While everyone marvels at Google’s Veo 3, I have to ask: What does the future really look like, now? Heck, what does the past look like?
“AI Is Permanently Rewriting History” shared World War Wisdom a month ago, highlighting AI-generated images of soldiers during past wars. The images blur the line between real history and AI forgeries. So the question is: Will future generations be able to tell the difference? Can we tell the difference now?
I mean, just look at this thing:
That’s not even what I’m concerned about, here, though. Recently, YouTube started cracking down on fake AI movie trailers. A Deadline investigation led to two channels being demonetized, after they’d generated AI trailers for movies like The Fantastic Four: First Steps and a counterfeit James Bond starring Henry Cavill.
I’m not personally too bothered by the idea of Titanic 2, starring its old cast. But after watching a couple of hack frauds have a discussion last week on the state of AI and movies, I thought they raised some good points on the creativity side. The immediate concern is that AI is taking jobs and infringing copyrights, and that it’s inherently uncreative slop for the Internet. And as far as that goes, it is. Mostly. But something else might happen that I keep thinking about, now.
Over And Over Again
When it comes to movies and video games, it feels like our pop culture has been a bit stuck. Remakes, reboots, rereleases. Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Snow White. Skyrim on my microwave. Nintendo’s about to release Breath of the Wild again. New stuff is still out there, sure, but anything big is playing it safe.
I think AI is going to amplify this sort of rehashing to an incredible degree, and it won’t even be the publishers’ faults. We’ll be the ones doing it.
Some of the most popular uses of generative AI are to mimic existing styles. Ghibli. Dalí. A lot of chatter is from AI hopefuls bursting with ideas on how they’ll generate their own remixes of recent movies, or sequels to old favorites. They’ll probably be able to, eventually. Back to the Future IV, starring Robert Downey Jr and Tom Holland? That’s a recurring favorite, for some reason. I don’t get it but, you know, it’s there.
Just make what you want, like you’re in an episode of Westworld!
It makes me wonder, at this specific point in time, if Hollywood superstars and classic favorites are “locked in.” What good is a new composer if you can AI generate a whole new Bach or John Williams? New films starring a young Tom Cruise, or new episodes of Futurama? New paintings by Picasso or short stories by Hemingway? How do new artists compete not only with AI, but with AI-generated versions of past giants that already dominate popular mindshare?
We’re not there, yet, but we’ll arrive sooner or later. The question is whether or not something new will arise from all of this, or if the final result will be some kind of bland and homogenized cultural landscape dictated by a finite AI dataset.
Will AI be the thing to spring new genres or styles? Will human-led innovation have to take a backseat to AI-driven rehashes? All I have right now are questions, because we’ve only just starting walking down this new AI road. Only we’re not walking, we’re in a full-on sprint to some unpredictable future. I generally like AI, it’s fun to play with, but that final destination has me concerned. Hopefully we like it when we get there!
