Will Smith allegedly spliced in AI-generated shots of crowds into a video promoting his ongoing tour.
We have compiled a few examples for your perusal.
This incident is in equal parts hilarious and awful.
AI video generation is currently extremely advanced, and its only getting better. This doesn’t mean people with sharp eyes can’t sus it out when it rears its ugly head, especially in marketing meant to manipulate individuals.
In his latest YouTube short promoting his ongoing music tour, actor and rapper Will Smith allegedly spliced shots of fake AI generated crowds alongside shots of real crowds. We say “allegedly” but anyone with common sense can clearly see the AI generation pieces of video included in the promo.
One of the most grotesque examples include a shot of two people holding up a sign that says “‘You can make it’ helped me survive cancer. THX Will.” Closer examinations of the short clip, especially the unnatural facial expression of the sign holder, and how the person in front of him is also holding the sign at an impossible perspective are both evidence that it is AI-generated.
We’re embedding the video below so you can see for yourself and make up your own mind. Did Will Smith use AI to generate crowds in this tour promo package?
But wait there’s more.
Hypertext has painfully combed through the video to find more delicious examples of the usage of AI technology to fake a crowd of rabid Will Smith fans. Our first example is two different shots in the short, showing the “same” sign, with slight differences.
Another example shows us that even though AI has generally overcome the hand rendering problem, it has only managed this most of the time.
Many of the clips also include outrageous amounts of fandom. People wearing Will Smith’s face on clothing. Someone wearing a Men in Black 3 shirt unironically (impossible), and allusions to Smith’s TV shows. Ignore the inhuman monsters in the background.
One of the spliced in crowd shots is so bad that there’s just a sign being held up by no-one, which you can barely read, surfing on a crowd of melting faces. Please just look at some of these faces.
Despite the many “bad” shots, some of the spliced in footage actually looks authentic, and if someone was not carefully looking at all the details in a few-second-long clips, they would think it’s actually real, especially following legitimate shots of crowds from Smith’s concerts.
While you might have a good laugh these on closer inspection. It is also important to understand that in the next five years, AI will be capable of vastly superior video generation. Companies like Google will be able to generate longer, better clips and companies and people like Smith will use these for their advertising.
Imagine you could get that perfect shot of exactly what you wanted without having to get a camera crew anywhere near an actual amount of people? The reality is that examples like this are only going to become more mainstream and more common. How do we even begin to defend our minds from this manipulation when this future does arrive?
[Image – Wikimedia Commons]