What the viral AI-generated ‘Barbenheimer’ trailer says about generative AI hype | The AI Beat

A brand new AI-generated film trailer that splices collectively the wildly-hyped motion pictures Barbie and Oppenheimer right into a mashup — that includes a pink mushroom cloud — has gone viral. 

The trailer presents a spot-on sendup on the “Barbenheimer” hype that had moviegoers flocking to see each motion pictures back-to-back, though the 2 movies couldn’t be extra totally different — Oppenheimer is a sober biopic concerning the life and legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, whereas Barbie is a fizzy, feminist, live-action have a look at the well-known doll. 

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Powered by picture era AI Midjourney and film generator Runway Gen2 and that includes AI-generated voices supposedly belonging to Margot Robbie and Matt Damon, the “Barbenheimer” crossover took simply 4 days to make, based on the creator’s Reddit submit, the place he shared a hyperlink to his course on AI filmmaking. 

However as a reporter overlaying AI’s cheerful, bullish, even fluffy facet in addition to its severe, sobering facet, I can’t assist however take into consideration three issues the AI-generated ‘Barbenheimer’ film trailer says concerning the state of generative AI proper now.

1. AI-generated leisure is transferring quick — good for at this time’s viral moments. 

So, it’s no shock that because the Barbenheimer hype rocketed upward, any on-line content-maker might bounce on board with their very own quick-and-dirty AI-generated take to share throughout social platforms. A standard advert company couldn’t presumably transfer quick sufficient to tug off the identical form of “Barbenheimer” sendup to satisfy the second, and the prices could be prohibitive sufficient that they probably wouldn’t even strive. 

In an period when social media content material is a part of the zeitgeist greater than ever, there’s little doubt that the velocity of improvement of AI-generated leisure is completely positioned for at this time’s viral moments. Again in March, for instance, a Reddit person shared an AI-generated video of Will Smith consuming spaghetti on the r/StableDiffusion subreddit. It rapidly unfold on social media in addition to the mainstream press, with one article saying the video “would hang-out you for the remainder of your life.” 

2. The ‘Barbenheimer’ trailer comes as creatives strike and regulators play AI catchup.

Hollywood has come practically to a halt in latest weeks, with SAG-AFTRA actors and writers at present on strike and expressing explicit considerations concerning the affect of gen AI on their business and jobs. The “Barbenheimer” trailer is an ideal instance: Who wants the expensive companies of Margot Robbie and Matt Damon if you happen to can give you a serviceable AI copy? Why use the time-consuming work of artists or editors when you’ve the speedy output of Midjourney and Runway Gen 2? 

On the similar time, AI-focused creatives who’re excited by the chances of gen AI are going full-steam forward — at the same time as regulators and policy-makers dash to catch up. The Senate will probably be schooled in AI this fall with a watch in direction of a basis for creating laws in 2024. Will that be too little, too late? 

3. The present generative AI hype may be a candy-colored wrapper round a extra severe, unsettling actuality.

The AI-generated Barbenheimer trailer is, in my view, humorous and lovable. However the concept you could possibly wrap one in all historical past’s most horrifying durations — the event of the atomic bomb throughout World Warfare II, which led to the demise of a whole bunch of 1000’s at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 — in a candy-colored Barbie wrapper and a pink mushroom cloud is equal elements beautiful and stunning. 

That’s gen AI in a nutshell — beautiful and stunning, thrilling and scary, dazzling and appalling, typically . However actually, all stakeholders concerned in AI improvement want to contemplate not simply the sugary floor of what gen AI can do, however the deep, actual points that lay beneath.