Uday Bhatia

When “Storm” — a seven-and-a-half-minute music video starring Swedish rapper Yung Lean and directed by Romain Gavras —  debuted in April, it seemed like a celebration of all the things AI supposedly couldn’t fake: sweat, luck, and the swagger of a guy who knows how cool he looks standing still. But once people started calling “Storm” something AI couldn’t do, AI companies seemed to take it personally. “The tech people were like, ‘Oh yeah? AI could never?’ Then they started replicating it,” Gavras said. “So we were forced into this conversation. It’s a nightmare.” In September, social media was flooded with clips that re-created a half-minute from “Storm” — Lean’s cigarette, his walk up the steps, the dance explosion behind him — with the same choreography and camera moves but with Lean and his classmates replaced by strangers, pets, celebrities, and worse. Many of the clips were made with a tool called Genjutsu, which was released in late August by the AI video company Higgsfield. As the trend took off, other AI apps began offering ready-made “Storm” templates of their own. It’s a glimpse of a future in which people can lift an artist’s style, or even their entire personality, as easily as they once downloaded mp3s. Gavras finds it “fascinating and depressing — it’s like Prometheus stealing the fire.” Read the full story: nymag.visitlink.me/6-cKhK