Well, none of the existing animation movies follow exact laws of physics.
Although, plenty of kids have tied a blanket around their necks and jumped off some furniture or a low roof, right? Breaking a leg or twisting an ankle in their attempt to imitate their favorite animated superhero.
That is only true for well crafted things. There's plenty of stuff that's just wrong for no reason beyond ease of creation or lack of care about the output.
The juxtaposition of something that looks extremely real (your mother) and something that never happened (ladybug) is something that's hard for the mind to reconcile.
The presence of a real thing inadvertently and subconsciously gives confidence to the fake thing also being real.
It is indeed something that society has to shift to deal with.
Personally, I'm not sure that it's the photoreal aspect that poses the biggest challenge. I think that we are mentally prepared to handle that as long as it's not out of control (malicious deep-fakes used to personally target and harass people, etc.) I think the biggest challenge has already been identified, namely, passing off fake media as being real. If we know something is fake, we can put a mental filter in place, like a movie. If there is no way to know what is real and what is fake, then our perception reality itself starts to break down. That would be a major new shift, and certainly not one that I think would be positive.
Even worse than that is when people get USED to it and no longer have a natural aversion to horrific scenes taking place in the real world.
This AI stuff accelerates that process of illusion but in every possible direction at once.
As much as people don't want to believe it, by beholding we are indeed changed.
I don’t think that slippery slope holds up.
IIRC there’s pretty solid research showing that even children beyond the age of 8 can tell the difference between fiction and reality.
If media didn’t profoundly affect us, how could exposure therapy rewire fears? Why would billions be spent on advertising if it didn’t work? Why would propaganda or education exist if ideas couldn’t be planted and nurtured through storytelling?
Is there any meaningful difference between a sermon from the pulpit and a feature film in the theater? Both are designed to influence, persuade, and reshape our worldview.
As Alan Moore aptly put it: "Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images to achieve changes in consciousness."
In my opinion the old adage holds true, you are what you eat. And we will soon be eating unimaginable mountains of artificial content cooked up by dream engines tuned to our every desire and whim.
Huh? The first half of this contradicts the second. We haven't "grown colder and more detached", we've adapted to the fact that images are no longer reliable indicators of reality. What we do and don't value in the real world hasn't changed.
> And we will soon be eating unimaginable mountains of artificial content cooked up by dream engines tuned to our every desire and whim.
Always has been. Multi-channel TV was already that, and attracted the same kind of doomerism.
I would retort that animation and real-life-looking video do different things to our psyche. As an uneducated wanna-be intellectual, I would lean toward thinking real-looking objects more directly influence our perception of life than animations.
You just know there’ll be people making content within the week for social media that will be trying to pass itself off as real imagery.