[HN Gopher] Animate Anyone 2: High-Fidelity Character Image Anim...
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       Animate Anyone 2: High-Fidelity Character Image Animation
        
       Author : ToJans
       Score  : 154 points
       Date   : 2025-02-16 11:20 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (humanaigc.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (humanaigc.github.io)
        
       | ioulaum wrote:
       | Wonder if they're planning to release code.
       | 
       | I imagine some opensource player will try to recreate their model
       | themselves too.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | Alibaba and Ant Group don't release their code and weights, but
         | Tencent sure does. I bet Tencent has one of these waiting in
         | the wings.
        
       | JohnHaugeland wrote:
       | Unreleased models should not be treated as interesting
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | Very impressive improvement over Viggle. I don't know if Viggle
       | was considered sota previously, but it's certainly had its moment
       | of popularity at the end of last year.
       | 
       | Tech has come a long way since Monty-Python style JibJab from
       | 2004.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | It's better than Viggle, but Alibaba doesn't release their
         | models like Tencent does.
         | 
         | Waiting for the Tencent version of this. It feels like Tencent
         | releases a new model or two every single week. If they do
         | release an equivalent, everyone will be able to clone Viggle's
         | entire product offering.
         | 
         | Models are becoming commodity faster than ever these days. We
         | had _five_ foundation video models come out last week. I don 't
         | know how Runway ML, with their $300M of fundraising, will be
         | able to stay ahead or raise again. They don't have any special
         | magic, and there's nothing spectacular about their product.
         | 
         | I wouldn't want to be a foundation model company these days.
         | China and any third string company release weights openly to
         | gain network effects and salt the earth for foundation model
         | value accretion. Product and brand awareness are all that
         | matters.
         | 
         | Edit: if anyone from Alibaba or Ant Group is reading, can you
         | release your code and weights? Pretty please?
        
         | joshdavham wrote:
         | > Tech has come a long way since Monty-Python style JibJab from
         | 2004.
         | 
         | No doubt! I'm surprised people even remember JibJab.
        
       | joshdavham wrote:
       | Besides just being really cool, what are some of the clearest
       | use-cases for this?
        
         | johnnyanmac wrote:
         | If this has anything close to usable rigging data (from what I
         | briefly read, it doesn't seem to), this would be a cheap
         | pipeline for generating animations for real time applications
         | out of video references.
         | 
         | As it is, it seems like it might help for video editing and
         | VFX. Being able to isolate out a human being lets you do all
         | sorts of editing with less issues that can then be composited
         | over later for a final shot.
        
           | radley wrote:
           | It also makes previz much easier. Stand-ins can run through
           | the shots, including stunts. Then the main actors can be
           | swapped in to provide a clearer estimate of what it would
           | look like.
        
         | listenallyall wrote:
         | Catfishing
         | 
         | Convincing older people that their children/relatives are in
         | jail/hospital/kidnapped and need money
         | 
         | Disinformation/chaos by faking important speeches by
         | politicians
         | 
         | Fake celebrity endorsements of products and causes
         | 
         | Rewriting historical events with "newly uncovered" footage
         | 
         | Other creative ways of ripping people off and lying
        
           | tetris11 wrote:
           | > Disinformation/chaos by faking important speeches by
           | politicians
           | 
           | I do wonder what the end game here would be. A race to the
           | bottom where any televised speech is brought into question. I
           | wonder if that would destabilize all power bases to the point
           | that people will finally look at the actions of their
           | politicians rather than their words. Wishful thinking
           | perhaps.
        
             | wruza wrote:
             | I think that taking political speeches at face value was
             | flawed anyway, so. Maybe someone will finally get tired of
             | this circus and invents Bitrule somehow.
        
           | ge96 wrote:
           | Was thinking trying to look cool on a dating app
        
         | barnabyjones wrote:
         | Even though the examples have a clear green-screen effect, I
         | would think some of the tricks/filters they used in old video
         | games to make them look "realistic/cinematic" could work here,
         | then advertisers would be able to plug in a picture of a model
         | wearing their latest outfit to a stock video for social media
         | and digital ads.
        
           | radley wrote:
           | It could also be used to "upload a picture of yourself" to
           | see how you'd look in an outfit from all angles, walking, and
           | in specific (aka dreamy) occasions.
        
         | danwills wrote:
         | Where I work in VFX (RSP) we have an ML department and a lot of
         | what they do is about replacing things in footage (face
         | replacement onto double-actors, de-ageing and so on). What they
         | achieve (that brings significant value) seems fairly adjacent
         | to the tech in the article. Our ML crew have the benefit of a
         | strong compositing department (and other support) that can help
         | integrate the results nicely and smooth over any rough edges.
         | The ML team were nominated for a VES award for their work on
         | Furiosa recently!
        
         | bsenftner wrote:
         | Personalized advertising: you using a new product and visually
         | enjoying it. Blows my mind people do not see this application.
        
           | marssaxman wrote:
           | I don't see that application because uBlock Origin filters it
           | out for me.
        
             | radley wrote:
             | Influencer promos are the more likely candidate.
        
         | eumenides1 wrote:
         | Memes, people will use it for the memes. I saw the NBA footage
         | and yes, i want a gif of me posterizing Ben Simmons.
        
         | jillyboel wrote:
         | Deepfakes and porn.
        
         | julianeon wrote:
         | 100% of the capability could be absorbed by YouTubers looking
         | to improve engagement (read: profit) with more interesting
         | visuals. Since they have a bottomless need for that, this would
         | get widely used within days of a commercial release.
         | 
         | Since we live in a social media age, anything that looks
         | "really cool" has basically immediate commercial applications.
         | Even that phrase should set alarm bells off.
        
       | azalemeth wrote:
       | I really wouldn't use Donald Trump as an example character
       | model...
        
         | Mekoloto wrote:
         | why?
        
           | Timwi wrote:
           | I'm not OP but I imagine they might be thinking that Trump
           | will find a way to punish it, with him being a fascist and
           | all. Just imagine you'd had done this with Hitler in 1932. By
           | 1934 your life would basically be over.
        
             | Mekoloto wrote:
             | If people already assume this, the right response is to use
             | him for everything and starting to stand up in form of a
             | protest
        
             | jillyboel wrote:
             | I never thought americans were this weak and pathetic.
             | Y'all always screamed about "muh guns" and stuff like that,
             | but now... You're just sitting idly while your new king
             | takes over, even discouraging others to do anything that
             | may upset your supreme ruler?
        
               | NikolaNovak wrote:
               | (To be fair, though I'm not in USA / an American, if
               | we're going to stereotype and generalize unfairly, it
               | seems it's largely the "Muh Guns" folks you refer to that
               | support/vote for Trump and the like).
        
               | Geee wrote:
               | These people who complain are the guys who don't have
               | guns.
        
               | jillyboel wrote:
               | Can't they just buy some? There's been loads of arguments
               | on HN about how the right to own guns is seen as
               | important, just for cases like this.
        
               | rererereferred wrote:
               | They are the ones arguing against the use of guns for
               | cases like this. They are in the worse situation, either
               | they lose or their ideology does.
        
               | theultdev wrote:
               | They don't have an ideology.
               | 
               | They just parrot talking points aimed at stripping their
               | rights away.
               | 
               | Even the 1A is on the block because of "misinformation,
               | hate speech, etc."
        
             | BizarroLand wrote:
             | My guess is that it would cause people like myself who
             | intensely dislike him to avoid your technology because of
             | the association.
             | 
             | If I don't like it, I won't show it to my boss, he won't
             | see it, and our company won't use your technology.
             | 
             | Same could be said for showing Hillary Clinton or Kamala
             | Harris for the other side, or Putin or Kim Jong Un or
             | Mohammad and Jesus
             | 
             | A smart tactic would be to avoid sensitive figures in
             | general if your goal is to have your technology adopted by
             | a wide audience.
        
           | bloomingkales wrote:
           | Because that scary state that you read about in dystopian
           | novels and hear about in dystopian histories is a state that
           | Americans live in at the moment. We are all actually people
           | that are living in an important moment, and should be aware
           | of Normalcy Bias.
        
       | BtM909 wrote:
       | First of all, this looks very impressive (besides that it will be
       | used for memes, haha), but can someone explain why the faces and
       | movements look almost cartoon-like?
        
         | cornedor wrote:
         | Light doesn't match up at all (look at the Ronaldo example) and
         | the animation is far from perfect. Go through the one with the
         | joker frame-by-frame, and you can see his arms moving through
         | his body and stuff like that.
        
       | lacoolj wrote:
       | So I guess we're just about 2 or 3 iterations away from no longer
       | being able to trust video as evidence in a courtroom. Just gotta
       | fix the lighting and facial issues and bam! Precedent will be
       | set.
        
         | hassleblad23 wrote:
         | I think we have already crossed that threshold. There are
         | videos today that you'd have a hard time telling if they are AI
         | generated. Not always, but sometimes.
        
         | littlestymaar wrote:
         | It's been decades since we haven't been able to blindly trust
         | image and videos in court, image and video manipulation are
         | almost as old as photography and cinema.
         | 
         | And paper documents are still being used on court today despite
         | being trivially counterfeit.
         | 
         | Why so? Because court never trust documents blindly, the
         | defendant can always object that it is fake and try and
         | question their origin. If the concerns are deemed legitimate by
         | the court, the document is going to be rejected (and an
         | investigation will occur and the producer of the fake document
         | will be charged heavily).
        
           | BizarroLand wrote:
           | It depends on the court. Typically evidence is shared with
           | the opposing parties before the court assembles. If there is
           | damning evidence like video of you dancing with the Joker,
           | your side will have an opportunity to preview the video,
           | examine it for being deepfaked, and have a chance to either
           | try to exclude it or possibly will let it slide so that your
           | experts can expose it in trial for being a fake, which could
           | be a strong point in your favor.
           | 
           | From my experience juries are not smart, but if you can show
           | them they've been lied to they will destroy the side that
           | lied to them, not to mention the punishments for lawyers that
           | try to use AI technology to obtain verdicts in their favor by
           | deception.
        
         | slothtrop wrote:
         | What's the digital signature equivalent of yellow ink for
         | printers?
        
         | BizarroLand wrote:
         | This also vastly overestimates the intelligence of the average
         | juror.
         | 
         | This sounds insulting but it is intended to be a frank
         | statement.
         | 
         | In 4 years of working cases I would estimate 1 in 6 jurors are
         | above the 85-115 IQ range of average intelligence, and maybe
         | half are at or below the 100 line.
         | 
         | Add in that anyone over the age of 55 is on average far more
         | susceptible to deepfake technology simply because they don't
         | have the life experience and perceptual skills needed to
         | discern the tells in the video, and you have a recipe for
         | disaster.
         | 
         | If you are in court and your opponent might use fabricated
         | video evidence against you, you better hope that your jury is
         | younger or that your lawyers and judges have the expertise
         | needed to expose any deepfake technologies like this for what
         | they are, or you might be cooked.
        
           | croissants wrote:
           | > In 4 years of working cases I would estimate 1 in 6 jurors
           | are above the 85-115 IQ range of average intelligence, and
           | maybe half are at or below the 100 line.
           | 
           | Maybe I'm missing the joke, but isn't IQ meant to follow a
           | normal distribution with a mean/median of 100 with a standard
           | deviation of 15, in which case you'd expect half of jurors to
           | be below 100 and ~15% to be above 115, which is pretty close
           | to what you've seen?
        
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       (page generated 2025-02-20 23:01 UTC)