If you have any money left from investing in Cryptocurrencies and political merchandise, you might be cautious with your AI investments. I believe in AI, but it may take years to have a return on investment. Even if or when AI makes money, how do you know if the AI company you invested in will exist when the profit ship arrives in the port?
As you know, I have been dabbling with AI image and video generation. Although I haven’t received job offers from Disney for my cartoonish videos, I am making some progress and have learned a lot. However, instead of displaying my best work, I want to show you some of my failures and outtakes.
Many of these examples are my fault. Like the line from Cool Hand Luck (1967), because there is a failure to communicate between me and the AI. And like Luke, I feel like I am getting beaten up by the AI companies that extract money from me while I “learn.”
However, the problems are not solely a failure to communicate or caused by wannabe video creators like me. There are still severe defects with the underlying image and video generation technology. For example, I created a parable-like video featuring Alice in Wonderland, which turned out reasonably well. Using the same approach, I attempted to make a similar video for “The Three Little Pigs.” I tried numerous times to produce a decent video without success. My conclusion was that the AI understood Alice in Wonderland but was clueless about The Three Little Pigs.
The AI image and video generation companies can create some astounding video demos. Someone like me sees the video and says, “I want to do that.” However, it rarely produces the expected results. Why? Well, having worked in the computer field for 50 years, I have seen this rodeo before. The simple truth is that technology is constantly improving, but the products and services are sold by various sales and marketing teams that mesmerize us with their demos. For example, famous product introductions, such as the Apple Macintosh in 1984, reveal that the people demonstrating the new, dazzling products often exaggerate some of the new capabilities. The old line is “fake it till you make it.”
The same is true for AI image and video generation. Today, this industry has trouble with: a) maintaining character identity across video shots, b) lip-syncing, c) basic physics and movement, d) facial expressions, e) small details like giving a person six fingers, f) having more than one speaker in the same scene (almost all the AIs confuse who is speaking), and many other issues.
You might enjoy some items from my blooper reel.
This fellow below should have been Abraham Lincoln.