Comment by rcr-anti | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rcr-anti | Hacker News Reader

It certainly makes for easy demos, but I always struggle with the practical application. As in, what work or enjoyment does someone actually get from this? Ads and media pre production seem plausible, but it fails the 'how can this enrich life' in a way most other AI tools don't. Maybe for them that's not a consideration, if their only interest is the other meaning of enrich that might flow from ads and numbing rivers of slop.

Why do we look at art, watch videos/movies? Is that replicable as a function of text, other existing media, and 3-30 cents of compute per second? I'm pretty functionalist about these things, and at some point it probably won't be possible to tell the difference. But until then, at which point we might just say 'death of the author', it seems like a category error.

I do work with artists that use video and image generation models to create stuff, but from what I can tell they're interested in faster iteration and controlling a lot of intermediate steps (their graphs can get pretty labyrinthine).

Kids love image and video generation! The former is cheap enough to do just because it is fun.

I have a young boy, and whenever he builds an impressive "scene" from LEGO (like a diorama or whatever), I take a couple of reference pictures with my phone and make it into a "real" movie scene, cartoon, or whatever. He loves it, and this motivates him to build more and bigger things out of LEGO.

If he builds something really special, I might actually fork over the $5 to use Omni to turn his LEGO creation into a 10-second video instead of a still image. It'll blow his mind!

PS: There also are cheap and even free phone apps that make stop-motion animation trivial. We've already made a couple of videos of his toys moving around that way.

> As in, what work or enjoyment does someone actually get from this?

I have been pondering this and have come out with a single statement. It allows you to create the missing piece in the art you want to create. Assets for games, music for the lyrics you wrote, or just a whole song to justify a crazy dance you want to do. Whenever AI art is discussed, people tend to be so purist about art. One person cannot do everything in a project they take on to express themselves. Usually people come back with then get someone else to do it for you. I think that is an economic argument as people are trying to protect artist pay. I get that. But is it fair to just not let something they want to create because they don't posses every talent needed to do this?

> As in, what work or enjoyment does someone actually get from this? Why do we look at art, watch videos/movies?

I like to generate songs from obscure poems

Yes, most people using AI for creative projects spend a lot of time and attention mastering their tools, and figure out how to adapt them into their creative processes. AI can dramatically lower the cost of indie productions, while also a allowing a broader range of stories to be told. Even the most successful film makers need to bow and scrape to get their projects funded, democratizing visual media can be a good thing, even if you, personally, are no more likely to do this than you are to pick up Photoshop or record a podcast.

I enjoy making short films with AI. When my latest short screens at a festival in Ocotber, alongside traditional and AI films, hopefully the audience will like it too.

The quick "one shot" video generation might be slop to you, or I. But if someone wants to send it as birthday greeting to their aunt, and they both enjoy it, what business is it of ours?

The cheaper it is to produce, the more daring it can be. Which is a good thing.

Google's main source of revenue is advertising not enriching people's lives. It's not a charity.

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