Regular viewers will know that I'm generally quite dismissive of Grok, Elon Musk's Large Language Model (LLM) competitor to ChatGPT and Claude. It's never been the best, in my view, only continuing to exist it seems because of the fanboys on X.com blindly clicking it as homage to their (now) trillionaire god.
(And that's before we even get into the deepfake controversies and 'mecha-Hitler' claims ...)
Musk himself seems to concur, as he recently said that that xAI, the lab behind Grok that he folded into SpaceX, was built wrong from the start. Each of his co-founders left (there were something like 9 of them, all highly-regarded in the techosphere) and now he's acquired Cursor for $60Bn to try and shortcut his way to glory.
For all of that, Grok does sometimes do things well. Imagine 1.5 is a very good video creator. That's not the reason for its inclusion as this week's Video of the Week, however. The reason is this specific creator's laying out of how film-making has changed already, with the advent of tools such as this.
The video above shows just how creative you - a human - still have to be in order to harness the power of AI video. Often people who haven't tried it complain that the tech makes it really easy for untrained, unskilled others to make slop that no one wants to watch. It can - but also see Hollywood, YouTube and your TV any given night of the week.
My take is that I think that the tech democratises video-making. People with great ideas, but who have never been able to afford actors, camera-crews, lighting, set designers etc, can now give their imaginations free rein to create fantastic art. Just like synthesisers in the early-80's allowed working class bands from Leeds, Sheffield and Basildon to create music that still resonates today, the Soft Cells, Human Leagues and Depeche Modes of videos are just starting to work on their AI creativity skills in their bedrooms in Neath, Clydebank and Goole.
And it won't just be limited to video - music, imagery, plays, books, all will have new creators who wouldn't have been able to afford the tools of their trades were it not for this new tech.
Yes, there will be a lot - a lot - of slop. But that's true of everything - spam emails amongst the genuinely useful, annoying adverts on your social feeds, awful series on Netflix that make you wonder how on earth anyone involved can look in the mirror anymore. It's part and parcel of the creative process in all media.
So watch this and see how complex and fiddly it is to create something good. Then maybe give it a go on something that you're interested in. Many people pick up a guitar or grab an easel as a hobby. As the temperature hits 30+ degrees this weekend maybe take the laptop to a shady part of the garden and start seeing what you can create. I am almost certain that you will be very pleasantly surprised.