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Comment by excalibur | Hacker News Reader

Surprised the article makes no mention of the 2023 AI-assisted enhancement of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot clip. It's definitely a guy in a gorilla suit.

https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/bigfoot-footage-ai-sigh...

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How could AI not make it look more like a man? Was the AI trained on lots of bigfoot footage? Or was it trained on lots of pictures of people? Give it enough leeway and it will probably render bigfoot as a man in a Barney costume, if that better confirms to the training data.

AI wasn't used to generate the clip, but to add some (hallucinated) detail and extend the background. FWIW, in pre-genAI stabilized examples from the 2000s it's also clearly a guy in a gorilla suit.

Here is just an image-stabilized version (from 12 years ago if the YouTube date is assumed to be correct). No AI required.

https://youtu.be/Vsj0vK8LjVk

Why does stabilizing the image make it any more or less apparent?

I think it just means it removes the distractions of the grain and shaky camera.

But really, it was always evident it was a guy in a gorilla suit.

You can see the link I posted (https://youtu.be/Vsj0vK8LjVk). To my eye it makes it more clear that it is just a dude walking like any human in a costume would.

I don't recommend it, but there is an image-stabilized Zapruder film out there that makes the Kennedy assassination a good deal more shocking/gruesome. You've been warned.

What if Bigfoot just happens to walk similarly to how people in gorilla costumes walk?

I mean after all.. Bigfoot is a humanoid..

Is there any doubt it's a gorilla suit? I think the article is disingenuous in not stating this clearly.

The article claims the suits of the apes in Planet of the Apes were "unconvincing", but they are just as convincing as the Bigfoot image, which is to say: they are clearly (nicely made) costumes.

We didn't need AI to "prove" what was already evident. And let me assure you -- this won't convince conspiracy theorists and Bigfoot fans, because above all, like Mulder, they "want to believe".

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