3 ms·

> Dan, who created the video of Pompeii, says he recognises a lots of details in his videos are historically inaccurate. "AI-generated content isn't perfect, an

by gyomu 2y ago

> Dan, who created the video of Pompeii, says he recognises a lots of details in his videos are historically inaccurate. "AI-generated content isn't perfect, and while I strive for accuracy, these videos are more about evoking the feeling of a time period rather than being a 100% factual recreation. "They're more like artistic interpretations rather than strict documentaries." As someone technical who works in creative circles, I hear this kind of reasoning all the time and it drives me nuts. The “it’s just art bro, don’t take it so seriously” excuse is so tired, but like the best fake excuses there’s no way to counter it.

tbrownaw 2y ago
Good isn't enough, everything has to be perfect?
- vkou 2y ago
  When you see the world in black and white, you completely miss out that there are a million shades of gray in between. It's not that good isn't enough, it's that it's not good enough.
djeastm 2y ago
>I strive for accuracy Well that's plainly not true. Striving for accuracy is going through the script and doing this thing called "fact checking". It's an actual job that used to mean something to writers, journalists, documentarians... The noble goal of egalitarian democratization of media has had the unintended consequence of completely blurring the lines between quality and ... non-quality information. What galls me most is the people who care about fact and truth, and used to be the guardians or advocates for such things, are just drowned in a sea of bots, malicious actors, and the ignorant and are thereby discouraged.
- HideousKojima 2y ago
  >What galls me most is the people who care about fact and truth, and used to be the guardians or advocates for such things, are just drowned in a sea of bots, malicious actors, and the ignorant and are thereby discouraged. No such thing ever existed
  - Retric 2y ago
    Some people have always cared quite a lot about the truth, but major media cared in part because lawsuits over libel, slander, or defamation are expensive. However, there’s little point in suing 1 of 10,000 people all spouting nonsense. At least until they gain a little traction and thus enough resources to be worth suing like Alex Jones etc.
  - schmidtleonard 2y ago
    Bullshit. The world was never made of saints, but there were real institutional checks and balances (asking the accused for comment, publishing retractions, institutional fact-checkers next to editorial staff) and a far greater cultural sense that truth was valuable and lies were shameful. These are easy to appreciate, warts and all, now that they are gone. They leave a big hole. There was one good innovation in factuality to come out of the social media revolution, but it has drawn the ire of its owner and looks like it will be put down shortly. Where we're headed, we won't need facts.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      One of my favorite quotes (slightly edited for brevity and and readability): ------ It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time: whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will etc. But no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false. Thomas Jefferson - 1807 ------ That would have sounded rather hyperbolic about 30 years ago, perhaps even more recently. But now it sounds just about right. I think what many do not realize is that the past ~70-80 years in the developed world, or in other words the complete living memory of just about every person alive today in those regions, was atypical in just about every single way - including some effort towards the pursuit of objective truth. We're not entering some scary unknown place, we're simply returning to the status quo that existed throughout the breadth of human civilization. This also makes reading the ancient philosophers somewhat literally unbelievably insightful. Plato oft sounds far closer to a proven prophet than a philosopher when you read his writings on, for instance, politics! [1] - https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5737 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5... (highly recommended to read the entire letter - it's equal parts interesting, informative, and entertaining)
tmpz22 2y ago
This idea that fact checking is preferable or possible or even likely to happen seems wrong. The answer isn't to fix the disease that is Social Media but to inoculate ourselves from it entirely. Its either that or yield to the idea that human psychology is so malleable that global corporations (and the engineers who make millions working for them) control us like marionettes.
- unclebucknasty 2y ago
  >inoculate ourselves from it entirely. By that do you mean stop using it entirely? Because I don't think it's possible for many (maybe most) people to engage without being affected—at least with the currently prominent social media formats.
  - tmpz22 2y ago
    I think there are giant weak spots in the product offerings of social media companies that provides opportunities for regional alternatives to win. For example, imagine an utterly transparent social media website with low operating costs that could offer services to a region at minimal or subsidized cost. I don't think social media requires or should be world-scale. I think its hubris to think Facebook etc are meaningfully connecting us to individuals around the world when our social graphs our overwhelmingly local and sequestered. Finally, because nobody ever asks this question before they build it, there is a potential for regional networks to be more harmful - for example in a region with active genocide you could see regional networks aggravate that harm more then the US tech companies do. It's a tough nut to crack but I don't think it compares to the hardest challenges humanity has already conquered.
    - unclebucknasty 2y ago
      >I think there are giant weak spots in the product offerings of social media companies Agreed. I'm not sure that the fix is necessarily to regionalize though. I think rather that the weakness is in the format, mechanics, algorithms, etc. We need to re-imagine social media in general (yes, I know this might sound hand-wavy). The true fix might be so different that we don't even call it social media, and... >there is a potential for regional networks to be more harmful Exactly. That's why I believe we need a more fundamental change. All of the current formats have the capacity to wreak havoc, whether globally or locally. >I think its hubris to think Facebook etc are meaningfully connecting us to individuals around the world Yeah, I don't know that Facebook was ever meaningfully trying in this regard, except to promote some tag line, "something-something connecting the world" to make it seem they were on some noble quest. All they really wanted was eyeballs, and judging from the sheer stream of garbage that is today's FB feed, they're not even pretending anymore.
13_9_7_7_5_18 2y ago
[dead]
addicted 2y ago
> The “it’s just art bro, don’t take it so seriously” excuse is so tired There’s nothing wrong with it as long as they’re not presenting it as history but are presenting it as the work of fiction it is. Unfortunately they’ll, at best, have fine print that says it’s not history but the whole presentation is supposed to encourage the viewers to believe this ks real.
- __del__ 2y ago
  if we're aiming to present fiction, we should replace phrases like "not 100% accurate," with "not accurate." too many dummies read a line like not 100% accurate and assume the content must be something like 90% accurate.
forthac 2y ago
Profit motivated laziness more like.
unclebucknasty 2y ago
Just seems to be one more front in this War on Truth we've found ourselves in over the last decade or so. Yes, I know some will say it's been longer than that, the MSM is evil, etc. It's true that the 24-hour news cycle and the replacement of news with infotainment, purveyance of propaganda as news by some outlets, etc. have not been helpful. But, about a decade ago, we entered a completely new phase that is qualitatively different. And it feels like the end stage. Whether it's for political gain or profit or otherwise, the value of truth and shared reality has been greatly diminished. It's not just that the videos aren't accurate and the creators are so dismissive. It's not even as much about the supply side any more. It's that half or more of the population is so willing to choose their own reality and could care less whether it's actually true.
ujkiolp 2y ago
gatekeepers gatekeep, artists art. Nothing new here
- FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago
  Prompting an AI isn’t making art. The result can be fine, the tech works, but it doesn’t make you an artist.
- squigz 2y ago
  Commenters comment...
mike_ivanov 2y ago
Based on true events
brendoelfrendo 2y ago
Oh of course you can counter it. The issue is less with artistic interpretation but with the doublethink happening here. You can depict something as a stylized artistic representation that does not pretend to be accurate. I'm pretty sure the bombing of Guernica did not look exactly as Picasso portrayed it, but his painting is still a powerful piece that we can use to understand the artist's feelings about the historical event. And even in the most rigorous of documentaries, there is still room for artistry: you can convey information in an interesting and thoughtful manner that doesn't sacrifice factuality. You can't really simultaneously say that you strive for accuracy but, at the end of the day, you're "just" creating an artistic interpretation. That seems to conflate artistry with a failure to capture historical accuracy, which is so bizarre since those things are more or less orthogonal to each other. I think we can safely call a spade a spade here: people making lazy AI historical videos are just that; lazy. They found a cheap and easy way to churn out content that makes money, and their greed outweighs their commitment to truth or historicity.

by gyomu 2y ago

tbrownaw 2y ago

Good isn't enough, everything has to be perfect?

vkou 2y ago
When you see the world in black and white, you completely miss out that there are a million shades of gray in between. It's not that good isn't enough, it's that it's not good enough.

djeastm 2y ago

>I strive for accuracy Well that's plainly not true. Striving for accuracy is going through the script and doing this thing called "fact checking". It's an actual job that used to mean something to writers, journalists, documentarians... The noble goal of egalitarian democratization of media has had the unintended consequence of completely blurring the lines between quality and ... non-quality information. What galls me most is the people who care about fact and truth, and used to be the guardians or advocates for such things, are just drowned in a sea of bots, malicious actors, and the ignorant and are thereby discouraged.

HideousKojima 2y ago
>What galls me most is the people who care about fact and truth, and used to be the guardians or advocates for such things, are just drowned in a sea of bots, malicious actors, and the ignorant and are thereby discouraged. No such thing ever existed
- Retric 2y ago
  Some people have always cared quite a lot about the truth, but major media cared in part because lawsuits over libel, slander, or defamation are expensive. However, there’s little point in suing 1 of 10,000 people all spouting nonsense. At least until they gain a little traction and thus enough resources to be worth suing like Alex Jones etc.
- schmidtleonard 2y ago
  Bullshit. The world was never made of saints, but there were real institutional checks and balances (asking the accused for comment, publishing retractions, institutional fact-checkers next to editorial staff) and a far greater cultural sense that truth was valuable and lies were shameful. These are easy to appreciate, warts and all, now that they are gone. They leave a big hole. There was one good innovation in factuality to come out of the social media revolution, but it has drawn the ire of its owner and looks like it will be put down shortly. Where we're headed, we won't need facts.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    One of my favorite quotes (slightly edited for brevity and and readability): ------ It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time: whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will etc. But no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false. Thomas Jefferson - 1807 ------ That would have sounded rather hyperbolic about 30 years ago, perhaps even more recently. But now it sounds just about right. I think what many do not realize is that the past ~70-80 years in the developed world, or in other words the complete living memory of just about every person alive today in those regions, was atypical in just about every single way - including some effort towards the pursuit of objective truth. We're not entering some scary unknown place, we're simply returning to the status quo that existed throughout the breadth of human civilization. This also makes reading the ancient philosophers somewhat literally unbelievably insightful. Plato oft sounds far closer to a proven prophet than a philosopher when you read his writings on, for instance, politics! [1] - https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5737 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-5... (highly recommended to read the entire letter - it's equal parts interesting, informative, and entertaining)

tmpz22 2y ago

This idea that fact checking is preferable or possible or even likely to happen seems wrong. The answer isn't to fix the disease that is Social Media but to inoculate ourselves from it entirely. Its either that or yield to the idea that human psychology is so malleable that global corporations (and the engineers who make millions working for them) control us like marionettes.

unclebucknasty 2y ago
>inoculate ourselves from it entirely. By that do you mean stop using it entirely? Because I don't think it's possible for many (maybe most) people to engage without being affected—at least with the currently prominent social media formats.
- tmpz22 2y ago
  I think there are giant weak spots in the product offerings of social media companies that provides opportunities for regional alternatives to win. For example, imagine an utterly transparent social media website with low operating costs that could offer services to a region at minimal or subsidized cost. I don't think social media requires or should be world-scale. I think its hubris to think Facebook etc are meaningfully connecting us to individuals around the world when our social graphs our overwhelmingly local and sequestered. Finally, because nobody ever asks this question before they build it, there is a potential for regional networks to be more harmful - for example in a region with active genocide you could see regional networks aggravate that harm more then the US tech companies do. It's a tough nut to crack but I don't think it compares to the hardest challenges humanity has already conquered.
  - unclebucknasty 2y ago
    >I think there are giant weak spots in the product offerings of social media companies Agreed. I'm not sure that the fix is necessarily to regionalize though. I think rather that the weakness is in the format, mechanics, algorithms, etc. We need to re-imagine social media in general (yes, I know this might sound hand-wavy). The true fix might be so different that we don't even call it social media, and... >there is a potential for regional networks to be more harmful Exactly. That's why I believe we need a more fundamental change. All of the current formats have the capacity to wreak havoc, whether globally or locally. >I think its hubris to think Facebook etc are meaningfully connecting us to individuals around the world Yeah, I don't know that Facebook was ever meaningfully trying in this regard, except to promote some tag line, "something-something connecting the world" to make it seem they were on some noble quest. All they really wanted was eyeballs, and judging from the sheer stream of garbage that is today's FB feed, they're not even pretending anymore.

13_9_7_7_5_18 2y ago

[dead]

addicted 2y ago

> The “it’s just art bro, don’t take it so seriously” excuse is so tired There’s nothing wrong with it as long as they’re not presenting it as history but are presenting it as the work of fiction it is. Unfortunately they’ll, at best, have fine print that says it’s not history but the whole presentation is supposed to encourage the viewers to believe this ks real.

__del__ 2y ago
if we're aiming to present fiction, we should replace phrases like "not 100% accurate," with "not accurate." too many dummies read a line like not 100% accurate and assume the content must be something like 90% accurate.

forthac 2y ago

Profit motivated laziness more like.

unclebucknasty 2y ago

Just seems to be one more front in this War on Truth we've found ourselves in over the last decade or so. Yes, I know some will say it's been longer than that, the MSM is evil, etc. It's true that the 24-hour news cycle and the replacement of news with infotainment, purveyance of propaganda as news by some outlets, etc. have not been helpful. But, about a decade ago, we entered a completely new phase that is qualitatively different. And it feels like the end stage. Whether it's for political gain or profit or otherwise, the value of truth and shared reality has been greatly diminished. It's not just that the videos aren't accurate and the creators are so dismissive. It's not even as much about the supply side any more. It's that half or more of the population is so willing to choose their own reality and could care less whether it's actually true.

ujkiolp 2y ago

gatekeepers gatekeep, artists art. Nothing new here

FranzFerdiNaN 2y ago
Prompting an AI isn’t making art. The result can be fine, the tech works, but it doesn’t make you an artist.
squigz 2y ago
Commenters comment...

mike_ivanov 2y ago

Based on true events

brendoelfrendo 2y ago

Oh of course you can counter it. The issue is less with artistic interpretation but with the doublethink happening here. You can depict something as a stylized artistic representation that does not pretend to be accurate. I'm pretty sure the bombing of Guernica did not look exactly as Picasso portrayed it, but his painting is still a powerful piece that we can use to understand the artist's feelings about the historical event. And even in the most rigorous of documentaries, there is still room for artistry: you can convey information in an interesting and thoughtful manner that doesn't sacrifice factuality. You can't really simultaneously say that you strive for accuracy but, at the end of the day, you're "just" creating an artistic interpretation. That seems to conflate artistry with a failure to capture historical accuracy, which is so bizarre since those things are more or less orthogonal to each other. I think we can safely call a spade a spade here: people making lazy AI historical videos are just that; lazy. They found a cheap and easy way to churn out content that makes money, and their greed outweighs their commitment to truth or historicity.