It’s gone viral – an AI-created trailer for a non-existing new Heidi film. But its creator says Gen-2 does not do a good job.

In the summer of 2023 Swiss video maker and comedian, Patrick Karpiczenko “Karpi”, fed prompts like “six-year old girl in a dirty old dress rejoices over green meadows in Switzerland”, “photogenic horse with long hair”, and “angry crowd marches through a Swiss village with torches” to the video generating program Gen-2. What he got was totally surreal and perturbing. It has since then be watched by millions around the world. Some think it cool, others dismiss it as creepy, the stuff of nightmares. Karpi himself says “I asked AI to create a Heidi trailer and now find myself unable to sleep”.

If you have ever been onboard the transit at Zurich airport you will no doubt recall the charming and somewhat whimsical “Heidi” film that welcomes travellers to a green and beautiful Switzerland with a touch of humour. I doubt very much that Karpi’s Heidi trailer will take its place any time soon.

With its grotesquely bloated cows, scary children’s laughter, distorted grimaces of both humans and animals it is reminiscent of horror movies or perhaps one of David Lynch’s. It is a long cry away from a romantic vision of Switzerland (and dare I say it, that may have been intentional – a critique of some of the less desirable aspects in the country …). In Karpi’s words: “I’m fascinated by how I can break the idyll and the pleasure ironically.”

But rather more perturbing is his admission that he has a horror vision of how AI technology is disrupting our world, and in particular the world of professional creatives. He sees their activity deteriorating into a process that he calls “schön flicken”. This is a (Swiss) German expression describing the act of mending something that’s become un-wearable, for example a jumper with holes at the elbows, or a pair of jeans that’s been ripped in the wrong places. The idea is to mend such garments skilfully in a way that’s visible, thereby adding to the beauty and originality of the garment. It’s a term that is gaining in importance – think of upcycling.

But for Karpi this process of repairing and mending is anything but creative or pleasurable. He sees it as demeaning, having to sort out the shortcomings of AI, putting things right, by adding, removing, tweaking. For him it is the new stark reality for creatives in the film and advertising industries: Being given something that has been randomly generated by an AI and then having to apply human craftsmanship, skill and creativity to make it into something worthwhile. In his opinion, the golden age of creative advertising has come to a sudden end. More and more material is being churned out in a few minutes or hours, but it is without soul and in bad taste. His Heidi trailer was produced in 1 day. Form your own judgement by watching it, for example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A2-Af5JEWU

If you have read this far, you can guess what comes next: the inevitable parallel to the translator profession. The translator turned post-editor is tasked with exactly that – taking AI-generated output and applying human craftsmanship, intelligence and creativity to it, so it becomes palatable to the reader. “Schön flicken” is the term.

Reference:

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/horror-heidi-goes-viral/48664486