A Redditor shared a nightmare-inducing short film that provides a cautionary tale to anyone turning over full creative control to the machines.
Posting on the r/ChatGPT subreddit, Reddit user NomadsVagabonds (u/NomadsVagabonds) unveiled "Shelf Life," which they characterized as a "comedy skit (PG-13) made 100% with AI (Video, voices, sound effects and soundtrack)."
The video begins with giant humanoid produce popping up on screen, and one of them narrating the action off-screen. The first few scenes show humans enthusiastically interacting with the comically large produce a la influencers or visitors to a petting zoo.
The narrator explains that scientists brought giant-sized produce to life, giving them emotions and the ability to feel pain in a bid to promote health and diet.
The accompanying scenes are disturbing. One shows morbidly obese humans eating countless cuts of beef in a laboratory setting, and others show produce in excruciating pain like when a human cuts a watermelon slice.
The video satirically reveals the American government discovered a "shocking truth" that "people only enjoy eating things that can suffer." From there, the video really goes off the rails.
First, it shows anguished produce being shipped out everywhere. The produce initially fights back against humans. The fruits and vegetables, though, give up on their futile efforts and accept their fate. This includes kids hauntingly laughing at a crying pomegranate losing seeds.
Next, the video describes the fate of produce that isn't selected and thus encouraged to chase the "American Dream." It more or less follows the extremes of human trajectory with a zucchini leading a church choir, and, yes, a piece of celery snorting cocaine. ChatGPT deals in some stereotypes, with a "French" onion smoking a cigarette and lamenting its age.
The video concludes by sharing the mortality of produce, with the narrator feigning optimism as we see images including rats feasting on lettuce, strawberries in a retirement home, and an eggplant violently grilled to death.
On this evidence, ChatGPT shouldn't quit its day job, whatever that entails. That being said, the video does illustrate that AI still lacks the filter and human touch to make a parody that makes a point without overdoing it. That's worth remembering as people everywhere increasingly use AI.
ChatGPT usage doesn't come free of consequences for the real world either. AI requires a ton of computing power and energy usage. All of that demand for data centers can contribute to the heating of the planet through our reliance on dirty energy.
Fortunately, there are efforts to make AI computing more efficient, cool down data centers, and use clean energy as the power source.
Commenters on Reddit reacted to the video with a mixture of horror, bemusement and wariness.
"I hated how much I loved it, but I also loved how much I hated it," a user admitted.
"Well thanks for the fresh set of nightmares I'll get from this I guess," declared one commenter.
"This will become Hollywood," a Redditor predicted. Let's hope not.
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