What is left for us human beings?

Dependency on AI can create complacency among artists

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ack of Science in 2016, Fiction at the London and Fantastic International Film, in Festival the 48hr Film Challenge, filmmaker Oscar Sharp and artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Ross Goodwin entered a film called Sunspring. The film was entirely scripted by an AI, originally called Jetson, who later named itself Benjamin. This year, Sharp and Goodwin let Benjamin handle all of the film’s production by itself. even did The the AI background not only wrote score the script, and put it the acting together using face-swapping and voice-generating technologies. Benjamin was given thousands of hours of old films and green screen footage of professional actors, and allowed to put the film together. While the resulting film, Zone Out, is a surreal, largely incomprehensible series of scenes with bad face-grafting and arbitrary dialogue, the fact that an AI can actually do this marks an important milestone in the evolution of AI, blurring further the lines between technology and art.

Fake videos that cannot be distinguished from the real thing have existed for some time now. Researchers at the University of Washington have been able to take audio clips, recreate realistic videos were Obama) mouth actually . This movements, could look saying like technically something they and were then make entirely saying graft a person it different. one on (in thing, to their other It’s when case, like existing they photoshop Barack alongside could, human theoretically, for interference. an video. AI’s Putting ability There give to that have us put films skill words been — and instances and if one stories sentences can of call AI without that together, it that wrote any — (admittedly, with its Assistant another terrible) human. being poetry, able The Incredibles and to carry very out recently, 2, an which actual Google released conversation showcased yesterday, uses and “the the medium inevitability is the of message” human dependency to talk about on this AI phenomenon that could possibly lead to complacency in many walks of life.

If Computer-generated imagery (CGI) can create realistic humans for the screen and AI can write, direct, and make music, what’s left for us humans? Imagination is what really sets us apart. And now we have imagined — and built — an intelligence that might be able to do the imagining for us. Have we finally gone too far?