We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far .. Video Killed the Captioning Star!

Figured I'd try something different. C'mon inside and see what I cooked up.

Wanted to play around with AI a bit more, and so here's a multi-level project I tried. Is it entirely successful? Well, I guess I'm somewhat happy about what I made, but I'm sure you'll chirp in the comments down below.

So, as you know, AI is becoming "a thing" and it's hard to completely ignore. As such, I am trying to find some ways to co-exist with it, and right now, it's still definitely a work in progress.

I had the 'original' source material, which I am trying to remember if it was an AI generated image or an actual picture, but either way, I used a face swapping program to possibly put my teenage face, with some adjusted makeup that I blended in .. to make what you see at the top of this blog post. I've had a lot of fun using the website vidnoz to make these composite images, and perhaps you'll see a few more as time goes on. 

Then I read about a few sites that can take static images and turn them into a video, where you can make them say stuff .. provided of course that the image isn't naughty, and neither is what is being said. Hedra is the site they suggested, and what you are seeing above is the 2nd crack at me working with the tools given.

The story I wrote, which is basic as hell, because, you only get a certain number of letters to be spoken, and I was just messing around, figuring that it wouldn't be that good anyway. And I was half right. This one looked good, but since it cropped the photo .. the main purpose of the monologue wasn't being shown! I think it maps fairly well, all things considered. It will definitely get better, and since this is a beta try-out, I'm sure they'll use what I've created to make the model better for the next iteration.

And unfortunately, my 1st try wasn't nearly as well done. I mean, I love the accent I chose, but because the photo was slightly wonky, the right eyeball is ALSO wonky when it blinks.

This one is also a modified picture, but the original 'model' was definitely AI created. Maybe we can think of it as "Dee" having trouble getting used to the long fake eye lashes!

So what have we learned? Not much really, other than technology still has a way to go to give us exactly what we want, and with the big corporations limiting the naughty content .. everything in our little corner of the universe is going to be quite sanitized in the near future, which I think might be the most depressing thing, even more than AI itself. It's the limits that are being imposed that worry me the most.

So, I definitely want some discussion down below about this topic. Did you enjoy either of them, and what did you like, and not like, about the "live captions". Would you be interested in seeing more from time to time?