The company that organized the Willy Wonka experience used AI to generate marketing and even the scripts for actors.
  • PeterPoopshit@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    8 months ago

    Imagine hosting an event so lame that it makes international news solely because of how incredibly lame it was. Just damn.

  • tipicaldik@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    8 months ago

    Sure, AI can whip up fantastical imagery and low-effort dialog — but if audiences call BS, the blowback can be extraordinarily embarrassing.

    I see AI generated bullshit on youtube all the time these days. To the point where I can tell by the thumbnail before I even watch it. I’ve gotten in the habit of checking out new-to-me channels in a private window first, before deciding whether I want to subscribe or even keep watching. The instant I detect any AI… either in the voice or the nonsensical writing, I’m outa there. I do e-learning multimedia for a living, and we use a lot of stock images, and those sites are being loaded up with AI generated garbage. It’s getting harder to find stuff that isn’t AI, and using it to generate your own is a total crapshoot as far as results go…

      • ProfessorProteus@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        8 months ago

        I’ve recently been using the home page on YT (in addition to my bookmark, which takes me straight to /feed/subscriptions) and I’ve been pleasantly surprised. It seems like the algorithm is generally pretty good at finding similar videos to the ones I enjoy. That is unless I scroll waaaaay down, where it just runs out of ideas. I would recommend trying out your home page, with some light pruning as needed (“Not interested”, “Don’t recommend channel”).

    • ProfessorProteus@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      8 months ago

      Same here, generally, but I think there are a tiny few people who have a legitimate reason for using TTS. For instance, those whose English skills are lacking, or who have an accent which some might find distracting. Or a person who is self-conscious about their voice but still has something to offer, or maybe those who legitimately can’t speak at all. Hell, I support anyone who could narrate but doesn’t want to put their voice out there for privacy reasons, or to keep it out of the public space where it will inevitably be used as training data.

      I’d still rather listen to the human, because I can’t stand any of the “AI” voices, especially those that are used on every fucking tiktok (I stay away from TT, but unfortunately the voices are pretty ubiquitous). It might sound silly but I’d prefer good old Microsoft Sam to the any of these new voices.

      One channel I found recently for coding-related topics uses TTS but before I got annoyed enough to close it, I realized that the script was probably hand-written, just narrated by a machine. The video was highly informative, and I walked away having learned some new information. For the curious

      Something that sucks about this new wave of TTS is that we get some odd errors in pronunciation that probably wouldn’t be there if it was spoken by a human. A missing comma or other punctuation errors will pass a spell check but end up sounding really strange due to the broken inflection. Uncanny Valley stuff I suppose.

      AI thumbnails are utter garbage though. All polish, no substance, no love for the craft.

    • NutWrench@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      8 months ago

      Yup. I think the worst offenders are the videos that are just Wikipedia pages with still images and an AI text-to-speech robot voice. It’s the world’s laziest form of “content creation” and I always downvote them.

      • TexasDrunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
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        8 months ago

        Down voting is engagement. They don’t care if you hate it as long as you watch it. Block the channel.

        • AtmaJnana@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          8 months ago

          Same with comments. For their purposes, a comment that says “i want my 10 minutes back, I hope you die.” is basicallly the same as “best 20 minutes ever! (I watched it twice)”

  • Chozo@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    I like to imagine that this whole event was the result of the first truly rogue AI that generated its own plans for an event, sent out the necessary emails to hire the people to put it together, and everything in secret under its creator’s nose.

    It probably isn’t that, though. Because even AI wouldn’t fuck up this badly.

  • J12@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    8 months ago

    I’m sure little weasel Billy Coull is hiding out until things cool off then he’ll be back out fucking over people again. Hopefully the workers run scumbag Billy out of town if they’re not paid.

  • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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    8 months ago

    I think i read this story when it was called huckleberry finn.

    It was that book, right? Where the con man sold tickets to a “ribald show” which ended up just being one dude running around naked?

  • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
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    8 months ago

    duped unsuspecting parents into bringing their kids to a truly dmsial event using clearly AI-generated marketing materials.

    Said the AI generated article.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
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    8 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Over the weekend, organizers of what was described as a “Willy Wonka Experience” in Scotland duped unsuspecting parents into bringing their kids to a truly dmsial event using clearly AI-generated marketing materials.

    The $44-a-ticket experience turned out to fall well short of the fantastical landscapes dreamed up by an AI, with cheap-looking props sparsely populating a dirty warehouse near downtown Glasgow.

    Local actor and comedian Paul Connell explained on TikTok how he was hired to be one of the three — not just one — Willy Wonkas tasked to entertain children at the event.

    “Scene ends with the audience fully immersed in the interactive, magical experience, laughter and joy filling the air,” it continues.

    Sure, AI can whip up fantastical imagery and low-effort dialog — but if audiences call BS, the blowback can be extraordinarily embarrassing.

    As Rolling Stone reports, Coull appears to be the only official employee of the company, and has since scrubbed many of his social media accounts, including a YouTube and LinkedIn profile, where he presents himself as a business-savvy life coach.

    The original article contains 728 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

      • Bronco1676@lemmy.mlEnglish
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        8 months ago

        AutoTldr does not use “AI”.

        All these sentences can be found in the original article, it is just using a statistical approach which sentences to keep.

  • MrsDoyle@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    8 months ago

    This feels like an episode of The Apprentice. Lord Sugar (appropriate!): “Willy Wonka? More like Willy Wanker.” Cut to sweaty Project Manager about to be fired.

      • tegs_terry@feddit.ukEnglish
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        8 months ago

        Dennis uses it to play a sexy Wonka, Dee gets attacked for use of ‘orange face’, Mac has a nightmare experience in the haunted tunnel, and Charlie and Frank accidentally end up cooking meth for kids.

      • MajorHavoc@programming.devEnglish
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        8 months ago

        Wow. This feels like a terrific future gameshow quiz topic:

        "Given the following true news story, was the complete failure of this effort later attributed to:

        • A. Half-assing it with artificial intelligence
        • B. Half-assing it while on too many or too few drugs
        • C. Both

        "

  • someguy3@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    8 months ago

    Coull appears to be the only official employee of the company, …he presents himself as a business-savvy life coach.

    Life coach, why am I not surprised?

  • Wahots@pawb.socialEnglish
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    8 months ago

    Meth lab oompa loompa is my favorite meme of the year so far. It juxtaposed so well to the wonder and silliness of the movies, lmao.

  • Garyx23x@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    8 months ago

    The best part about this event was the new Wonka lore of The Unknown, an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls

    • Agent641@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      8 months ago

      Therqpist: “The evil chocolate maker in the walls isn’t real, he can’t hurt you!”

      Me: gestures to this article

  • veee@lemmy.caEnglish
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    8 months ago

    Connell wasn’t the only actor surprised to find that props promised by the script didn’t actually exist.

    So there was never a dress rehearsal and the performance was a cold read? AI may be to blame for the bad script, but there many other points of failure happening here.