ByteDance backpedals after Seedance 2.0 turned Hollywood icons into AI “clip art”

Hollywood backlash puts spotlight on ByteDance's sketchy launch of Seedance 2.0.

See full article...

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I realize that 'intellectual consistency' is asking for a lot; but it'd be great if company PR teams were better about jumping on American botherds; since they are guilty of all the same things the Chinese ones are; and there's nothing about sharing a nationality with them that is going to save you.

 

[ampet]

Your second sentence is begging the important question: the big social media companies are pushing the technology hard because they need an almost endless amount of stuff to keep people watching ads and they only care about quality to the extent that people keep scrolling. This could leave everyone else in a position similar to what most quality manufacturers have been in where the market between the cheapest imported junk and the high-end premium stuff has been shrinking rapidly: think about how North Carolina’s furniture industry has faded because the number of middle-class people who can and do buy quality wood furniture rapidly shrunk — the continued existence of people who buy heirloom-grade furniture doesn’t really help them keep the doors open, and there’s no possible way they can possibly compete with Southeast Asian manufacturers on pricing.

Social media is basically the crack version of that problem because the most effective content producers get most of the revenue, and AI means they actually can keep up with advertisers’ demand for new spots. It’s very easy to imagine people just zoning out and watching slop because it’s too hard to find anything else when the algorithm keeps steering them to the cheap slop. I’m reminded of how, before my time, most neighborhoods had small grocery stores which disappeared as convenience/dollar stores undercut on packaged junk food and didn’t leave enough of a market to be viable.

But this is not AI, this is basic capitalism. I hate to repeat myself, but really, Marx predicted all of this in Das Kapital. It is the inevitable conclusion of a system that has profit as its sole, or at least predominant, criterion for selection. You may not agree with his solution (I happen to believe that his imagined solution was a child of its time, when psychology and sociology and a lot of other social sciences were at most embryonal) but the writing was on the wall. It has always been on the wall.

 

[JustYourAverageJDP]

If AI companies can steal data for training why not use the output without restriction? IP laws dont matter anymore, it shoudl be applied evenly, not on who has the most money.

Why should disney have more rights than everyone else? its repulsive.

Its time to change IP law, and enforce them not based on who donated to the regime, but on how the law is written.

I fully support what Bytedance is doing, my data didnt matter to be stolen so why should Disney get to have any protections whatsoever.

 

[Senti]

only western ai scambot can steal other countries IP after all.

 

[WereCatf]

I am wondering if it'll be possible at some point to use an existing, old movie as a reference and then "re-render" it with modern-looking visuals and effects. I'd like to have e.g. RoboCop and Back to the Future redone with crisp image and less janky visual effects, but with the plot and all the scenes kept exactly the same.

Do I believe that'll be possible at any point? Eh, not really, but if it ever becomes possible that'd at least be a somewhat interesting use for AI.

 

[Varste]

So is AI a threat or is it not a threat?
Artists are upset that it's threatening jobs.
Also, artists are upset that it is generating "slop" that can never replace human-created content.

If it's just creating "slop" then people won't consume and it's not a threat. Why not let it die on the vine?

My guess is because its the higher ups at companies pushing for the use of the tech, regardless of its current issues. They see it as an essentially-free replacement for meatbags, and people will still lose their jobs before the bubble pops and reality sets in.

 

[BigOlBlimp]

Yeah, but have you watched it though? I agree that review bombing is a thing but this was downright unwatchable.

Alright to put my money where my mouth is I watched it. There definitely is a lot of that strange shifting speed and momentum that plagues today's AI videos, it was a very long three minutes and thirty seconds. The shot of the letter changing hands was pretty cool.

I wouldn't call it "unwatchable" but... I would definitely not choose to watch it lol

 

[no_free_lunches_for_ai]

I love how it's only a problem when they're on the receiving end.

Also China I would imagine.

 

[adamsc]

But this is not AI, this is basic capitalism. I hate to repeat myself, but really, Marx predicted all of this in Das Kapital. It is the inevitable conclusion of a system that has profit as its sole, or at least predominant, criterion for selection. You may not agree with his solution (I happen to believe that his imagined solution was a child of its time, when psychology and sociology and a lot of other social sciences were at most embryonal) but the writing was on the wall. It has always been on the wall.

It’s both: capitalism creates the incentive but AI offers the means for capitalists to get what they want without needing to negotiate with skilled workers, which they’ve always hated. I’m a software developer and I have completely lost track of the number of guys who confused better than average pay with being part of the executive class. They’d bleat expressions like “I’m too smart to need a union!” just like their bosses wanted, but as we’re seeing in the tech layoffs that loyalty was entirely unilateral. Based on how quickly Disney kissed the ring, I think their previous efforts cultivating an inclusive image can largely be seen as a necessity for hiring those leaky artists who keep inconveniently being gay, brown, etc.

 

[randomcat]

It’s both: capitalism creates the incentive but AI offers the means for capitalists to get what they want without needing to negotiate with skilled workers, which has always been an uneasy negotiation.

It also allows the skilled workers to produce work without needing to negotiate with capitalists. In fact, unlike the current vastly expensive production methods which cost tens of millions of dollars, artists can use this technology with no involvement from capitalists at all.

 

[sdotbailey]

It seems that with AI, making a movie will soon become like writing a book. We might soon be getting some fantastic movies instead of Marvel slop

I would rather watch some 19 year old college kid's iPhone movie over ANYTHING generated by one of these trash plagiarism machines. It might look less "polished" but it is better in every way because an actual human came up with the idea, then shot and edited it. It's all from them and that makes it better, full stop. In a just world, these AI bro losers would've been shoved into lockers the moment they tried to unveil these idiot machines. May all their servers and source code burn.

 

[sdotbailey]

It also allows the skilled workers to produce work without needing to negotiate with capitalists. In fact, unlike the current vastly expensive production methods which cost tens of millions of dollars, artists can use this technology with no involvement from capitalists at all.

Terrible, terrible take. There's a ton of software and we're all essentially walking around with pro-level cameras in our pockets now. Skilled people can create with the products which already exist and are readily available. Talentless hacks can move to AI. The result will be just as soulless as they are.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Cease and desist? Where are the lawsuits for billions of dollars of IP theft?!!

 

[shodanbo]

The strategy for building products around generative machine learning appears to be ....

"Its better to ask for forgiveness later rather than ask for permission first"

 

[adamsc]

It also allows the skilled workers to produce work without needing to negotiate with capitalists. In fact, unlike the current vastly expensive production methods which cost tens of millions of dollars, artists can use this technology with no involvement from capitalists at all.

Well, not without buying a lot of tokens or hardware at the moment. Very few people are using local LLMs compared to the number pumping money into subscriptions.

Worse, you can produce some things but do you have the resources to be found? For example, maybe you’re a musician whose songs are so pure that they make angels weep — does that really matter when some MBA at Spotify sees that AI slop allows them to keep half of what they’d pay you and trains their robot keep the slop flowing?

 

[ampet]

Well, not without buying a lot of tokens or hardware at the moment. Very few people are using local LLMs compared to the number pumping money into subscriptions.

Worse, you can produce some things but do you have the resources to be found? For example, maybe you’re a musician whose songs are so pure that they make angels weep — does that really matter when some MBA at Spotify sees that AI slop allows them to keep half of what they’d pay you and trains their robot keep the slop flowing?

That's why I'm saying that it's not AI, it's capitalism; just like the home studio allowed musicians to finally self-produce their songs (or at least part of the process) but the incumbents (and their capitalist replacements - Spotify is no different from its predecessors, new media, old methods) were still gatekeeping entry to market. Granted, with more and more automation the idea of making a profit off your work becomes less and less feasible, but that was also predicted by Marx.

 

[HaikuOezu]

It’s okay, Disney will just make an OpenAI style deal with them like the scumbags they are

 

[shayne.oneill]

How quickly will "legislation" be crafted to allow for AI companies to do as they wont, without limits?

And, with this administration being openly antagonistic to renewable energy, we get to keep paying for, and suffering because of, these fucking ass-clowns.

<eyebrow twitch intensifies>

Recently in australia the "productivity commission" (Think DOGE if DOGE was created by sane people and not given a mandate to destroy anything in sight) put out a report recomending crafting excemptions into copyright law to allow all IP to be used to train AI without permission.

When calls for public comment came out it was filled with tech bros blabbering on about how AI will "transform productivity" etc etc. Pretty galling stuff , so I wrote in submission recomending that copyright laws be ammended to reinforce the criminal liability for corporate IP theft, and recomended a police unit be established to go after large companies that steal art and music to train AI. After all, if a teenager can face 10+ years in prison for uploading one of my albums to pirate bay then why can a CEO upload everyones album to AI and get an invite to parliment house as a consequence. And since musicians usually cant afford to sue, having criminal prosecutions is an everyone-wins scenario. The tactic however was going for a maximalist response to make the more "level headed" submissions from unions and artist groups seem more reasonable. Playing bad cop to reinforce the good cop was a strategy I learned well when I used to work for the academic union (NTEU).

I also pointed out that the arts represented the 6th largest industry in the country and with that already under stress from the internet and killing that off represented a loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Oh and I also wrote briefings for the main creative labor unions and I think this helped them create pretty vigorous backlash from the unions about it, including the Media Entertainment And Arts union la unching a media campaign going after AI companies for not paying royalties to artists.

Needless to say, Labor backpedaled hard on that and announced they'd not be reducing protections for writers, artists musicians and film makers. I think theres a template for Euros and Americans fighting similar battles. Get in there BEFORE the laws roll out and make it extremely clear that if they do this, they'll face a massive backlash from the musicians and film makers and that yes, this is something they should fear in a democracy.

 

[shayne.oneill]

The future, just substitute "sheep" with "content creators."

This cartoon used to get passed around anti-fascist circles with the joke that neo-nazi forums like stormfront where 50% undercover anti-fascists and 50% undercover FBI agents.

 

[grommit!]

The screenwriter was impressed by an AI video created by Irish director Ruairi Robinson, which realistically depicted Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt.

About that, someone took a closer look

Being the enthusiastic fact checker I hopped over to Seedance’s website and it only took 10 seconds to find green screen footage of two stuntmen performing the same fight choreography we see in the Cruise vs Pitt scene. Seedance had used the green screen footage for a different demo - this time using a prompt for an anime style fight scene.

The theory is that they just took the same green screen footage and did some background and face replacement.

 

[EMH]

AI slop vs notorious copyright maximalists like Disney and other MPAA members. Oh no, how terrible.

I'd do a 'let them fight' jpg, but i don't want a 'Cease and Desist' letter...

More AI cancer. Pure fucking cancer.

Ai is here to stay. I'm sorry that you have chosen to be miserable about it instead of taking advantage of it. Actually, I'm not.

 

[CatNamedHugs]

Ai is here to stay. I'm sorry that you have chosen to be miserable about it instead of taking advantage of it. Actually, I'm not.

Did you seriously create an account just to slobber on AI-bro hog? Did you screenshot it for Elon?

 

[theGekkoST]

I hate to cite Star Trek as a source – because it's fiction – but their writers did call this, and anticipate solutions to it, back in the 1990s.

The holodeck of TNG, DS9, and Voyager is a logical extension of generative AI, as conceived long ago and beginning its implementation now. Short prompts were fed through a massive AI system to generate things the user could see and interact with.

Some people treated this system as an engineering R&D tool.

Some treated it as a game.

Some became addicted to it.

Some developed an artistic mastery of the technology and used it to tell and share stories of their own, even becoming galactically famous if their work touched a particularly poignant part of the meaning of life.

Some pushed it to the point where serious debates over the sentience and individuality of programs that grew beyond the originally-conceived limits of the technology could occur.

We aren't that far along yet. We're in the early days of "what is this? How does it work? What does it mean for our society?" and yes, there is a chance that some concepts that have been on shaky ground for a while – like copyrights on corporate IP, or the necessity of various administrative jobs – might be seriously disrupted. But it is still just a tool. A tool that will displace some jobs while rendering others more productive. A tool that will democratize some types of art and creativity while destroying the livelihoods of those who've built their careers in specialized fields.

The genie is out of the bottle now, though, and we have to hope that he turns into Vic Fontaine rather than Professor Moriarty.

a slight Devil's Advocate here, but Star Trek also existed in a quasi-utopia world where money was abandoned and people could do the jobs they wanted and still live the Ameri... Earthian-dream.

Yes, DS9 did introduce Gold-Plated-Latinum and "Profit", but Picard made it clear most people are able to live fulfilling lives without money.

 

[EMH]

Did you seriously create an account just to slobber on AI-bro hog? Did you screenshot it for Elon?

Wow, what an argument! That really changed my mind. AI is terrible and I will never use it again.