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Broccoli Man, Remastered

mbleigh.dev

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Re: Broccoli Man, Remastered

#61

Post by stuaxo »

windexh8er wrote: post #5
glimshe wrote: post #4

Very cool! I'd be perfectly happy to watch videos that combine human creativity and choice with AI. I don't consider this kind of video "slop". Once the glitches are eliminated, this workflow will be unstoppable.

> Once the glitches are eliminated, this workflow will be unstoppable. "... unstoppable." - What? I'm genuinely curious. Do you think this type of video is enjoyable? Maybe one, or even two like this is palatable - but I don't see anything 1) interesting or new 2) that would make me want to watch this by choice. And when everyone is swimming in a sea of this type of work I don't think most people will enjoy it, eithe…

I couldn't make it through the video, something about this sort of thing is very unenjoyable to watch.

I use LLMs a lot and I like older weird AI generated stuff, but outside the uncanny valley... no.

Re: Broccoli Man, Remastered

#63

Post by graypegg »

TheGamerUncle wrote: post #38

>I am not the kind of person who thinks AI will replace actors blah blah blah. But I am glad these tools exist, because this video wouldn’t exist without AI. >In no world would I ever have put together a real cast and crew to remake a 15 year old inside joke video for Googlers, but I was able to make it with AI. BUT IT DID !! and part of the charm is that this involved real people talking, mutual understanding and a…

> In no world would I ever have put together a real cast and crew [...]

3 people, the phone with the best camera across those 3 people, and some costumes that aren't THAT had to recreate? Honestly could even skip the costumes and just print out two A4 sheets with orange bamboo shoots and broccoli and tape them to your shirt and I would honestly get a better kick out of that. It's fun to make stuff with friends, even if it's a bit crap!

Saying that, I don't think anyone making something with AI discourages anyone else from doing something with the joke, so I think all this has really replaced is a video the author would not have made otherwise... but they should try anyway! They're missing out on what would be a fun afternoon with friends

Re: Broccoli Man, Remastered

#64

Post by shadowgovt »

TheGamerUncle wrote: post #38

>I am not the kind of person who thinks AI will replace actors blah blah blah. But I am glad these tools exist, because this video wouldn’t exist without AI. >In no world would I ever have put together a real cast and crew to remake a 15 year old inside joke video for Googlers, but I was able to make it with AI. BUT IT DID !! and part of the charm is that this involved real people talking, mutual understanding and a…

The original video existed because Xtranormal.com lets you transform a written script into an auto-generated scene with procedurally-puppeted wireframed stock models and text-to-speech voice acting.

Any assertion that the world in which Broccoli Man was created was fundamentally different (in terms of "relying on someone else's framework to do a low-effort meme") from today is nostaglia. In fact, I suspect mbleigh spent more time on making the recreation work than was spent on the original Broccoli Man video.

Re: Broccoli Man, Remastered

#65

Post by shadowgovt »

graypegg wrote: post #63
TheGamerUncle wrote: post #38

>I am not the kind of person who thinks AI will replace actors blah blah blah. But I am glad these tools exist, because this video wouldn’t exist without AI. >In no world would I ever have put together a real cast and crew to remake a 15 year old inside joke video for Googlers, but I was able to make it with AI. BUT IT DID !! and part of the charm is that this involved real people talking, mutual understanding and a…

> In no world would I ever have put together a real cast and crew [...] 3 people, the phone with the best camera across those 3 people, and some costumes that aren't THAT had to recreate? Honestly could even skip the costumes and just print out two A4 sheets with orange bamboo shoots and broccoli and tape them to your shirt and I would honestly get a better kick out of that. It's fun to make stuff with friends, even…

They could do it live-action with friends (that would also be funny to see), but it kind of misses the meta-joke that the original was made with 90% computer automation. The joke is "a machine made this video tweny-ish years ago and here's what it looks like if you do that now."

Re: Broccoli Man, Remastered

#66

Post by shadowgovt »

cflewis wrote: post #46
efficax wrote: post #23

the deadpan emotionless delivery of the original memes are an important part of their humor. this remaster looks fancy but loses the entire spirit of the thing

"only if you are Yahoo!" is one of the best line reads of all time.

There will always be a special place in my heart for the stilted "do you. do you think your users are scum."

Re: Broccoli Man, Remastered

#67

Post by shadowgovt »

jeffbee wrote: post #55
hiddencost wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? The bureaucracy is way worse. BCID requirements. MDBs that take 4+ hours to roll out. The Byzantine array of different MDB group types, often with two party control. GDPR company compliance. Tagging proto fields with provenance. Documents are private by default now. Most support happens in chat groups, and is if you're not at deepmind your help requests are getting ignored. Spending a month filing GUTS tickets t…

The bureaucracy is why people trust Google with their data. I wouldn't use a Google if I thought they didn't have BCID and proto field provenance and the rest of it.

Agreed. Google long ago passed the event horizon where they could keep pretending they were not mission-critical infrastructure for a significant portion of their users, and (from privacy to reliability) I'm glad they've put in structure to enforce acting like it, even if that means they no longer feel like working at a startup.

Everyone who wants to work at a startup knows where to find the rest of Silicon Valley (and Austin and etc.). I wish them the best and I look forward to reading their data-breach disclosures if they get popular enough for anyone to care about what they're doing.

Re: Broccoli Man, Remastered

#68

Post by shadowgovt »

hbn wrote: post #29
shadowgovt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but also literally AI slop. Stock characters auto-puppeted to a text script with text-to-voice run across it. The artist's input was writing the text and signing off on the final auto-generated product. The reason the two characters in the video are weird superheroes is those were the available stock characters in the XtraNormal.com service he used. After all, the creator didn't want to be an professinal full-ti…

If the tech stack used to make that video makes it "AI slop" then every video game cutscene is AI slop.

Most videogame cutscenes (well, for AAA games; I'm going to ignore the wide, worthy, and growing ecosystem of "I had an idea and made it in Unity with purchased assets") use bespoke model and texture assets, motion-capture human animation, and voice acting.

None of that is what an Xtranormal auto-puppet show is about.

Re: Broccoli Man, Remastered

#69

Post by dekhn »

shadowgovt wrote: post #66
cflewis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"only if you are Yahoo!" is one of the best line reads of all time.

There will always be a special place in my heart for the stilted "do you. do you think your users are scum."

for me it's "nobody has borgmon readability" and "I forgot how to count that low".

Re: Broccoli Man, Remastered

#70

Post by bigyabai »

cameronh90 wrote: post #20
wvbdmp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individuals have been doing this exact thing without AI for years, only better, with actual comedic timing, by just playing both parts. Sometimes they don’t even change clothes and it’s perfectly understandable. It’s a whole meme at this point that a towel on the head of a man signifies a female character, for example. You can find plenty of this on tiktok or instagram.

At least for my enjoyment of the Gossip Goblin videos, the world and aesthetics are pretty critical to it. I wouldn't find it at all compelling if it was just someone in their kitchen playing it themselves. I do like those videos with people playing both parts in other contexts (comedy particularly), but for other types of work, the AI generated videos are doing something that can't really be done yourself unless you…

Blender "virtuoso" is pushing things a bit far. I can teach someone to keyframe a rigged model in 10 minutes, and record voice acting in another 15. All-in-all, it might actually be faster to make these skits in Blender if you exclude modelling and render time.
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