AI killed the video star.

-


In the latest months, I have found myself questioning more and more often the shorts that YouTube is dropping on my feed. The point is not why they are there; the point is whether they are "real". And it is because the pervasive use of AI in video creation is making me now doubt everything I see. 

There is an old Arab saying: "Believe what you see and lay aside what you hear." Whether the origin is right or not, I cannot say(*). But what is becoming evident is that the power of the video as "proof" of an event is becoming thinner and thinner every day. After all, Hollywood built an empire on the idea of filming stories, where the premise is to make you believe them. However, we expect news reports to accurately convey real events, not fictional narratives.

YouTube, TikTok, and the like are more about keeping us hooked on whatever crap we are interested in. Whether it is a healthy diet, running, fixing your motorbike, woodworking, plumbing, ... you name it. But with the advent of AI videos, content creators have a new tool that, with almost zero production costs, allows them to create videos about anything, real or invented. Making a movie is an expensive proposition; making AI videos is comparatively cheaper, easier, and quicker. 

My point here is that these online services could end up taking a hit because of AI-generated content, where users stop clicking after discovering they are being deceived repeatedly with content not worth their time. You might see some value in a video that shows you an unusual real situation, but if that is an imagined one posted as if it were real, it appears to me like fake reporting. There are tabloids that do that, and they may have some public, but that is not for me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VFD control with Arduino using RS485 link

-
Image
Variable Frequency Drives ( VFD ) allow the control of spindles so speed can accurately be controlled and a detailed acceleration profile for the spindle and reverse rotation can all be handled. In essence a VFD is an three phase inverter for three-phase AC motor. I am using a popular (I mean cheap) Chinese VFD and though the reference manual is not great, I could see there is a built-in RS-485 port. I usually control the start, stop and speed selection using the keyboard on the unit but I thought it will be more useful if I could control everything from the same Arduino is doing our CNC table control. Some cheap RS-485 off eBay and some lines of code later, I can start, stop and change the speed from an Arduino. What a cool thing to have! Some configuration of your VFD are needed before you can use it like that.  You need to set PD163=1 (I am using address 1 in the code). PD=164=1 (for setting serial to 9600bps) and PD165=0 (for using ASCII and 8N1 character for...
Read more

Importing OpenSCAD designs into Onshape

-
Image
After using Onshape CAD software for a while I am really fond of it. So one natural thing to do, specially once they have released the Instructor's kit is to start using it in the classroom too. But one thing I was not so sure how to do was to use old designs I made using OpenSCAD. It does not mean I am completely quitting using OpenSCAD but suddenly I can see I can do assemblies in Onshape that will look quite nice for showing and documentation purposes if only I could easily import from OpenSCAD. I am glad to report that the route OpenSCAD --> FreeCAD --> Onshape worked brilliantly. Even more when a few tricks were applied. While some people suggest to import CSG files from OpenSCAD to FreeCAD, I have had more success by directly importing SCAD files into FreeCAD. One trick that worked well for me was to get rid of $fn references, so now circles become real circles (or cylinders) in FreeCAD. If a part keeps some $fn references then your cylinders or circles wi...
Read more

Arduino mood light

-
Image
I recently saw the cool mood lamp by Philips and I liked it. What I did not like was the price. I set myself to discover what the industry has to offer in terms of high-power LEDs. It turns out that since the old 20mA red LEDs the market has evolved in such a way that it seems the light appliances of the future might be completely LED-powered. Now there are 3W and 10W LEDs available. Either monochrome or RGB. I like LEDs as they last forever (I've never seen a LED that stopped working unless it was due to a current overload). High power LEDs are not cheap but they are very easy to control from a micro-controller using PWM (Pulse Width Modulation). They need DC low voltage power sources. I did a test with an Arduino board and a protoboard with a ULN2003 that I've used to control a 3W RGB LED . I programmed a never ending random sequence and this is the source code . Just connect each led (R,G,B) to the outputs 9,10 and 11 of the Arduino. If you need more current then use a Darl...
Read more