art programs messing up is less worrisome than a
         | physical robot. One going wrong makes extra fingers in a
         | picture, the other potentially maims or kills you.
         | 
         | 2) Moravec's Paradox. Reasoning requires little computation
         | versus sensorimotor and perception.
         | 
         | 3) Despite 1 and 2, we are constantly automating menial jobs!
        
           | reubenmorais wrote:
           | Classifying image generation and manipulation as "art
           | programs" is the most beneficial possible reading of it. When
           | you use them to generate disinformation, incitement and
           | propaganda, they are potentially maiming and killing humans.
           | This failure mode is well known, the mitigations ineffective,
           | yet here we are, about to take another leap forward after a
           | performative period of "red teaming" where some mitigation
           | work happens but the harsher criticism is brushed off as
           | paranoiac.
        
             | scotty79 wrote:
             | Disinformation is art. Art is disinformation.
        
             | thegrimmest wrote:
             | I couldn't disagree more strongly that disinformation,
             | incitement, or propaganda maim and kill people. People kill
             | other people. Don't give killers an avenue to abdicate
             | responsibility for their actions. Propaganda doesn't cause
             | anyone to do anything. It may convince them, but those are
             | entirely separate things with a clear, bright line between
             | them. Best not mix them up.
        
         | adabaed wrote:
         | We have been on this path for centuries. Compare the symphonies
         | of 200 years ago with our current music or painting. We humans
         | prefer quantity over quality.
        
           | wruza wrote:
           | I see nice paintings (not black squares or abstract nonsense)
           | like all the time. Feels like more people can paint at the
           | level of "classics" now. Of course they cannot surpass the
           | deeper meaning of the originals, because they aren't dead yet
           | and there's no mystery and legacy around their names. But
           | otherwise they are pretty good at making cool pics.
        
             | boppo1 wrote:
             | Find me 15 painters who have non-digital works at this
             | level of scale/detail:
             | 
             | https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436482
             | 
             | I suspect you will struggle. The economics for that sort of
             | work don't exist anymore.
        
           | flkenosad wrote:
           | > We humans prefer quantity over quality.
           | 
           | Speak for yourself.
        
         | bamboozled wrote:
         | They manage it by meeting with Sam Altman while he runs around
         | in incredibly expensive suits and tells them he will open an
         | office in their country so they will all benefit.
        
         | vin047 wrote:
         | Yeah we all thought machines would automate menial labour
         | allowing us to focus on creativity and passion. Looks like it's
         | the exact opposite.
        
           | brtkdotse wrote:
           | To be fair, generating stock images and videos and writing
           | listicle blog post is pretty menial labour.
        
             | posterguy wrote:
             | not really
        
           | DiscourseFan wrote:
           | Humans are still cheaper than robots for some tasks...
        
             | flkenosad wrote:
             | Not for long...
        
           | wruza wrote:
           | It's too early to close the bets. Arts (I mean, drawn porn)
           | was just the easiest to kickstart from all the tech that the
           | invention of modern ML and GPUs will enable.
           | 
           | It doesn't look the opposite, it looks it automated even what
           | we all couldn't think of, and did that first.
        
           | hackerlight wrote:
           | Most labor is being automated within the next few decades.
           | It'll be a post-labor world with one less factor of
           | production. Capital and land ownership is all that will
           | matter assuming we don't completely redesign our economic and
           | political system. Pretty scary.
           | 
           | My one hope is that the price of goods becomes so low due to
           | AGI/automation, that the uselessness of labor in the economy
           | won't matter. People can still be materially prosperous even
           | with a meagre UBI (and it will be meagre because people have
           | no political power in a post-labor society where the only
           | thing that matters is capital).
        
             | Frost1x wrote:
             | >Capital and land ownership is all that will matter
             | assuming we don't completely redesign our economic and
             | political system. Pretty scary.
             | 
             | Agreed. My concern isn't really remotely about any of the
             | accomplishments of generative AI. Frankly in my daily life
             | I'd welcome readily available access. As it stands now it's
             | sort of a mixture of analytics and creativity without
             | consciousness as we best understand it, so GPT itself isn't
             | going to murder me and take over the world.
             | 
             | The real issue is who owns these things, how you access
             | them, how effects will ripple through a labor based
             | economy, and how we'll adapt (or not) our current economic
             | system. As it stands for awhile we've been catering to the
             | capital ownership group. If that doesn't have a change in
             | direction then I fear the implications of much of this in
             | daily life. There's still a fair bit of specialization and
             | domain knowledge needed to leverage these tools to
             | understand the questions to ask (I.e prompts to generate
             | both around LLMs and the context of information fed to
             | them) but they can certainly in many cases behave as
             | multipliers that could reduce the amount of staff needed in
             | some creative roles or eliminate some all together.
             | 
             | This isnt a new dilemma as arguably technology has been
             | shifting the labor market for centuries, the question is
             | how and if it can reshape well this time or if we need to
             | fundamentally rethink these concepts of labor and capital
             | ownership. That's my major concern.
        
             | mathverse wrote:
             | It's the opposite. Price of goods is becoming more and more
             | expensive due to larger demand and lower salaries.
        
               | hackerlight wrote:
               | > It's the opposite. Price of goods is becoming more and
               | more expensive due to larger demand and lower salaries.
               | 
               | We're discussing a hypothetical post-labor future in 5-40
               | years. We probably shouldn't predict the economic theory
               | of this future by looking at recent trends. Recent trends
               | are driven by business-as-usual things like supply chain
               | disruptions. But we're still near full employment, so
               | we're not on the gradient to realized post-labor just
               | yet. Post-labor economics (and politics) will probably be
               | radically different, all the economic assumptions we take
               | for granted go out the window.
        
               | iamthirsty wrote:
               | Salaries have actually been increasing -- at least in the
               | U.S. overall.
        
             | throwuwu wrote:
             | Honestly, I don't think the unemployment rate will change
             | much. Humans are great at inventing things to do and if
             | other people see those things as valuable they will pay for
             | them. I do think the world will look very different, maybe
             | even unrecognizable but it's not going to be full of people
             | doing nothing.
        
         | whywhywhywhy wrote:
         | Wish I could go back in time and tell myself to not bother
         | learning how to do any of this stuff the old fashioned way.
        
         | erur wrote:
         | I feel like a lot of that frustration comes from seeing "arts
         | and culture" as the pinnacle of anything when maybe it's just
         | an overvalued side-effect of human wiring to avoid boredom.
         | 
         | Imho. it's just really hard to reason that average non-
         | educational entertainment has a positive net effect on global
         | society.
         | 
         | Seeing it this way makes it way less surprising that "art" and
         | "creative entertainment" is one of the first things that gets
         | hit by automation.
        
           | boppo1 wrote:
           | Painter/illustrator here. I mostly agree with you. I often
           | have wondered if what I do is a total waste of time, long
           | before generative models showed up. My close childhood peers
           | became doctors and engineers, and there just isn't any
           | comparison about our contributions to society. People get all
           | whimsical when I bring this up and say "but what about the
           | [spirit/feelings/blah]. I'm clear eyed about it though. If I
           | could go back & re-roll my character sheet (i.e. slap my
           | younger self into realizing STEM is cool while those doors
           | were still open), I certainly would.
           | 
           | However, there's a line somewhere. I've spent most of my life
           | around drab midwestern utilitarian/corporate/commercial
           | buildings, and it has been noticeably depressing. In the
           | periods where I've spent time in beautiful buildings, I have
           | felt much better. Based on anecdata, I'm not the only one.
           | There's something important & essential for humans about
           | ornamentation & beauty. It's more than entertainment.
           | 
           | Humans can live on rice and kidney beans, but if one must do
           | so _without hope for more tasty options[0]_ it is
           | demoralizing.
           | 
           | [0] lots of people are happy with spartan diets, but most
           | often those people are doing so by choice.
           | 
           | H
        
             | flkenosad wrote:
             | Are those doors not still open today? Engineering schools
             | take mature students.
        
           | mlrtime wrote:
           | You don't have to feel it, millions of people start painting
           | or other artistic endeavors when retiring. Most of the time
           | the [market] value is close to 0. AI does nothing here.
           | 
           | Anecdote: My grandma retired and started painting and has
           | since passed. The market value of these paintings is 0,
           | nobody would buy them as they are just average. But I will
           | never get rid of them because she created it. They have value
           | to me only.
        
         | brookst wrote:
         | Think of your favorite musicians. How many of them give
         | attribution to where each musical idea came from?
         | 
         | The concept of art as exclusive property is very new.
         | Throughout history, artists have built on one another's works
         | with no attribution or provenance. It's really just the past
         | 100 years -- Disney, specifically - that have created the
         | cultural mindset that the first person to express something
         | owns it forever and everyone else has to pay them for the
         | privilege of building that next work.
         | 
         | BTW I'm old enough to remember people decrying the rise of
         | desktop publishing ("WYSIWYG") as the automation of creativity.
         | 
         | I share your disdain for the geriatric political class, but I
         | strongly disagree that this is a situation that needs to be
         | managed. I say we let the arts return to the free for all they
         | were for the fist 80,000 years or whatever.
        
           | geraneum wrote:
           | > Think of your favorite musicians. How many of them give
           | attribution to where each musical idea came from?
           | 
           | Great many, if you care to read a bit more of the
           | biographies, autographies, history of music books,
           | interviews, blogs, etc.
        
             | scotty79 wrote:
             | At some point we'll probably have insight into learning
             | data of AI. For now copyright makes that super hard.
        
               | pclmulqdq wrote:
               | In what sense does copyright make attribution of that
               | data so hard?
               | 
               | Is it because people are violating copyrights to train
               | these AIs?
        
               | brookst wrote:
               | How can training violate copyright? Is reading a book
               | also violation? My understanding was that copyright was
               | about reproduction, not consumption.
        
               | testermelon wrote:
               | It was about unfairly compensated usage, not limited to
               | reproduction.
        
           | scotty79 wrote:
           | I especially like how Gorillaz artist admits the main hook of
           | their breakaway success song was a rock preset on some niche
           | electronic synthesizer.
        
             | skriticos2 wrote:
             | I'd be very skeptical that AI would worsen the situation
             | with music. For example, many pop music titles in last
             | decades incorporate the same millennial whoop over and over
             | and over again. I seriously stopped following pop music a
             | long time ago and I can't imagine that AI can make it any
             | more generic if it tried. I don't see a threat for non-
             | generic indie music. AI is good at the generic stuff, as it
             | usually statistically averages out the inputs.
        
           | fipar wrote:
           | " Think of your favorite musicians. How many of them give
           | attribution to where each musical idea came from?"
           | 
           | Certainly not for every individual idea, but good musicians
           | do a lot of attribution. I got to know a lot of music I love
           | now after following a mention on the liner notes of another
           | musician's album, or having them mentioned in an interview.
        
             | brookst wrote:
             | Aren't liner notes the moral equivalent of OpenAI
             | mentioning some source material used for training?
             | 
             | People seem to be asking for much more direct attribution:
             | the pixels in this image are 0.02% from artist X, and
             | 0.006% from artist Y, etc.
             | 
             | It is very rare for a song to include a breakdown of all of
             | the influences that the artist is exercising in that
             | particular piece.
        
               | internet101010 wrote:
               | How you are describing that percentage breakdown is how I
               | see this all playing out legally, such that royalty for
               | IP holder = (tags in prompt)/(count of same tags in
               | training data). I am oversimplifying this obviously but
               | you get the idea. This approach would require collective
               | effort of major IP holders but if record labels and
               | streamers can figure out revenue pooling I don't see why
               | it can't work elsewhere.
        
               | fipar wrote:
               | If the source material was mentioned for every generated
               | image then I think it would be more like what you say. No
               | percentages needed since that's not something we used to
               | get from liner notes either.
        
           | jazzyjackson wrote:
           | when nirvana played MTV unplugged they mostly played covers
           | from bands that influenced them
           | 
           | also no, disney did not invent the notion of authorship nor
           | royalties. having enough honor not to take credit for someone
           | else's work goes back millennia. attribution goes back
           | millennia, otherwise we wouldn't know the names Sophocles,
           | Aeschylus, Euripides.
           | 
           | Don't get me started on the pharaohs, mother fuckers loved
           | carving their names into things.
        
         | scotty79 wrote:
         | I think turning human creativity into industry was huge
         | mistake.
         | 
         | I welcome its fall.
        
           | flkenosad wrote:
           | For sure. It's only being kept alive by ritual sacrifice
           | these days.
        
         | yakito wrote:
         | Automatizing creativity, some claim, is an endeavor akin to
         | catching smoke with bare hands--futile, if not utterly
         | fanciful. Yet, I can't help but ponder over the peculiar ballet
         | of human ingenuity and mechanical precision. Consider for a
         | moment, this strange juncture we find ourselves at, a place
         | where the tools crafted by our own hands begin to sketch the
         | outlines of what could very well be new breeds of creativity.
         | 
         | Let's muse on the notion that creativity, as we've known and
         | cherished it, can be bottled up and dispensed by machines, up
         | to a certain whimsical point. Beyond that? We stumble upon
         | creations like these, novel tools that beckon us, the flesh-
         | and-blood creators, to mold unforeseen "creativities." It's one
         | spectacle to mechanize the known realms of artistic endeavor,
         | quite another to boldly claim that machines shall inherit the
         | mantle of creativity, henceforth dictating the contours of all
         | future artistic landscapes.
         | 
         | History, that grand tapestry, is peppered with instances where
         | the mechanical muses have dared to tread upon the sacred
         | grounds of creativity. Take photography, for instance, a marvel
         | of the 19th century that promised to capture reality with an
         | accuracy that scoffed at the painter's brush. Or consider the
         | digital revolution, which flung open the doors to realms of
         | visual and auditory experiences previously consigned to the
         | realm of dreams. The synthesizer, not merely an instrument but
         | a portal, has ushered us into a new era of musical exploration,
         | challenging the supremacy of the acoustic tradition.
         | 
         | Each of these milestones, while distinctly modern, echoes the
         | age-old dance between creator and tool, where each step forward
         | is both a continuation and a departure from the past. In this
         | light, the question isn't whether creativity can be automated,
         | but rather how our definition of creativity evolves as we, hand
         | in hand with our mechanical counterparts, stride into the
         | unknown.
        
           | activitypea wrote:
           | yaaaaawn
        
           | TheRealDunkirk wrote:
           | So... you fed the GP comment into some LLM, and it produced
           | this meaningless pablum?
        
         | panagathon wrote:
         | This reads a little hysterical to me. It's just a new medium of
         | expression. Who knows, maybe the lack of genuine artistic
         | merit, if there is such a thing, would lead more people to
         | watch Jim Jarmusch flicks.
        
           | seanw444 wrote:
           | It's impressive how much hysteria I absorb from this site.
           | Maybe I need a break.
        
         | kajumix wrote:
         | I didn't go to film school or had any training in creative
         | arts. I love the fact that I will have an outlet for creative
         | expression where my text can generate image, video and sound. I
         | can iterate over them, experiment with visualizations, and get
         | better without technical barriers. Generative AI is making
         | everyone an artist as well as a coder
        
           | threetonesun wrote:
           | You could take your phone and film something outside your
           | house in an interesting way and I'd probably argue that's
           | more "art" than whatever glorified stock video AI generates
           | for you. I'm interested where the tooling can go in the long
           | run - can I scribble a picture of a cat and have it turned
           | into an accurate 3D model, then have AI animate it based on
           | text? That would be neat. Text prompts into "something"
           | isn't, to me.
        
         | namlem wrote:
         | I disagree. I think this is going to empower creatives like
         | never before. Filmmaking currently takes a huge amount of time
         | and money. Countless would be filmmakers are relegated to
         | making 30 second tiktoks because that's all they can afford to
         | do. This could change all that.
        
           | marcc wrote:
           | Exactly this. Art changes over time. The mediums that we use
           | to express ourselves creatively evolves. The position that AI
           | is the end of creative art isn't taking this evolution into
           | account.
           | 
           | When video became an affordable medium, would people say
           | "this is the end of art, live performances are art. Now the
           | people will just watch the same recordings over and over?"
           | Maybe, if the internet existed. But it's had the effect of
           | creating and introducing new art forms.
           | 
           | AI generated content won't replace art. It will evolve it to
           | a new creative.
        
           | daniel_reetz wrote:
           | But an equally likely future is tiktok/insta generate all the
           | videos. After all, they can afford the hardware and they
           | understand how to be addictive.
        
         | throwaway98797 wrote:
         | take shakespeare, he borrowed from so many and yet most people
         | don't know
         | 
         | a few examples
         | 
         | Plutarch's Lives
         | 
         | Holinshed's Chronicles
         | 
         | Ovid's Metamorphoses
         | 
         | good artist copy, great artist steal
         | 
         | so on and worth
         | 
         | i, for one, welcome these creative machines slurping all that
         | was created!
        
         | PeterStuer wrote:
         | Let's go beyond the philosophical. Which sources would you
         | expect the "woman walks through Tokyo" video to attribute?
        
         | MichaelDickens wrote:
         | Today, only a highly privileged slice of the population can
         | make a living making art. Nearly everyone who enjoys making art
         | can't make a living off of it, and even the vast majority of
         | people trying to do it full time still can't make ends meet
         | (hence the cliche of the starving artist). But everyone can
         | make art as a hobby if they'd like, that's what almost all
         | artists do, and that will continue to be true as AI advances.
         | 
         | So I don't see AI art as changing careers much. Even if AI
         | fully replaces human artists, all that means is the 0.1% of
         | people who make a career off their art will have to join the
         | rest of us 99.9% who only do art for the fun of it.
        
           | ddbb33 wrote:
           | Creative fields encompasses much more than art creation.
        
           | mezeek wrote:
           | You sound like "making art" is only the painter in his
           | Brooklyn studio. But it's video game designers, movie
           | animators, videographers, graphic artists, and more that work
           | in agencies and marketing departments of all companies that
           | will be affected.
        
             | ben_w wrote:
             | Those are _mostly_ not well paid roles[0], and there are
             | clearly many hobbyists in these areas also -- looking at
             | YouTube, all output is necessarily videography or
             | animation, but what 's the income distribution? I have a
             | channel, no money from it (not that this was ever the
             | point).
             | 
             | [0] Unless you're doing furry art, but that's only because
             | furries are "suspiciously wealthy".
        
           | digging wrote:
           | > Today, only a highly privileged slice of the population can
           | make a living making art.
           | 
           | I think this is less true than it's been in centuries or
           | perhaps all of history. Artistry is widespread, anyone can do
           | it, and many choose to pursue it even though the pay isn't
           | going to be great; in preindustrial times even having access
           | to the ability to create art was quite limited as were the
           | media types that existed.
        
         | underlipton wrote:
         | Proactively splitting up the menial tasks so that everyone is
         | doing a little bit, inasmuch as they are able to, for a few
         | hours a day, a few days a week, and getting paid a full-living
         | wage for it seems like the way to go. Or, everyone pulls a Xiu
         | Xiang from Rainbows End and goes back to high school.
         | 
         | The main obstacle to this is the pride and ego of the people
         | who've "made it" up until now. Let go. Let society have nice
         | things, even if _you_ have to reinvent yourself. I don 't think
         | that creativity is endangered; art, uh, finds a way.
        
         | cdelsolar wrote:
         | Why is the machine monstrous?
        
         | mengibar10 wrote:
         | This is a similar problem manuscript duplicating workers in the
         | Ottoman realm. The printing machines would take their job, but
         | they resisted and lobbied against it in the courts of the
         | sultan. They succeeded in delaying the adoption of printing for
         | some time for the detriment of the people. Unfortunately, this
         | has been the history of man and technology destroying something
         | for the better or worse.
         | 
         | Some twisted the story as if the underlying issue was the
         | religion but economic concerns were the real reason.
        
         | ben_w wrote:
         | > Creativity being automated while humans are forced to perform
         | menial tasks for minimum wage doesn't seem like a great future
         | and the geriatric political class has absolutely no clue how to
         | manage the situation.
         | 
         | May I introduce you to the entire history of humanity between 7
         | millennia before the invention of writing to approximately 50
         | years after the invention of communism? :P
         | 
         | More seriously: yes, we have no clue how to manage the
         | situation. The best guess right now is UBI, which looks cool,
         | but then at a first glance so does communism and laissez-faire
         | capitalism.
         | 
         | Time for, ironically because humans are surprisingly bad at
         | this, a _creative_ idea for how to manage all this.
        
         | rmbyrro wrote:
         | I used to have the same view. Watching "Everything is a Remix"
         | [1] helped me broaden my perspective.
         | 
         | [1] https://youtu.be/nJPERZDfyWc
        
           | mihaic wrote:
           | I watched that many years ago, but still see a difference
           | here. Everything was a remix made by humans that put in their
           | unique selves into the remixing process.
           | 
           | An AI model has no "unique self" to add to creation, at least
           | not as we've understood so far.
        
         | thiscatis wrote:
         | Have you ever danced or even just enjoyed listening to Daft
         | Punk?
        
         | moritonal wrote:
         | A part of the book Look to Windward by Ian M. Banks wrote of
         | this. How the machine minds could comfortably write opera's
         | greater than any man, but still humans would go to the theatre,
         | just to appreciate it, but the impact was recognised in
         | society. Of course that world was based on post-scarcity whilst
         | we are not.
        
         | leovingi wrote:
         | Machines can reliably beat humans at chess. Has that stopped
         | anyone from playing? Has it stopped anyone from watching chess
         | tournaments?
        
           | suprxd wrote:
           | I guess when you know why and how of something it doesn't
           | feel surprising anymore. That's why two computers playing
           | chess is not a fun event. People would however watch two
           | humans playing even if their moves are secretly controlled by
           | a machine. In contrast the generative content if (and will)
           | reach indistinguishable levels, I doubt majority of people
           | would care if a machine created it or a human? The biggest
           | problem with AI which is disguised as its pros is that it is
           | reachable to anyone and everyone and can be used as a weapon.
        
         | legohead wrote:
         | Your argument is similar to the classic hand vs. power tools
         | argument in crafting, which eventually boils down to "did you
         | mine the ore and forge the tools yourself?" Nowadays the
         | argument is about CNC vs. hand crafting.
         | 
         | This is just a point in our overall evolution. It's an exciting
         | time. We are here to learn and adapt.
         | 
         | Humans can still be creative all they want. There's still the
         | stamp of "created by a human" that will never go away. You can
         | choose to respect it or ignore it.
        
           | eric_cc wrote:
           | > will never go away
           | 
           | Nothing is forever. It's unlikely unmodified Homo sapiens are
           | dominant on earth 1,000 years from now.
        
           | d0mine wrote:
           | > never go away
           | 
           | It reminds me: centaurs (human+AI) in chess/go were better
           | than either humans or AI just for a short time.
           | 
           | People still play chess but they are outclassed by modern AI.
        
             | halinc wrote:
             | True, but while the 'best' chess is played by computers,
             | few people care to watch Stockfish playing with itself.
             | Meanwhile the human-powered chess world is enjoying a surge
             | in popularity.
        
             | j-wags wrote:
             | > centaurs (human+AI) in chess/go were better than either
             | humans or AI just for a short time.
             | 
             | I was having a conversation about this with a friend last
             | weekend, and we'd assumed that centaurs were still better
             | than either top humans or top computers. I'm unable to
             | easily find this info on google, could you share where you
             | saw that centaurs are no longer better than top computers?
        
           | mihaic wrote:
           | I see a shallow analogy that isn't true to me on close
           | inspection.
           | 
           | To me, human activities from which we can earn a living wage
           | feels like nomadism as the edge of an ever expanding region
           | of agriculture (technological automation in this case). When
           | you lose some activities to automation, we've always found
           | new ones until now. In the end though, there were no more
           | pastures for nomads to move, and there will be no more new
           | activities from which humans can earn a wage (not to mention
           | the satisfaction of accomplishing something hard). And, while
           | there might be a future with UBI for everyone, the transition
           | seems rough and exploitative.
        
         | arendtio wrote:
         | > This is both amazing and saddening to me. All our cultural
         | legacy is being fed into a monstrous machine that gives no
         | attribution to the original content with which it was fed, and
         | so the creative industry seems to be in great danger.
         | 
         | It is the same as what every human being is doing. We consume
         | and we create. Sometimes creations are very good, but most of
         | the time they are just mediocre. If the machines can create
         | better average results, it will be due to the genius of the
         | humans who invented those machines.
         | 
         | So we can be happy, that we have such beings among us and
         | should cherish, that we will have better content to consume in
         | the future. When you look at the world, you will see, that
         | there are still plenty of problems to be solved for humans.
        
         | robomartin wrote:
         | > the geriatric political class has absolutely no clue how to
         | manage the situation.
         | 
         | OK, well, you walked right into this one:
         | 
         | You must know the answer: How do you manage it?
        
         | michaelcampbell wrote:
         | Yes and no; I mean there are still painters around and we still
         | appreciate their skill in the world of photographs. Sometimes
         | it's only marginally about the finished product, but also about
         | the work to make it.
        
         | honkycat wrote:
         | In the same way the "organic" movement took over food, and we
         | want to feel human skill and touch in what we are consuming, I
         | think we will see a similar swing in media.
         | 
         | People invest in stories. They also invest in other people.
         | This is why people love seeing Tom Cruise over and over again
         | in movies. Or why I'm going to go see the next Scorsese movie.
         | 
         | Reality television is designed to be addicting, and engaging,
         | and it is very successful at that. I get pulled into The
         | storylines whenever I watch. But I quickly turn it off. I don't
         | watch it not because it is not enjoyable, but because I realize
         | it is a cotton candy: empty trash that is not worth my time.
         | 
         | Artists are already often criticized for being "corporate." I
         | think we'll see a similar effect for AI generated content. The
         | hoi polloi and normies will slurp it up.
         | 
         | The true fans and passionate ones who give a shit aren't going
         | to be fooled.
         | 
         | Edit: for length
        
       | globular-toast wrote:
       | This might actually ruin video and films for me. I don't want to
       | be looking out for AI giveaways in everything I watch.
       | 
       | I can see a new market for true end-to-end analogue film
       | productions emerging for people who like film.
        
         | danielbln wrote:
         | Eh, it's like watching out for VFX giveaways.
        
       | tokai wrote:
       | Even the good ones look kinda bad.
        
       | steveBK123 wrote:
       | Genuinely impressive.
       | 
       | I've always been a digital stills guy, and dabbled in video.. as
       | a hobby. As a hobbyist, I always found the hardest thing is
       | making something worth looking at. I don't see AI displacing the
       | pleasure of the art for a hobbyist.
       | 
       | My next guess is the 80/20% or 95/5% problem is gonna be stuff
       | like dialogue matching audio and mouth/face motion.
       | 
       | I do see this kind of stuff killing the stock images / media
       | illustrator / b-roll footage / etc jobs.
       | 
       | Could a content mill pump out plausibly decent Netflix video
       | series given this tool and a couple half decent writers.. maybe?
       | Then again it may be the perpetual "5 years away". There's a wide
       | gap between generating filler content & producing something
       | people choose to watch willingly for entertainment.
        
       | Lichtso wrote:
       | Here is my prediction of how this will play out for the
       | entertainment industry in the coming decades:
       | 
       | Phase 1 (we are here now): While generative AI is not good enough
       | to directly produce parts of the final product, it can already be
       | used to quickly prototype styles, stories, designs, moods, etc. A
       | good chunk of the unnamed behind-the-scenes-people will loose
       | their job.
       | 
       | Phase 2: While generative AI is still expensive, the output
       | quality is sufficient to directly produce parts of / the entire
       | final product. Big production outlets will use it to produce AAA
       | titles and blockbusters. Even actors, directors and other high
       | publicity positions will be replaced.
       | 
       | Phase 3: The production cost will sink further until it becomes
       | attainable by smaller studios and indie productions. The already
       | fierce markets will be completely flooded with more and more
       | quantity over quality. Advertisement will not be pre-produced and
       | cut into videos anymore but become very subtle product
       | placements, impossible for ad-blockers to strip from the product.
       | 
       | Phase 4: Once the production cost falls below the price of one
       | copy of the product, we will get completely customized
       | entertainment products tailored to our personal taste. Online
       | communities will emerge which craft skeletons / templates which
       | then are filled out by the personal parameter sets of the
       | consumers. That way you can still share the experience with
       | friends even though everybody experiences a different variation.
       | 
       | Phase 5: As consumers do not hit any production limits any more
       | (e.g. binge watch their favorite series ad infinitum) and the
       | product becomes optimized to be maximally addictive by measuring
       | their reaction to it, it will become impossible for most human
       | beings to resist. The entertainment mania will reach its peak and
       | social isolation, health issues and economic factors will bring
       | down the human reproduction rate to basically zero.
       | 
       | Phase 6: Human civilization collapsed within one or two
       | generations and the only survivors will be extremely technology-
       | adverse people by selection. AGI might have happened in the
       | meantime but did not have the time to gracefully take over and
       | remodel the human infrastructure to become self sufficient.
       | Instead a strict religion will rule the lands and the dark ages
       | begin anew.
       | 
       | Note that none of this is new, it is just the continuation and
       | intensification of already existing trends. This is also not AGI
       | doomerism as it does not involve a malicious AGI gone rouge or
       | anything like that. It is simply what happens when human nature
       | meets powerful technology.
       | 
       | TLDR: While I love the technology I can only see very negative
       | long-term outcomes from this.
        
       | generagent wrote:
       | This is machine simulated art. It is not a convincing simulation
       | to videographers, yet it pleases software architects and other
       | non-visual artists. Aptitude for visual art making provokes envy
       | in some who lack it. The drive to simulate art is almost as
       | common as the desire to be recognized as a capable visual artist.
       | The most interesting generative art I've seen does not attempt
       | verisimilitude. Children want their art to look real.
       | Verisimilitude is hard, especially for children and quasi AI.
        
       | slowturtle wrote:
       | I can't wait for the day I can strap on my Apple(r) Vision Pro(r)
       | 9 with OpenAI(r) integration and spend all my time interfacing (
       | _wink_ ) with my virtual girlfriend. Sure my unlit 3 by 3 meter
       | LifePod(r) is a little cramped and my arm itches from the
       | Soylent(r) IV drip, but I'll save so much time by not having to
       | go outside and interact with legacy humans!
        
         | 0xRusty wrote:
         | Strap it on? Haven't you heard? The vison pro 9 will be a chip
         | grown on your retina.
        
           | machiaweliczny wrote:
           | Vision pro 10 will be interfacing with your brain using your
           | life simulation for it's own computations. Wait what?
        
             | sgt wrote:
             | Elon Musk says hi.
        
               | mr_sturd wrote:
               | Think happy thoughts to reply.
        
         | seydor wrote:
         | That sounds like a nightmare! You have to buy so many products,
         | you have to keep them charged and you re still missing on so
         | much. You should instead get the Neuralink plug-in pod with
         | builtin feeding tube and catheter
        
         | nox101 wrote:
         | Apple doesn't allow "wink" in apps so no, this will not be
         | happening on an Apple Vision Pro
        
       | totaldude87 wrote:
       | What happens when humanity stops generating new content/recording
       | new findings/knowledge etc ? are at a place where whatever we had
       | is enough knowledge for AI takeover?
       | 
       | or we are heading towards a skynet-y feature
        
         | sulayman1 wrote:
         | As a counterpoint, i don't think that the average person has
         | stopped taking pictures just because image generation models
         | exists. Nor have people stopped pursuing other hobbies impacted
         | by AI. We don't go to museums to look at AI art that was
         | created in 10 seconds and I doubt culture will shift to a point
         | where that's common place. Human content will still be created,
         | and we will probably see the general quality of that content
         | increase as a result of foundational models. Content creation
         | is taking whats in the mind and translating it into the
         | physical/digital realm. With better AI, this translation
         | becomes easier for a lot of fields and you no longer have to
         | master the use devices to make your art quality. However,
         | everyone can agree that prompt based generation is a lot less
         | satisfying than making content from scratch. It feels more akin
         | to a google search than a satisfying creative process. Those
         | who are passionate and talented will continue to pursue their
         | physical medium because of this.
         | 
         | The monetary value of generic stock content will surely drop
         | and won't be created by professionals anymore. However, that
         | doesn't mean people stop taking pictures of their dog just
         | because they can get midjourney to generate the same thing.
         | Creation for the sake of creation will continue. AI companies
         | will initially reap in a lot of the $ value that used to go to
         | the creators of stock content, but when open source models
         | reach parity the masses will be able to make what's in their
         | mind a reality as casual creators. Hobbyists will still exist
         | and those that become truly great will still rise to notoriety.
        
       | dr__mario wrote:
       | I'd love to feel excited by all these advancements and somehow I
       | feel numb. I get part of the feeling (worry about inequalities it
       | may generate), but I sense something more. It's like I see it as
       | a toy... I'm unable to dream on how this will impact my life in
       | any meaningful way.
        
         | boppo1 wrote:
         | Imagine dumping all the HIPAA data into a process like this.
         | Obviously fraught with privacy and accuracy[0] concerns.
         | Nonetheless, it might help us move some things forward.
        
       | pcdoodle wrote:
       | Call me a Luddite but I don't want these videos hitting my
       | retinas.
       | 
       | There should be an opt out from being subjected to AI content.
        
       | landingunless wrote:
       | Wonder how the folks at Runway and Pika are thinking about this.
       | 
       | To me, it's becoming increasingly obvious that startups whose
       | defensibility hinges on "hoping OpenAI doesn't do this" are
       | probably not very enduring ones.
        
       | anirudhv27 wrote:
       | What makes OpenAI so far ahead of all of these other research
       | firms (or even startups like Pika, Runway, etc.)? I feel like I
       | see so many examples of fields where progress is being made all
       | across and OpenAI suddenly swoops in with an insane breakthrough
       | lightyears ahead of everyone else.
        
       | asciii wrote:
       | Beautifully terrifying
        
       | eutropia wrote:
       | I hope this doesn't get buried...
       | 
       | As several others have pointed out, realism of these models will
       | continue to improve, and will soon be economically useful for
       | producing beautiful or functional artifacts - however prompt
       | adherence (getting what you want or intend) of the models is
       | growing much more slowly.
       | 
       | However I think we have a long ways to go before we'll see a
       | decent "AI Film" that tells a compelling story - and this has
       | nothing to do with some sort of naturalistic fallacy that appeals
       | to some innate nature of humans!
       | 
       | It comes down to the dataset and the limits of human creators in
       | their ability to communicate their process. Image-Text and Video-
       | Text pairs are mostly labeled by semi-skilled humans who describe
       | what they see in detail. They are, for the most part, very good
       | at capturing the obvious salient features of an image or a video.
       | "reflections of the neon lights glisten in the sidewalk".
       | However, what you see in a movie scene is the sum total of dozens
       | if not hundreds of influences, large and subtle. Choices made by
       | the actors, camera operators, lighting designers, sound
       | designers, costuming, makeup, editors, etc... Most people are not
       | trained to recognize these choices at all, or might not even be
       | aware that there are choices to make. We (simply) see "Joaqin
       | Phoenix is making awkward small-talk in the elevator with other
       | office workers".
       | 
       | So much of what we experience processes on subconscious and
       | emotional and purely sensory levels, we don't elevate those
       | lower-level qualia to our higher-brain's awareness and label them
       | with vocabulary without intentional training (such as tasting
       | wine, coffee, beer, etc - developing a palate is an act of
       | sensory-vocabulary alignment).
       | 
       | However, despite not raising these things to our intentional
       | awareness, it has an influence on us -- often the desired impact
       | of the person who made that choice in the first place. The
       | overall effect of all of these intentional choices makes things
       | 'feel right'.
       | 
       | There's no fundamental reason AI can't produce an output that has
       | the same effect as those choices, however finding each little
       | choice is like a needle in a haystack. Accurate labeling of the
       | training data tells the AI where to look -- but the people
       | labeling the data are probably not well-versed in all of the
       | little intentional choices that can be made when creating a piece
       | of video-media.
       | 
       | Beyond the issue of the labeling folks being trained in the art
       | itself, there's the problem too of the artists themselves not
       | being able to fully articulate their (numerous, little,
       | snowflake-into-avalanche) choices - or simply not articulating it
       | even if they could. Ask Jackson Pollock about paint viscosity and
       | you'll learn a great deal, but ask about abstract painting
       | composition and there's this ineffable gap that language seems
       | ill-suited to cross. The painter paints what they feel, and they
       | hope that feeling is conveyed to the viewer - but you'd be hard
       | pressed to recreate "Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)" if you had to
       | transmit the information via language and hope they interpreted
       | it correctly. Art is simultaneously vague and specific!
       | 
       | So, to sum up the problem of conveying your intent to the model:
       | 
       | - The training data labels capture obvious or salient features,
       | but not choices only visible to the trained eye
       | 
       | - The material itself is created by human artists who might not
       | even be able to explain all of their choices in words
       | 
       | - You the prompter might not have the vocabulary that captures
       | succinctly and specifically the intended effect
       | 
       | - The end result will necessarily be not quite what you imagined
       | in your mind's eye as a result of all of this missing information
       | 
       | You can still get good results if you tell it to copy something,
       | because the label "Tarantino" captures a lot of detail, even all
       | the little things you and the training data would never have
       | labeled in words. But it won't be yours and - until we have an
       | army of trained artists providing precise descriptions for
       | training data in their area of expertise, and you know how to
       | speak those artists' language - it can't be yours.
        
       | robblbobbl wrote:
       | Holy Moly
        
       | yandrypozo wrote:
       | did anyone saw the two-leg horses in the video?
        
       | hpeter wrote:
       | One one side, we have people who are upset because the creators
       | of the videos in the dataset used for teaching this language
       | model were not compensated.
       | 
       | On the other hand, people find the tech very impressive and there
       | are a lot of mind blowing use-cases.
       | 
       | Personally, this opens up the world for me to create video ads
       | for software projects I create, since I have no financial
       | resources or time to actually make videos, I only know how to
       | code. So I find it pretty exciting. It's great for solo
       | entrepreneurs.
        
       | cchance wrote:
       | The scene of the train, could easily be used in a transition
       | scene in a movie, like theres so much here like stock videos are
       | gonna be f*cked in short order, and if they add composition and
       | planning tools, and loras, so will the movie industry.
        
       | lencastre wrote:
       | One day OpenAI itself will replace Altman and take charge.
        
       | TriangleEdge wrote:
       | I predict the word "disrupt" will see an exponential curve [1].
       | 
       | https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=disrupt&...
        
       | hcarvalhoalves wrote:
       | Oh nice, we'll get a new shitty Marvel movie every week now.
        
       | dudeinhawaii wrote:
       | I say this with all sincerity, if you're not overwhelmingly
       | impressed with Sora then you haven't been involved in the field
       | of AI generated video recently. While we understand that we're on
       | the exponential curve of AI progress, it's always hard to intuit
       | just what that means.
       | 
       | Sora represents a monumental leap forward, it's comically a 3000%
       | improvement in 'coherent' video generation seconds. Coupled with
       | a significantly enhanced understanding of contextual prompts and
       | overall quality, it's has achieved what many (most?) thought
       | would take another year or two.
       | 
       | I think we will see studios like ILM pivoting to AI in the near
       | future. There's no need for 200 VFX artists when you can have 15
       | artists working with AI tooling to generate all the frame-by-
       | frame effects, backgrounds, and compositing for movies. It'll
       | open the door for indie projects that can take place in settings
       | that were previously the domain of big Hollywood. A sci-fi opera
       | could be put together with a few talented actors, AI effects and
       | a small team to handle post-production. This could conceivably
       | include AI scoring.
       | 
       | Sure, Hollywood and various guilds will strongly resist but it'll
       | require just a handful of streaming companies to pivot. Suddenly
       | content creation costs for Netflix drops an order of magnitude.
       | The economics of content creation will fundamentally change.
       | 
       | At the risk of being proven very wrong, I think replacing actors
       | is still fairly distant in the future but again... humans are bad
       | at conceptualizing exponential progress.
        
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