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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

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> Modern Luddites can go back to churning their own butter

After almost 20 years in the tech industry, this sounds pretty enticing.

Fine, I’ll bite I guess. AI generated content will never beat a Studio Ghibli production. This must be judged by actual fans, not those who want AI to win. There’s no way AI is deriving content like that studio can make. Not in months (lol), not in 10 years.

The point of all content isn’t shitting something out for a quick buck, which sure, AI will excel at. Studio Ghibli is clearly taking care to create unique works. True craftsmanship and AI shitsmashship are not and will never be the same thing.

What's your take on this? Not an expert but I think some of these are (vaguely?) based on Studio Ghibli aesthetics:

https://old.reddit.com/r/aiArt/comments/17zmx1n/unreleased_1...

They’re all static images, not very comparable to a complete production. I admit they look good, but animation is another thing completely. And music. And story.

I think story and narrative will be the hardest nut to crack. I like to think humans will always be interested and capable of driving at the top-down level.

Image, video, voice, and instrumental will be easy. But it's still going to require a human with very sophisticated understanding of narrative, theme, pacing, structure, etc. to draw these elements together in a pleasing, coherent, and artistic way.

I think voice and performance will still be human-driven by actors for some time, but that a much smaller cast of less-than-supermodel actors and actresses will be able to do everything themselves.

I'll show you current SOTA animation if you email or message me on Discord.

Really, never? As in never ever?

At the point you're thinking AI is superior at generating Ghibli-like movies it essentially is as powerful as any human (understands the world and our preferences for storytelling), that is smarter than all of us by some margin. (I'm not talking about ASI yet.) Which by the way renders the whole argument (your point included) meaningless because you shouldn't even be giving it commands at that point. It should do have freedom to make its own decisions.

Yes.

That's a bold claim. In order for that to be true there would have to be some fundamental limitation preventing AI from ever thinking on the level of a human.

It’s a bold claim the other way too, that we can create something human from binary logic.

Nowhere close to the same magnitude. You’re saying with 100 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years, etc of technological progress we will never be able to simulate, or emulate what is between your ears.

A game will never be art, they say.

Buddy a few months is a little bit optimistic

Yeah, but a few years is no longer unthinkable and it will definitely not take a few decades.

Don’t be so sure. AI enthusiasm has existed before with major breakthroughs, and when things didn’t go as well as the hype suggested, it led to AI winter.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter

You haven't seen what I've seen. :)

There are a lot of groups running towards this goal and it's all going to land at once.

In my experience, "the first 80% is easy; the second 80% is hard." It's very easy to get caught up in the hype and think we're closer than we are because we can see the finish line. All this new generative work does a great job of giving compelling demos, but there's way more to do before it becomes compelling media.

Having been through a few of these things in the last 20 years, I'm going to trust my priors before believing AI is all that different.

We're over the 80% hand hurdle now.

Have you seen the about us portraits on your own company homepage? https://storyteller.ai/

Your profile looks as if you have an interest in this being true.

Not a judgement against you or a disagreement, just something worth disclosing.

Share what you’ve seen then?

The industry has a long history of people making promises they never deliver on. Every wave of tech has them, “AI” has pulled them all out of their holes once again…

He's probably seen the VC money being thrown at anyone who promises the coming AI utopia.

What have you seen? I am really interested as a writer.

Email or Discord me and I'll show you.

>You haven't seen what I've seen. :)

I rolled my eyes so hard I could almost see my brain.

If you have something pointing towards your claim being true, everyone here would be incredibly interested in seeing it.

The last 10% is always the hardest, longest, most frustrating bit.

> lot of groups running towards this goal

For such vanity?

> You haven't seen what I've seen.

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion? ;)

In my experience in the current AI climate people are over-promising and under-delivering. So I am a bit skeptical regarding hints at undisclosed great progress. No offense meant.

> Modern Luddites can go back to churning their own butter.

The history of the Luddites is actually interestingly parallel to what we're seeing with generative AI these days. The book "Blood in the Machine" talks about this in some detail - there's an interview with the author at https://www.currentaffairs.org/2024/01/why-you-should-be-a-l... that is worth reading, and Time has a piece on the book as well: https://time.com/6317437/luddites-ai-blood-in-the-machine-me...

> We're going to have incredible Pixar/Disney/Ghibli-beating animation tools within months. Creatives stuck in low-autonomy roles in the Hollywood studio system can finally break out on their own.

Animators React 11: Mulan, Aladdin, Anime Rock Paper Scissors -- And some old school animators reacting to it - https://youtu.be/jQ_DfORb3kw?si=5pvu0OBOQGOqkY-8

And I'll also recommend Disney Animator REACTS to AI Animation! https://youtu.be/xm7BwEsdVbQ?si=0WrTOri3VQRldL1k

Yes, the tools are there... but a typewriter allowing someone to get past poor hand writing or a word processor allowing easier editing doesn't change the underlying creative choices.

... and currently going through the entire Foundation series (currently part way through Foundations edge) as audio books so I can't skip over the not as interesting parts... I'm going to say that I really don't want 1950s Asimov. I've had the entirety of my desires filled for that.

The long tail was what was promised a couple of decades ago. What we got instead is plain old winner takes all dynamic, with a surveillance economy bolted on top.

You can't tell what's parody anymore.

Oh yeah. Perfect for people who want content instead of art.

I've heard the same shit about Claude 2.0 and GPT-4 and now that the hype has died down we can be impressed without acting like it's Skynet. So please stop fueling pointless hype.

We are not in VC's office, we are amongst ourselves for God's sake.

Too much choice is a problem. Most of that content will not be seen much.

https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choi...

Those creatives will be able to compete with content mills spitting out whatever nonsense gets engagement on ad supported platforms. They will lose.

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