Youtube is drowning in fake AI images and videos. Yes, as a Trek fan and particularly TOS most of it is immediately recognizable as fake, particularly when you can spot AI’s obvious hallucinations. AI usually can’t help itself from hallucinating.
And sadly it’s not just Trek. Of particular note are all the Titanic related AI generations where it’s passed off as the Titanic, but obviously isn’t. Seeing the ship sink by the aft end, and in daylight, first is hilarious!
But to be fair I have seen some respectable generations used to good effect, but the vast majority of it is indeed slop. Evermore people are using this to create fast-n-cheap content then trying to pass it off as authentic.
Awhile back I played with AI (for about three weeks) just to see what it could do. It was okay for cleaning things up, but trying to create something from scratch was an exercise in mounting frustration.
I have also caught flack for calling out obvious “AI slop” on Facebook as well as Youtube. Not just AI imagery but narrations as well.
And sadly it’s not just Trek. Of particular note are all the Titanic related AI generations where it’s passed off as the Titanic, but obviously isn’t. Seeing the ship sink by the aft end, and in daylight, first is hilarious!
But to be fair I have seen some respectable generations used to good effect, but the vast majority of it is indeed slop. Evermore people are using this to create fast-n-cheap content then trying to pass it off as authentic.
Awhile back I played with AI (for about three weeks) just to see what it could do. It was okay for cleaning things up, but trying to create something from scratch was an exercise in mounting frustration.
I have also caught flack for calling out obvious “AI slop” on Facebook as well as Youtube. Not just AI imagery but narrations as well.
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If I see a video with an AI thumbnail on YouTube, I ain't clicking. If I start one and it's got AI voice overs, I'm backing out.
On the plus side for YouTube creators, it means I'm giving ones with more annoying voices a chance that I probably wouldn't have before
On the plus side for YouTube creators, it means I'm giving ones with more annoying voices a chance that I probably wouldn't have before
I've mentioned my friend Frank's new YouTube series discussing Sci Fi props, the first one I posted (about Trek) got called AI slop. He uses an AI avatar because he's doing this alone in his basement on a laptop and doesn't have a studio or, like, any equipment. He admits up front the "host" is an AI of himself, but the content is NOT AI. And yet. He's doing this for fun, mind you, and it's a subject he loves. So getting called "slop" is more than just insulting.
Anyway, here's his latest episode, on the Man From UNCLE. He's getting better and better at the programming.
Anyway, here's his latest episode, on the Man From UNCLE. He's getting better and better at the programming.
No mention of it on that video that I can see. Or on the main channel itself.
I clicked on another video and he said that he does "...use an AI assistant to help me edit the show. It helps write scripts, organize my thoughts, and tighten up narration. But make no mistake, I create the show."
No mention of the digi-man talking at me.
A lot of YouTube people just use a camera or phone. Many don't appear on camera at all.
Eh. He referred to people who call him out on the Ai as keyboard warriors so let's call it even.
That's really all that matters at the end of the day.
(But if you put it out there with comments turned on, you're gonna get comments.
)
As is the case with many words on the internet these days, it has grown thin from overuse. As for "combative"? Come on, now. This trend of Word Policing is nuts.
It isn't word policing, it is getting your point across. If you're using "slop", you're issues will be immediately dismissed as you're showing your dislike of AI.
This is being combative. For no other reason than being combative. Likely being dismissed before they ever consider what is being said.
This might get the person to stop and examine what they posted.
With this, I agree. I don't understand how people have gotten so sensitive over the usage of certain words to the point where we have to rephrase things to not "offend" people. Of course it depends how certain terms are used and is dependent on context, but largely I have the opinion where it is better to be blunt and straight to the point rather than using fluff and filler to get your point across.
If I see a video with an AI thumbnail on YouTube, I ain't clicking. If I start one and it's got AI voice overs, I'm backing out.
On the plus side for YouTube creators, it means I'm giving ones with more annoying voices a chance that I probably wouldn't have before
I've become downright paranoid about checking how long youtuber accounts have existed and when they started posting and how frequently they post videos; if I have any suspicions at all and I see they only started posting within the last year or two, I get out.
"The Big Bang" was derogatory, yet became the "official" name of the hypothesis. And Schrodinger's Cat was an allegory meant to illustrate the absurdity of quantum uncertainty, yet proponents turned around and said, "Yes, that's exactly what we mean!" Maybe "slop" will be adopted by the language the way "laser" is no longer spelled with all caps as an acronym.
Ai—and I always spell it with a lowercase "i" to make it easier to distinguish from a name—is not the same as 3D modeling and animation packages, which have three dimensional space built into the code. Generative Ai "learns" from 2D images and video. Some models can roll a tire or ball, while others look like a car with locked-up brakes being dragged along. Trek ships have some odd geometry, thus making changing perspectives difficult. We've all seen the Ai people with six fingers, hands with reversed chirality, extra limbs, or limbs twisted at odd angles, intersecting bodies, etc. Even those Westworld androids could be distinguished by their crude hands.
James P. Hogan's novel The Genesis Machine posited a computer called a BIAC with a man-machine interface. While learning to handle 3D shapes, the student operator found that a cube would distort all out of shape if he tried to "turn it" in a virtual hand. The instructor suggested orbiting the cube, instead of trying to tumble it. I would imagine engineers are already working on next-gen Ai that includes what 3D animation packages already have. (Polygons or "N-gons" with a rotation order, "normals", occultation, collision and all the rest.)
Now Deep Fakes can be more easily spotted:
techxplore.com
Also if interest--there is help for those who want 3D constructs from 2D images
techxplore.com
Perhaps that will breathe new life into old Star Trek blueprints?
Fake architecture images could also be a result.
Facial movement analysis detects deepfake videos with more than 95% accuracy
So-called deepfakes, that is, images and videos generated with the help of artificial intelligence, are becoming increasingly difficult to detect. An international research team from the University of Tokyo and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany, has developed a...
Also if interest--there is help for those who want 3D constructs from 2D images
A better way to turn 2D designs into 3D models for rapid prototyping
Engineers often use vision-language models to produce new designs, such as airplane or automobile components. To simulate how those components will perform in realistic situations, they'll use tried-and-true computer-aided design (CAD) software to generate 3D models of those designs, which they...
Perhaps that will breathe new life into old Star Trek blueprints?
Fake architecture images could also be a result.
It'd be worse if there was music behind the spoken words, especially if the music was trying to vie for attention and battling the tone of the presenter's. Then again, for some videos the muzak might actually be helpful!
Did I miss the picture of the “Shirt Change” part???
And this appeared on an article online. I marked it up to prevent it from being shared as if it were real.
Well, you can say there is a certain "psychic" truth there...even if she really did think "Star Trek" was about celebrities out and about--a pre "reality show" nicer than Hedda Hopper's hijinks.
You should be able to lodge a complaint with youtube. Content creators are asked before uploading a video if it has AI fakery involved.
