Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are trading blows in a viral AI-generated clip on social media, sparking backlash from the film industry. Chinese company ByteDance's new video generation model, Seedance 2.0, allowed people to create fictional videos of real likenesses with short prompts. Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson used two lines to generate the clip of Pitt and Cruise fighting.
If ByteDance sounds familiar to you, it's because the company also owns TikTok internationally, though it recently sold its US ownership of the social media and video-sharing platform to US companies. Oracle, MGX and Silver Lake each hold a 15% stake.
The actors in this latest viral AI slop video still don't look like perfect re-creations -- close-up shots of the fake Brad Pitt's face, especially, have an "uncanny valley," dreamlike AI look where the cuts blend into his flesh a little too smoothly. However, a CNET survey from earlier Tuesday showed that while 94% of US adults believe they encounter AI slop on social media, just 44% say they're confident they can tell real videos from AI-generated ones.
One of the most inflammatory parts of the Pitt-Cruise video is the dialogue, as the computerized facsimiles of the actors fight over a supposed assassination plot regarding Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who maintained ties to rich and powerful people worldwide. The two actors' likenesses became a vehicle to push conspiracy theories that have been picking up steam as the millions of pages of redacted emails, receipts and other documents that make up the Epstein files continue to trickle out of the US Department of Justice.
Hollywood is fighting back as AI-generated content consumes and spits out actor likenesses and copyrighted content alike. Major studios and their labor forces alike have united to push back against the precedent set by the viral AI video.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Motion Picture Association demanded that ByteDance "immediately cease its infringing activity" through Seedance. SAG-AFTRA, the labor union that represents Hollywood performers, released a statement on Friday saying it "stands with the studios" in condemning the Seedance video generation model.
The Screen Actors Guild specifically pointed to Seedance's unauthorized use of members' faces, likenesses and voices as a threat that could put actors out of work.
"Seedance 2.0 disregards law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent," the actors' guild said in its statement.
Representatives for the MPA and SAG-AFTRA didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Similar AI-generated videos use the likenesses of other renowned actors and large IPs, creating clips that copy the aesthetics of Star Wars lightsaber fights. Christian Black
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