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'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

variety.com

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Re: 'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

#11

Post by next_xibalba »

uses wrote: post #4

> Sources tell Variety it was not Lionsgate or Egan’s intention to fabricate quotes, but was an error in properly vetting and fact-checking the phrases provided by the consultant On the one hand, it's surprising that none of the people involved in creating, publishing, and marketing this trailer raised an eyebrow. I don't know much about film history but I raised an eyebrow. And presumably, it took MANY people to mak…

I suspect all involved were aware of what was going on, and outsourcing the work to a consultant provides plausible deniability/a fall guy. This is not the first time in the history of film marketing that fake reviews have been used. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Manning_(fictitious_writ...

Re: 'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

#12

Post by krapp »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #2

> We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry. Integrity is refreshing.

If they had any integrity they wouldn't have used AI to begin with. They're just scrambling to correct the PR damage and hoping to avoid a lawsuit.

Re: 'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

#14

Post by bongodongobob »

nsagent wrote: post #6

Was just talking with a microbiology researcher yesterday about ChatGPT. They use it for helping to write code for analyzing their lab data and they were surprised I said it's likely to lead them astray at times, especially if they don't know the code well enough to spot the errors it might generate. Despite my PhD being in NLP, they still seemed incredulous at my assertion. I truly think the general public have not…

Unless they are having GPT come up with the calculations and doing the statistics, I doubt that. They likely just need help writing the code, not the math.

Re: 'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

#15

Post by brendoelfrendo »

jfengel wrote: post #5

It sounds like a dumb idea from the get go. Even if the quotes were authentic, "They hated my previous work too" is a crummy gimmick. Coppola doesn't need a gimmick. He's famous and the film will sell some tickets just on his name. If the film sucks then it sucks. Don't make him look desperate in the process.

The funny thing is, if you're going to make up fake quotes... why even use an AI? Do you really need an LLM to try and mimic a particular critic's "voice" when you're only going to use one sentence? And if you don't intend to use the fake quotes, why not just use clearly identifiable placeholder text so no one mistakes the work for the finished version?

Re: 'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

#16

Post by bananapub »

> Sources tell Variety it was not Lionsgate or Egan’s intention to fabricate quotes

er...yes it was? he typed "WHAT ARE SOME QUOTES FROM FAMOUS FILM REVIEWERS ABOUT FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’S MOVIES?" then copied the random text it generated and put it in to an email and sent an invoice for a jillion dollars to Lionsgate, who then put them in a trailer.

that's obviously an intention to fabricate quotes, and any social acceptance of it is just ridiculous.

Re: 'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

#17

Post by nox101 »

uses wrote: post #4

> Sources tell Variety it was not Lionsgate or Egan’s intention to fabricate quotes, but was an error in properly vetting and fact-checking the phrases provided by the consultant On the one hand, it's surprising that none of the people involved in creating, publishing, and marketing this trailer raised an eyebrow. I don't know much about film history but I raised an eyebrow. And presumably, it took MANY people to mak…

As person making the video, you just get handed some text in email that says "add these quotes"

There's no "show me the proof that these are legit". It's assumed

I wouldn't expect anyone to check. One person in the chain made them up. Everyone after that took them as legit.

> On the other hand, things like this likely get caught during production all the time and we just never hear about them.

I seriously doubt it's anyone's job to check this. Most of society runs on trust. Things would grind to a halt if every person needed a chain of trust all they way down.

Re: 'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

#18

Post by krapp »

reanimus wrote: post #13

What is with people treating LLMs like a search engine? All of this could have been avoided by just using Google.

> All of this could have been avoided by just using Google.

Unfortunately no, Google's results are now polluted with AI generated content, and Google search itself generates results with AI.

It hasn't been possible to trust the results of any search engine since around 2020.

Re: 'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

#19

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #2

> We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry. Integrity is refreshing.

No, it is not integrity to say the obligatory words after getting caught. What a participation trophy.

Re: 'Megalopolis' trailer's fake critic quotes were AI-generated

#20

Post by reanimus »

krapp wrote: post #18
reanimus wrote: post #13

What is with people treating LLMs like a search engine? All of this could have been avoided by just using Google.

> All of this could have been avoided by just using Google. Unfortunately no, Google's results are now polluted with AI generated content, and Google search itself generates results with AI. It hasn't been possible to trust the results of any search engine since around 2020.

Pretty sure it's entirely possible to find out what someone has said in a major publication about a major figure, actually.
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