As AI images get passed around, people talk to AI chatbots, and deepfake AI porn proliferates the shadier corners of the internet, AI is slowly becoming more and more a part of daily life. Nonetheless, AI still isn't really this huge, mainstream thing in a major way. It's not like Google or social media or video games, not yet. But that could be changing soon with AI videos.
So, in this article, we'll explain why AI videos could change the internet forever.
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What Do We Mean By AI Videos?
When we say AI videos, it's not just videos created by AI. Of course, those have existed for a while. Whether it's deepfakes or AI representations of actual people appearing in videos or anything else, AI video is already certainly a real thing that we have to deal with out in the world.
However, AI video, right now, isn't generally particularly accessible. No, it's not as complicated as learning how to use a DAW, learn Photoshop from scratch, get into coding, or anything like that, no, but it's not an especially easy, especially accessible thing. You've got to have some know-how and some time to create AI videos, as it stands right now.
But what if that wasn't the case? What if anybody could head over to a website, type in a couple words describing what video they wanted, press a button, and then be presented with that video in just a matter of seconds alongside a helpful link to show off your creation? Well, that's coming.
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Take a look at a company like Runway AI. This tech startup is building out a service that can do just that. Just type in whatever video you'd like, and then an AI will create that video for you, just like that. Tech like this would go a long way toward making AI video just as accessible as social media.
How Could AI Videos Change Things?
The problem with the kind of technology described above going mainstream and becoming accessible to everyone comes down to misinformation.
As it stands now, it's already difficult to know what's real, what's fake, and what's just incorrect when you go on the internet. No matter what the topic is, you'll find people who seem to have knowledge and authority on every side making opposing claims. Images can be faked, and so can audio recordings, too, so even evidence is usually suspect.
When we start introducing the ability to generate videos of just about anything on the fly, well, this all gets a lot more complicated. What if you could generate a video of a CNN news report on something? What if you could generate a video showing someone committing a crime? What if you could generate a video of the President saying something just whacky enough to be believed?
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The possibilities are endless. And what's more is that there likely is going to be a good way for the average person to figure out if something was generated by AI or not. Just like the average person isn't necessarily good at being able to tell whether or not a particular image was Photoshopped or not.
If AI videos can be created easily and by anybody, we could quickly find ourselves in a world where no matter what someone links you, whether it's text, an image, an audio file, or a video, you can't really be sure if you can trust what you're being shown. You'll have no way of knowing if it's real.
How to Survive in A World With AI Videos
Ultimately, though, we can't put the genie back into the bottle when it comes to AI tech. It's here, we've created it, and it's only going to become more prevalent. So, how do you best with developments like AI videos?
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The best thing you can do is be careful who you trust. Official organizations, verified social media accounts, people with big followings that will inevitably have the community manpower to verify claims, and the like are your best bets when it comes to who you can actually trust online.
Of course, sometimes the above people and places will get it wrong, too, and will end up sharing a fake video as if it were real, that's unavoidable. But as these kinds of technological tools that enable the easy, accessible creation of AI-generated content come out, you're inevitably going to have to be a lot more careful with who you trust.
For now, though, when it comes to videos, an easy way to get clued into the idea that what you're watching might be fake comes down to resolution. A lot of AI video content now has a low-res, found footage, old cell phone camera look to it. Of course, real footage can simply be low-quality, but if you suspect something might be fake and it's extremely low quality, that could well be an indication that there's something else going on.
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