What the viral AI-generated ‘Barbenheimer’ trailer says about generative AI hype | The AI Beat

A brand new AI-generated movie trailer that splices collectively the wildly-hyped motion pictures Barbie and Oppenheimer right into a mashup — that includes a pink mushroom cloud — has gone viral. 

The trailer presents a spot-on sendup on the “Barbenheimer” hype that had moviegoers flocking to see each motion pictures back-to-back, despite the fact that the 2 movies couldn’t be extra completely different — Oppenheimer is a sober biopic concerning the life and legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, whereas Barbie is a fizzy, feminist, live-action have a look at the well-known doll. 

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Powered by picture technology AI Midjourney and film generator Runway Gen2 and that includes AI-generated voices supposedly belonging to Margot Robbie and Matt Damon, the “Barbenheimer” crossover took simply 4 days to make, in response to the creator’s Reddit post, the place he shared a hyperlink to his course on AI filmmaking. 

However as a reporter overlaying AI’s cheerful, bullish, even fluffy aspect in addition to its severe, sobering aspect, I can’t assist however take into consideration three issues the AI-generated ‘Barbenheimer’ film trailer says concerning the state of generative AI proper now.

1. AI-generated leisure is transferring quick — good for as we speak’s viral moments. 

So, it’s no shock that because the Barbenheimer hype rocketed upward, any on-line content-maker may soar on board with their very own quick-and-dirty AI-generated take to share throughout social platforms. A standard advert company couldn’t probably transfer quick sufficient to tug off the identical form of “Barbenheimer” sendup to fulfill the second, and the prices can be prohibitive sufficient that they seemingly wouldn’t even strive. 

In an period when social media content material is a part of the zeitgeist greater than ever, there’s little question that the velocity of growth of AI-generated leisure is completely positioned for as we speak’s viral moments. Again in March, for instance, a Reddit person shared an AI-generated video of Will Smith consuming spaghetti on the r/StableDiffusion subreddit. It shortly unfold on social media in addition to the mainstream press, with one article saying the video “would hang-out you for the remainder of your life.” 

2. The ‘Barbenheimer’ trailer comes as creatives strike and regulators play AI catchup.

Hollywood has come almost to a halt in latest weeks, with SAG-AFTRA actors and writers at the moment on strike and expressing specific considerations concerning the affect of gen AI on their business and jobs. The “Barbenheimer” trailer is an ideal instance: Who wants the dear companies of Margot Robbie and Matt Damon should you can give you a serviceable AI copy? Why use the time-consuming work of artists or editors when you have got the speedy output of Midjourney and Runway Gen 2? 

On the similar time, AI-focused creatives who’re excited by the chances of gen AI are going full-steam forward — whilst regulators and policy-makers dash to catch up. The Senate can be schooled in AI this fall with a watch in the direction of a basis for growing rules in 2024. Will that be too little, too late? 

3. The present generative AI hype may be a candy-colored wrapper round a extra severe, unsettling actuality.

The AI-generated Barbenheimer trailer is, for my part, humorous and lovely. However the concept that you might wrap one in every of historical past’s most horrifying intervals — the event of the atomic bomb throughout World Battle II, which led to the dying of tons of of hundreds at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 — in a candy-colored Barbie wrapper and a pink mushroom cloud is equal components beautiful and surprising. 

That’s gen AI in a nutshell — beautiful and surprising, thrilling and scary, dazzling and appalling, generally unexpectedly. However definitely, all stakeholders concerned in AI growth want to contemplate not simply the sugary floor of what gen AI can do, however the deep, actual points that lay beneath.