Wu-Tang Clan's New Music Video Is Extremely AI-Generated

As Wu-Tang Clan rose from hardscrabble obscurity to become one of the most influential rap acts of the 1990s, there was never any doubt that the group's signature blend of real life storytelling and epic fiction was the product of human creativity — but late in their career, that's clearly changed. Directed by filmmaker Jason Zada, the clip for "Mandingo," the latest from the legendary Staten Island crew, features the group's classic tropes: kung fu aesthetics, swordplay, and a gritty reimagining of New York City as a canvas for fantastical mythmaking. The biggest difference between "Mandingo" and everything that came before it, however, is how it was made. According to the video's director, it was created entirely with Google's DeepMind Veo 2, a text-to-video generator that's — unfortunately — just as wonky and wobbly as other video-generating tools we've seen. Case in point: throughout the video, the face of the protagonist keeps shifting ever so slightly, making him look like dif ... Read full article.