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Sora 2

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Re: Sora 2

#551

Post by morleytj »

groggo wrote: post #504
morleytj wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be a downer, but even as someone very optimistic about technology and AI generally, "TikTok but AI" sounds like a societally terrible thing to try and create. What's the benefit of this? Curious if anyone has a solid viewpoint steelmanning any positives they can think of.

It's pretty entertaining. People always like telling stories. Books, comic strips, movies, they're all just telling a story with a different amount of it left up to the viewer's imagination. Lowering the barrier to entry for this type of stuff is so cool. I think you have to be pretty pessimistic to not just think it's really cool. You can find issues with it for sure, and maybe argue that those issues outweigh the b…

The democratization of storytelling is probably the best argument in favor, I'd agree. Thank you for the response!

I do find the actual generation of video very cool as a technical process. I would also say that I can find a lot of things cool or interesting that I think are also probably deleterious to society on the whole, and I worry about the possibility of slop feeds that are optimized to be as addictive as possible, and this seems like another step in that direction. Hopefully it won't be, but definitely something that worries me.

Re: Sora 2

#552

Post by afavour »

felipeerias wrote: post #539
freedomben wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain a bit more? I'm intrigued by your comment, but not seeing the connection

I’m just sceptical that OpenAI would be making “TikTok for AI” if they really believed that we are on the verge of creating Artificial General Intelligence.

I just see it as a (sad) reflection of capitalism. Those investors need some short term returns!

Re: Sora 2

#553

Post by wrigby »

raincole wrote: post #547
morleytj wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be a downer, but even as someone very optimistic about technology and AI generally, "TikTok but AI" sounds like a societally terrible thing to try and create. What's the benefit of this? Curious if anyone has a solid viewpoint steelmanning any positives they can think of.

As a social experiment to reveal how senseless and pointless pop entertainment could be. (personal rant) I've been in a mild existential crisis since I read Amusing Ourselves to Death . Can one form of entertainment really be more well-regarded than another? Is fine art fundamentally different from pop art? Are there 'finer' pop cultures amongst all pop cultures? I do still think reading The Song of Ice and Fire is m…

There are two completely distinct differences that jump out to me initially that I think may help justify your feelings:

1: Reading a long book demands focus on a longer timespan than scrolling TikTok, and with focusing on a single thing for a long time, we get a sense of accomplishment. I don’t know how to justify this as valuable, but for some reason I feel that it is.

2: The Song of Ice and Fire (and GoT) were consumed by a huge proportion of people, and you now have this in common with them. This act of consuming entertainment also grants you a way to connect with other humans - you have so much to talk about. Contrast that with an algorithmic feed, which is unique just for you - no one else sees your exact feed. Of course, there are tons of people that see some of the same snippets of content, if their interests overlap with yours, but it’s not nearly as universal as having read the same series of books (and there’s much less to talk about when you’ve seen the same 17-second short form video than when you’ve both invested dozens of hours in reading the same series of books).

I don’t think these thoughts fully justify your belief, but hopefully they provide some support to it.

Re: Sora 2

#554

Post by rcxdude »

paulcole wrote: post #478
cogman10 wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many hours a week are you actively using AI tools yourself? 2 or 3. Mostly LLMs to check code. > What percentage of public comments that you’ve made about AI tools have been skeptical or critical? Probably around 90%. So sell me. Why is this super impressive? I'm happy to admit that I'm pretty pessimistic about AI. I have an eye for continuity issues, they are pretty obvious to me. Am I just too focused on that…

[flagged]

I think a lot of it is 'a dog trained to play the piano at a 4th grade level' effect: yes, it's really notable and impressive, but it gets old fast and isn't obviously useful beyond the novelty. You need to put in a lot more effort to get any actual value out of these tools and at that point their strengths and limitations become a lot more clear and it's obvious that they are not an everything machine.

Re: Sora 2

#555

Post by afavour »

mscbuck wrote: post #505

I can't help but see these technologies and think of Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park. My boss sends me complete AI Workslop made with these tools and he goes "Look how wild this is! This is the future" or sends me a youtube video with less than a thousand views of a guy who created UGC with Telegram and point and click tools. I don't ever think he ever takes a beat, looks at the end product, and asks himself, "who is…

This was my reaction when I saw Meta’s “Vibes” app. Who wants to browse a stream of exclusively AI generated videos? Obviously Meta wants that because it’s a lot cheaper than actually paying real people to make content… but it’s slop.

Re: Sora 2

#556

Post by taneq »

morleytj wrote: post #496
the_duke wrote: post #273

I haven't seen comments regarding a big factor here: It seems like OpenAI is trying to turn Sora into a social network - TikTok but AI. The webapp is heavily geared towards consumption, with a feed as the entry point, liking and commenting for posts, and user profiles having a prominent role. The creation aspect seems about as important as on Instagram, TikTok etc - easily available, but not the primary focus. Genera…

Not to be a downer, but even as someone very optimistic about technology and AI generally, "TikTok but AI" sounds like a societally terrible thing to try and create. What's the benefit of this? Curious if anyone has a solid viewpoint steelmanning any positives they can think of.

Lotuses to eat, clearly.

Re: Sora 2

#557

Post by slg »

groggo wrote: post #504
morleytj wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be a downer, but even as someone very optimistic about technology and AI generally, "TikTok but AI" sounds like a societally terrible thing to try and create. What's the benefit of this? Curious if anyone has a solid viewpoint steelmanning any positives they can think of.

It's pretty entertaining. People always like telling stories. Books, comic strips, movies, they're all just telling a story with a different amount of it left up to the viewer's imagination. Lowering the barrier to entry for this type of stuff is so cool. I think you have to be pretty pessimistic to not just think it's really cool. You can find issues with it for sure, and maybe argue that those issues outweigh the b…

>Books, comic strips, movies, they're all just telling a story with a different amount of it left up to the viewer's imagination. Lowering the barrier to entry for this type of stuff is so cool.

This response just never feels true to me. Many of the most successful web comics are crude drawings of just stick figures and text[1] with potentially a little color thrown in[2] and like half of the videos I see on TikTok are just a person talking into the forward facing camera of their phone. The barrier to entry in the pre-AI world isn't actually that high if you have something interesting to say. So when I see this argument about lowering the barrier to entry, I can't stop myself from thinking that maybe the problem is that these people have nothing interesting to say, but no one can admit that to themselves so they must blame it on the production values of their content which surely will be improved by AI.

[1] - https://xkcd.com/

[2] - https://explosm.net/

Re: Sora 2

#558

Post by afavour »

astrange wrote: post #535
martin-t wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

56 minutes, 4 downvotes, HN is truly full of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Does anybody here really think rich people deserve to just get richer faster than any working person can? Does anybody really believe that buying up homes and companies and raking in money for doing absolutely nothing is what we should be rewarding? Then put your name behind it.

Homes are depreciating assets. You can't get rich by "buying up homes and doing nothing" because you'd lose money. Nobody is doing this, although a bunch of confused people on social media believe BlackRock is doing it for some reason.

I assume OP meant doing nothing except just rent out the property.

Re: Sora 2

#559

Post by morleytj »

raincole wrote: post #547
morleytj wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be a downer, but even as someone very optimistic about technology and AI generally, "TikTok but AI" sounds like a societally terrible thing to try and create. What's the benefit of this? Curious if anyone has a solid viewpoint steelmanning any positives they can think of.

As a social experiment to reveal how senseless and pointless pop entertainment could be. (personal rant) I've been in a mild existential crisis since I read Amusing Ourselves to Death . Can one form of entertainment really be more well-regarded than another? Is fine art fundamentally different from pop art? Are there 'finer' pop cultures amongst all pop cultures? I do still think reading The Song of Ice and Fire is m…

I think reading does force more long term focus, even if it's marginal for certain books. Certainly moreso than scrolling TikTok.

My personal process of grappling with this led to a focus on agency and intentionality when defining the difference.

Scrolling TikTok, much as scrolling Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or YouTube's recommendations would be, is an entirely passive activity. You sit back and you allow the Content to be fed to you.

Reading a book requires at least a bare minimum of selecting a book to read, choosing to finish that book, and intentionally choosing at any given time to spend your time reading that particular book. Similar things can be said for selecting movies. The important part in my mind is that you chose it, rather than letting someone or something else pick what they think you'll like.

The process of picking things yourself allows you to develop taste and understand what you like and dislike, mentally offloading that to someone or something else removes the opportunity to develop that capability.

I think there's arguments to be made against this view: how can you decide what to read or watch without getting recommendations or opinions? If you only engage with popular media isn't it just a slower process of the same issue?

But I do believe there is a fundamental difference between passivity and active evaluation of engagement as mental processes, and it's the exact reason why it is harder to do than scrolling is.

Re: Sora 2

#560

Post by raincole »

wrigby wrote: post #553
raincole wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a social experiment to reveal how senseless and pointless pop entertainment could be. (personal rant) I've been in a mild existential crisis since I read Amusing Ourselves to Death . Can one form of entertainment really be more well-regarded than another? Is fine art fundamentally different from pop art? Are there 'finer' pop cultures amongst all pop cultures? I do still think reading The Song of Ice and Fire is m…

There are two completely distinct differences that jump out to me initially that I think may help justify your feelings: 1: Reading a long book demands focus on a longer timespan than scrolling TikTok, and with focusing on a single thing for a long time, we get a sense of accomplishment. I don’t know how to justify this as valuable, but for some reason I feel that it is. 2: The Song of Ice and Fire (and GoT) were con…

I think the point 2 will rub many people the wrong way (me included) though. That would make reading Fourth Wing or Twilight a more connecting experience than most classics. (Nothing inherently wrong with that, but... you know...)
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