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The line between AI-generated videos and reality has become increasingly blurry over the past year or so, and Will Smith decided to make things even more confusing by drawing inspiration from a fake compilation of clips of him eating spaghetti.
Earlier this month, the folks at OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT) caused yet another stir when they gave the world its first look at some footage generated by Sora, which harnesses artificial intelligence to transform text-based prompts into fairly convincing videos.
While some people had a positive response to that new technology, others were understandably weary of praising a program that could be theoretically used to produce realistic footage that could be deployed for nefarious purposes as the world continues to grapple with the implications of the rise of AI.
With that said, Sora has shown just how far AI has come on the video front. Platforms capable of similar transformations were already available, but as a viral clip of Will Smith eating spaghetti that was created last year proves, the end result left plenty to be desired.
It appears that video eventually came to the actor’s attention, as he decided to have a little bit of fun by using it as inspiration for one of his own.
On Monday, Smith uploaded a borderline disturbing clip of himself eating spaghetti, gargling red wine, and chewing on a random guy’s dreadlocks while parodying the original video and positioning the new one as an example of how far AI has come.
While the new footage is entirely genuine, there were still plenty of people who stumbled upon the video and assumed it was actually generated by AI because they didn’t realize Smith was the person who posted it.
I don’t think he was actually attempting to make some kind of grand statement about the potential pitfalls of the technology, but he may have nonetheless highlighted an issue that’s going to be worth keeping an eye on as it continues to progress.