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Pika Labs new generative AI video tool unveiled — and it looks like a big deal (www.tomsguide.com)

submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Pika Labs new generative AI video tool unveiled — and it looks like a big deal::The new Pika 1.0 tool comes after a $55 million funding round for the generative AI company and is a big step up in AI video production.

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[–] archomrade@midwest.social 74 points 10 months ago (27 children)

There's a lot of "AI is theft" comments in this thread, and I'd just like to take a moment to bring up the Luddite movement at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution: the point isn't that 'machines are theft', or 'machines are just a fad', or even 'machines are bad' - the point was that machines were the new and highly efficient way capital owners were undermining the security and material conditions of the working class.

Let's not confuse problems that are created by capitalistic systems for problems created by new technologies - and maybe we can learn something about radical political action from the Luddites.

[–] Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 10 months ago

I recommend reading this article by Kit Walsh, a senior staff attorney at the EFF if you haven't already. The EFF is a digital rights group who most recently won a historic case: border guards now need a warrant to search your phone.

AI training isn’t only for mega-corporations. We can already train open source models, and Mozilla and LAION have already commited to training AI anyone can use. We shouldn't put up barriers that only benefit the ultra-wealthy and hand corporations a monopoly of a public technology by making it prohibitively expensive to for regular people to keep up. Mega corporations already own datasets, and have the money to buy more. And that's before they make users sign predatory ToS allowing them exclusive access to user data, effectively selling our own data back to us. Regular people, who could have had access to a competitive, corporate-independent tool for creativity, education, entertainment, and social mobility, would instead be left worse off and with less than where they started.

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[–] Subverb@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago

I've been saying for a year now, generative AI is going to foster a resurgence in stage theater. When movies are all 100% AI with no humans in them, we'll want to see humans act. That and "organic" movie labels.

[–] Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (33 children)

Cool, another step in the ruining art with AI saga

These are all short clips because they look like ass if you get enough time to actually look at them. But even still, can people just stop with this shit?

Let people do the one truely human thing ffs.

Edit: Let me be clear, AI has good uses. My only argument here is that generating art is not one, especially when the training data is stolen and used for profit.

[–] ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 22 points 10 months ago (6 children)

No one is stopping people from making art, lazy people will use this to do things they want, but artists will make art because that's what they do.

[–] Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 39 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm more concerned about the fact that shitty companies will use this sort of thing to put graphic designers out of a job.

This isn't good progress. Even soulless corporate bullshit puts food on the table for someone, soon it'll just make another company a bit richer.

[–] zazo@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Look I'm not supporting mega rich assholes extracting even more from working people, but would you use the same argument for textile weavers and the Jacquard loom? Sure a lot of people lost their jobs at the time, but most, if not all, respecialized and we got computers in the end so would you say it wasn't good progress? 🤷

[–] Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Except that this is entirely unecessary, and doesn't create a product we need, and it's certainly not one I want.

I want to support people, I want people to do beautiful incredible things. I don't want a higher production rate of souless art statistically generated by taking the work of thousands of people without their consent, for no good reason.

Replace CEOs with AI, that would be good progress.

I also mentioned in another comment that this technology has some very very good uses, I am convinced creating art is an evil use. I'm a big fan of projects like Talon Voice, you can donate voice samples to help improve their language model to help people who struggle to use a computer with their hands. It's amazing stuff and I love it.

[–] zazo@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

See, that's the crux of the argument I feel. You can't have one without the other, you can't have voice generation for the mute without that technology also displacing voice actors in the process.

That's why I think the Luddite approach doesn't work, we can't forcefully break the machines that are capable of so much good because they're also capable of so much bad.

Instead we should focus on helping those that are most negatively impacted by their existence, while supporting everyone that is already being positively affected by them. (like the UBI mentioned in my other comment)

PS. Totes down for replacing CEOs with AI and distributing their salary among the workers

[–] Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I can kinda get behind that, but only if it's done right (which I'm absolutely convinced it won't be, thanks to history).

Even just paying the people who lose their jobs, and helping them transition to other work is bad because voice acting is probably a dream job for a lot of people. We also have to ethically source training data, and I don't really see that happening. After all, who would want to contribute to losing their own job?

If we could do all that, I think we can agree as a society to protect those jobs instead. I legimately think we can have only the good, but I understand that doing so requires a fight. I'd much rather fight for that than lay down and accept the worst possible option.

Edit: I'll add further, that this is probably already happening, just for the CEOs. They have the power to create tools capable of replacing them, and to prevent them from replacing them.

[–] zazo@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

That's a good attitude to have and I'm not advocating for putting down our arms and waiting for big tech to steamroll us all.

But as I've mentioned elsewhere, the people making the AI models are fully aware they are contributing to a technology that will take away their own jobs, because they think that it will create other, even more interesting jobs in the process. (see trad artists swearing off photography in it's early days because it was "mechanical and soulless", only to realize it's creative potential years later)

My advice would be to continue being aware of the negative history of things, but don't let it blind you to the positive aspects either.

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[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Textile weavers still exist, they just get paid even less and live in third world countries. “AI” is the same - a lot of the training is done by underpaid folks living in Kenya and Tanzania. They have to label the gore and CP so that the “AI” won’t use it. Post traumatic stress disorder is pretty common…

[–] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Like... That was bad too. What we need to do is ditch capitalism before we automate everything.

It doesn't function if nobody has jobs.

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Advancements like the loom usually just affect one industry (yes, there are ripples in the whole economy) and it's not like we got that, the printing press, the internal combustion engine, the computer, and the telephone all at once. AI, if properly trained, can do nearly any task so it's not just artists that are in danger of becoming obsolete.

[–] rambaroo@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

They've already been doing that

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Capitalism optimizes for lazy over good. Who's going to be able to pay rent as an artist in your dystopia

[–] ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What artists do you know that make money off their art? The starving artist not being able to make money to survive has been a thing since before Van Gogh's time.

We've automated the food making process, but people still make money off of preparation of food, there's always going to be a market for artists, but that market will be different.

These AI things are great tools to assist artists, but the fear mongering gets in the way.

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (9 children)

What artists do you know that make money off their art?

this is such a bad take, I present to you, society. and the hundreds of thousands if not millions, tens or hundreds of millions of employed (either self or through businesses) artists.

and using the "starving artist" as a goal we should transition to just really sucks in concept. I'm not sure you would say the same if it was your profession.

I know ~~reddit~~ lemmy is full of techbros but geez have some compassion for other people. Oh wooweey i can type words and not have to have someone else do an art, I'm an artist now, everyone else can starve

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[–] Sasha@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)

No, this is a tool that does all of the work of an artist. It is absolutely not an assistant.

That's a bad faith argument, and it's actively harmful. Artists are struggling yes, and this just makes that worse, it won't be a separate market that somehow doesn't impact them.

If you think we should actually work to make it harder for artists to do things, that it's actually good that they struggle, then you have some messed up priorities, friend.

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 3 points 10 months ago

It doesn't really do all the work of an artist though. It generates pictures, but consider that a camera also generates pictures of things, and yet photography is considered an art form these days, and one's results from doing that can vary quite a bit between someone who understands both artistic principles and how their tools function, versus someone who does not. Having an image generator does not also entail knowing what to ask the generator for, or how to make any adjustments to it's output if it gives you something that is close to what you envision but not quite there. If anything, I personally suspect a more mature version of the technology will get integrated into art tools in some way rather than looking like it currently does, because a text prompt is a somewhat vague and inexact way to describe an image. If you ask it for a spaceship, for example, it'll give you some sort of spaceship, and if you ask it for a specific spaceship from pop culture it may likely give you that, but if you're imagining a specific design for a spaceship, with specific details, that does not already exist in existing art, it would be very hard to completely describe that just through text, versus if you could start sketching out and have it sort of act as a kind of graphical autocomplete that you can steer in given directions.

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[–] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (6 children)

All it means is that at art as a career is dead.

Guess we want everyone working in retail or something

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[–] burliman@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is not the way to look at this. Stop thinking this stuff will replace human art. Until we can simulate a human in the machine (not there yet), art will always be by humans because it is a human endeavor recognized and appreciated only by humans.

These things are tools for a human to use. And like any tool that is used in the hands of the casual or the lazy, it will become very banal indeed once the shininess wears off. With your same outlook you could tell Adobe to stop improving the digital brushes in Photoshop, because art is only for humans.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 9 points 10 months ago

I think a good analogy is clipart, or those horrible corporate memphis/algeria graphics. They look awful, but they are just good enough at illustrating an idea that many companies will use them rather than hiring an artist. The thing is, corporations almost never want art. They want illustrations.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

AI doesn't generate art. Art is about using media in order to convey a perspective on the world and to illicit emotions from the audience. What AI generates is simply the media itself. It isn't capable of having the point of view or life experiences needed to create actual art.

[–] banneryear1868@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

People forget art isn't just a product it's an activity people do.

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[–] glowie@h4x0r.host 11 points 10 months ago

We were only meant to be wage slaves /s

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[–] hubobes@sh.itjust.works 11 points 10 months ago

This is not the death of artists but of studios. When creating movies will become cheap, movie studios will be the ones becoming unnecessary. But artists are the creatives who feed these tools and who now can create content on their own.

[–] realharo@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

This is from over a month ago.

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Seeing people go gaga over all this AI trash kind of makes me convinced that most people just… do not see? Not that something is physically wrong with their vision but it’s like most of it doesn’t even register, even more so than what I thought was the normal baseline of inattention to details.

Are people just constantly distracted and not really engaging with media? Only watching or looking at things on small screens? The result of decades of cuts and devaluation of art education? Literally just being happy with whatever garbage is in front of them? It’s a mystery to me.

[–] KeenFlame@feddit.nu 25 points 10 months ago (5 children)

The ooohs is mostly about how fucking far it has come so quickly. You must see how this technology is a pretty fucking big deal

[–] burliman@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (5 children)

They don’t see and don’t really want to see. Typical technophobe responses rooted in fear and insecurities.

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[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What a condescending view point while bringing nothing to the table but insults.

I see a technology that will break the barriers necessary to get into animation and movie production, finally paving way for indie companies in the domain. It will elevate art in all domains, bringing us more interesting products and features.

[–] Peanutbjelly@sopuli.xyz 3 points 10 months ago

God I want some large projects by independent teams. It's impossible to do anything without a sponsor, but this might be what we need for smaller groups to create wonderful complex works of art, instead of cookiecutter boardroom content machines that currently flood almost all available commercial artistic spaces.

Can't wait to see how the tech develops. It's be curious to do VR experience recreations of my dreams through AI dictation.

Modelling, rigging, animation and the like are all coming. Imagine walking around a world being crafted and changed as you describe each element to be exactly what you are looking for.

I think it would capture more artist intent than the unnecessary interface of archaic tools that create an artificial interface and challenge between you and your vision.

Especially if you've damaged your digits, or otherwise lack digital dexterity.

But change scares people. Especially ones who have put in effort to conform to the current economic system corporate art creators.

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