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 gives a spot-on sendup on the “Barbenheimer” hype that had moviegoers flocking to see each films back-to-back, regardless that 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 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, in keeping with the creator’s Reddit put up, the place he shared a hyperlink to his course on AI filmmaking. 

However as a reporter protecting AI’s cheerful, bullish, even fluffy aspect in addition to its severe, sobering aspect, 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 immediately’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 tug off the identical sort of “Barbenheimer” sendup to satisfy the second, and the prices can 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 pace of improvement of AI-generated leisure is completely positioned for immediately’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 almost to a halt in latest weeks, with SAG-AFTRA actors and writers presently on strike and expressing explicit issues in regards to the impression of gen AI on their trade and jobs. The “Barbenheimer” trailer is an ideal instance: Who wants the dear providers of Margot Robbie and Matt Damon should you can give you a serviceable AI copy? Why use the time-consuming work of artists or editors when you’ve got the speedy output of Midjourney and Runway Gen 2? 

On the identical 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 can be schooled in AI this fall with a watch in the direction of a basis for growing 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 severe, unsettling actuality.

The AI-generated Barbenheimer trailer is, for my part, humorous and lovely. However the concept that you can wrap certainly one of historical past’s most horrifying intervals — the event of the atomic bomb throughout World Conflict II, which led to the dying of a whole lot of hundreds at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 — in a candy-colored Barbie wrapper and a pink mushroom cloud is equal elements gorgeous and surprising. 

That’s gen AI in a nutshell — gorgeous and surprising, thrilling and horrifying, dazzling and appalling, typically abruptly. 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.