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Comment by TheGamerUncle | Hacker News Reader

>I am not the kind of person who thinks AI will replace actors blah blah blah. But I am glad these tools exist, because this video wouldn’t exist without AI.

>In no world would I ever have put together a real cast and crew to remake a 15 year old inside joke video for Googlers, but I was able to make it with AI.

BUT IT DID !! and part of the charm is that this involved real people talking, mutual understanding and a shared culture. That world existed it can still exist unless we surrender to the depravity of conformity and comfortability.

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Have you ever watched the original? It most certainly did not involve real people talking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t6L-FlfeaI).

In fact, the overtly robotic voices added to the humor of the original, IMO. It was lost in this translation.

FWIW I actually agree that the original is funnier in its delivery!

The original video existed because Xtranormal.com lets you transform a written script into an auto-generated scene with procedurally-puppeted wireframed stock models and text-to-speech voice acting.

Any assertion that the world in which Broccoli Man was created was fundamentally different (in terms of "relying on someone else's framework to do a low-effort meme") from today is nostaglia. In fact, I suspect mbleigh spent more time on making the recreation work than was spent on the original Broccoli Man video.

I think calling it nostalgia is a bit too charitable. I see it more as a delusion.

So much of what makes people willing to be moved by creative art is the willingness to believe they're investing in someone else's real thoughts & effort -- and opening themselves to a channel of real human connection & relationship.

AI has raised the bar, in terms of making it more difficult to create the trust necessary for people to be willing to open themselves up to that connection.

Now if future AIs were shown to be capable of suffering then this could change.

ugh but that requires like, effort

> In no world would I ever have put together a real cast and crew [...]

3 people, the phone with the best camera across those 3 people, and some costumes that aren't THAT had to recreate? Honestly could even skip the costumes and just print out two A4 sheets with orange bamboo shoots and broccoli and tape them to your shirt and I would honestly get a better kick out of that. It's fun to make stuff with friends, even if it's a bit crap!

Saying that, I don't think anyone making something with AI discourages anyone else from doing something with the joke, so I think all this has really replaced is a video the author would not have made otherwise... but they should try anyway! They're missing out on what would be a fun afternoon with friends

They could do it live-action with friends (that would also be funny to see), but it kind of misses the meta-joke that the original was made with 90% computer automation. The joke is "a machine made this video tweny-ish years ago and here's what it looks like if you do that now."

That is true haha, I think I'm mostly thinking about what the GP comment mentioned, in that it just generating this replaces what otherwise would've been a fun afternoon with friends.

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