This viral AI-generated beer commercial is nightmare fuel you need to see

With the rise of artificial intelligence and its exponentially impressive capabilities, many individuals are worried their jobs will be at risk of replacement. Here's an example of why that future may not necessarily be right around the corner.

A video created entirely with AI-powered tools has gone viral on Twitter, and surprisingly, it's a commercial for a beer. The clip called "Synthetic Summer" is a 30-second long video that showcases an AI-generated house party with many people enjoying the advertised beverage. The commercial was created by Helen Power and Chris Boyle from the London-based production company Privateisland.tv.

According to Ars Technica, who wasn't able to reach Power or Boyle for comment before publishing, the video was seemingly created using Runway's Gen-2 AI model, which the publication says is able to generate short video clips based on user prompts in the same way OpenAI's ChatGPT provides responses to text prompts. The 30-second clip was paired with the iconic Shrek song "All-Star" by Smash Mouth, which played over a backyard barbecue scene.

At first glance, the commercial seems completely fine, but after a few seconds, something begins to feel 'off' about it. A personal anecdote: I immediately began to feel there was something weird about the video when I noticed people's mouths weren't how they were supposed to be. However, my suspicions that there was something strange about this video were quickly realized when I saw beer glasses turning into cans, entire faces shifting into new people, fire-tornados, and things that didn't even make sense.

While the quality of this advertisement is obviously poor, the technology that has been demonstrated is admittedly impressive. Additionally, AI-generated videos, such as what is seen above and below, are at the worst quality they are ever going to get. Development won't go backward. It will only go forwards. Notably, AI-generated video is much more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive than text-generated responses such as ChatGPT. However, that will likely change in the future when AI-generating video systems are further improved in quality, prompt accuracy, and affordability.

Judging by the rampant AI race between rivaling technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, and any other entity that has its foot in the race, it can be assumed with a high level of confidence that AI will be a big part of the future. AI-generated videos will not be excluded from that, given the popularity of online video content. However, it seems, based on the current examples of AI-generated videos, that future is still a far way off.