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 films Barbie and Oppenheimer right into a mashup — that includes a pink mushroom cloud — has gone viral. 

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

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Powered by picture technology 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, in accordance with the creator’s Reddit publish, the place he shared a hyperlink to his course on AI filmmaking. 

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

1. AI-generated leisure is transferring quick — excellent for right this moment’s viral moments. 

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

In an period when social media content material is a part of the zeitgeist greater than ever, there’s little question that the pace of improvement of AI-generated leisure is completely positioned for right this moment’s viral moments. Again in March, for instance, a Reddit consumer shared an AI-generated video of Will Smith consuming spaghetti on the r/StableDiffusion subreddit. It shortly 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 presently on strike and expressing specific issues in regards to the affect of gen AI on their trade 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 could have the speedy output of Midjourney and Runway Gen 2? 

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

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

The AI-generated Barbenheimer trailer is, for my part, humorous and cute. However the concept that you could possibly wrap one in every of historical past’s most horrifying intervals — the event of the atomic bomb throughout World Warfare II, which led to the loss of life of tons of of 1000’s at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 — in a candy-colored Barbie wrapper and a pink mushroom cloud is equal components beautiful and stunning. 

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