It’s official: AI will replace us all – and sooner than we may think.

Not only are some of the AI tools currently in development incredibly powerful at creating realistic-looking audiovisual media, but they empower users who lack any actual skill – or, presumably, artistic intent – which is ultimately the greatest threat to all creatives…

DragGAN – Created by researchers at Google, MIT, and Max Planck Institut Informatik, DragGAN goes far beyond mere generative fill, “using AI to generate the underlying object” like, say, the teeth in a smile artificially added to a face. Perhaps its most powerful aspect is, as Alpha Signal demonstrates, its simplicity of use:

Advanced Deep Fake – Flawless AI‘s TrueSync uses generative AI (again, via Max Planck Institut Informatik) for both video (“performance tracking”, which identifies human movement, from which to then create a 3D model) and audio (dialogue removal, then replacement) to create seamless alternate versions of footage:

The catch (and perhaps the only limitation keeping this from being truly horrifying, at least for now) is that the AI still depends on humans capturing footage of the actor delivering certain alternate performance beats. However, as the report points out (a little too gleefully), “none of this takes decades of tech expertise or any sort of special skills to pull off. Around 80% of the work involved… was automated” – and (just as cheerfully) notes that the tech will “give producers a lot more power over the story even after the scenes have been shot” (and, presumably, over the intent of the artists actually creating and capturing the original footage):

But AI ‘Film-Making’ Isn’t A Thing Yet…

The ‘[Famous Movie] by Wes Anderson’ AI-generated movie trailers by Curious Refuge went viral…

… but, as Patrick H. Willems argues, their complete lack of human input (even the concept was AI-generated) – not to mention that the entire “art” form is tellingly championed by tech entrepreneurs as a cheat code for art (so… the object is to win?) – is why AI-generated videos are still a galaxy far, far away from ‘film-making’:

… Or Is It?

Not all AI tools have such sinister implications, especially the ones designed to help, rather than replace, skilled artists specifically. There are even a few you may not realise you are already using:

Film School: AI in Film-Making (That’s Actually Helpful) in 2023