Audience Shuts Down AI Videos During Beloved Festival
The audience at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas got an earful when an overtly pro-AI sizzle reel played before screenings of upcoming movies The Fall Guy and Immaculate hosted by the SXSW Festival. In response, loud boos filled the room in hopes of drowning out the folly that was being spewed on the screen.
SXSW In Austin
Video editors with SXSW typically cut a daily sizzle reel to be played at various locations throughout the festival to highlight panels, premieres, and other events happening that day.
On Tuesday, the reel played to the audience was largely focused on the wide array of keynote speakers and panelists who were in town to talk about the benefits and emerging capabilities of AI – probably not the best idea.
Loud And Assertive Boos For ChatGPT
The audiences waiting to see the Immaculate and The Fall Guy screenings were likely composed of writers and actors who spent a lot of time last year protesting the potentially destructive power of AI on their careers. The loud and assertive boos of the viewers made sense.
The audience wasn’t impressed when Vice President of Consumer Product and head of ChatGPT, Peter Deng, spouted off with the bold declaration that he, “actually think(s) that AI fundamentally makes us more human.” The boos of the crowd intensified.
AI Is A Culture?
The snippet was from Deng’s speaking engagement in a session entitled “AI and Humanity’s Co-evolution with Open AI’s Head of Chat GPT.”
Josh Constine (Consumer Vice Chairman of Signal Fire) moderated the session on Monday, and the sizzle reel didn’t leave him out of the excitement.
Constine’s soundbite proclaimed to the audience, “If you look out into this room, you can see that AI is a culture.” This is when the booing got a bit more hostile. It’s like people don’t like being bombarded with pushy assertions that aren’t entirely accurate.
Fearing AI Takeover?
The audience of each movie screening got to see a clip of Sandy Carter who wrote a book on utilizing AI and blockchain for a successful business.
The quote from her mouth clearly represents her position on AI: “You know your business is going to be disrupted – and so you need to stop resisting it and start learning.”
The audience boo crescendoed when Magic Leap’s founder Rony Abovitz boldly stated, “Be one of those people who leverage AI, don’t be run over by it.”
It was yet another bullish postulation spewed out on the ears of people who have good reason to fear the implications of an AI invasion.
Writing Whole Movies?
As of now, AI doesn’t have the capability to write whole movies that compare to the works of art humans can create today, but it is gaining composure as time passes.
Statements from ChatGPT used to come out all jumbled and comical, but the accuracy of AI conversation is rapidly honing in on perfection.
Voicing Opinions
It used to be crazy to think that a computer could generate such a real image of a person that it could trick the human eye, and now AI is doing just that with “deep fake” technology.
The SXSW audience is voicing their opinion of AI in a blanket of boos. Maybe it’s time someone read the room.
Source: Variety
