#i'm not just jumping on a platform because it's trendy and popular

[daemadness]

Okay, let me tell you something.

I have seen so many people shitting on die ärzte and this video on many social media platforms just because it uses AI, and it's really starting to grind my gears, and I cannot keep my mouth shut anymore.

Disclaimer: Know that I AM against so-called AI art and AI generated texts and whatnot, because a computer cannot create new things from scratch and everything it creates is based on data it has collected, and all that data is created by humans, because also the computers and AI was built by humans. I'm also terrified of the amount of AI "photos", because I personally find it difficult or even impossible to tell them apart from real ones, and I wish I could, but I just can't. There was an article on AI generated images, texts and audios on my country's news broadcast website, and it had a test where you had to choose whether a "photo" was real or made with AI, or to choose the AI one from several. I failed miserably. So it is dangerous what comes to misinformation and all that jazz.

Talking of misinformation, I feel that also the anti-AI posts on Tumblr are spreading a shitload of misinformation, and people just see the word AI and jump on the "we hate AI here bandwagon" without really understanding what AI is.

I'm no expert on this either, but let's just say I'm an older millenial, grew up in the time when internet was reaching the regular person's home (in Europe), and currently I am a media student so I have some knowledge over the tools and methods used in the media field, where AI generators and AI tools are getting more and more popular, unfortunately.

You know that all computers are AI, right? People have worked on AI as a concept since the 1940s. Scifi books and movies and other medias have bee playing with the idea of an artificial inteligence for ages, most stories ending up with machines taking over humans. (You know, in the music video description, HAL 9000 is the evil AI/computer antagonist of the 60s film 2001: Space Odyssey; and Skynet is the somewhat evil network in Terminator franchise that was going to destroy the world. In the mv, both films were referenced, and so was Matrix, and maybe some others.)

All these random-ass tools and apps we call as AI today have gotten so huge over the past few years, and the word AI alone has become a trend word and a marketing hack. All these companies working on software programs have noticed this, and realized they can profit off of the word. A company such as Adobe realized "hey, what if we call this old af tool 'uses AI to select objects!' in this new update, people will buy our product more for sure!". Their competitors noticed it, and went "shit, Adobe* is using AI, we better do that too". Becaue AI = profit. But is that really AI? Well, technically yes, but it doesn't mean "this computer generates stolen art". It means "this tool has always existed in this software but the code is made better as technology gets better" and guess what: it has always been AI, sorta. It has always been that computer doing the task, but now we just call it AI instead because it's Trendy™️. And more profit for companies selling these products yadayada. It's still a different thing from an AI GENERATOR. That fetches the data collected and created by humans.

At school we use Adobe products, and I hate the fact it's promoting AI in everything. It's literally calling features that have existed for a long time, as AI. But it also keeps introducing more and more AI generator type features to their softwares. At school we're taught about AI, we are taught how to use Midjourney among others, we're literally having media professionals promoting AI generator tools. Media companies use AI generator tools even! And it sucks, and I personally have chosen to not touch those even with a long stick after I found out they just use existing data and art humans created.

Now, to the music video. What exactly is AI in this video? To that I don't have proper answers, only guesses, but I wish I knew more. I tried looking into this, but I wasn't able to find much anything. I'm still going to do my best and analyze the video, and break it down to what I could find.

I found the director's Instagram and his posts always mention the people who have worked on the videos with him. This is what is written to the descs of DEMOKRATIE clips:

You see it already? "Created and directed by" and just his name. Meaning, there was no crew. "Why not hire an artist, then?!" you may ask. Well, as a media student and a hobbyist, let me explain some things:

Hiring people costs money, depending on the person, they might be in a financial situation where hiring is not an option. Especially if you're a freelancer of any sort. (Now, I know this director has made massive videos for ages, but you never know what kind of situation someone might be in as in media and art business nothing is ever certain.) [However, companies that already sit on a mountain of money should be forbidden from using AI etc. and forced to hire real people instead.]

The deadlines, which I assume were very strict and quick. You know how much times goes into creating an animation? Depending on the method, you can spend hours on drawing frames that become a video that lasts 10 seconds. Let alone a video that consist of tons of scenes and lasts over 4 minutes.

This used existing music videos and sure, you could trace those down, but it would still take time because you would have to go through the clips frame by frame, and the framerate of music videos in Europe is usually 25 FPS (frames by second), so 10 seconds of video is already 250 frames, as in images, to trace down. For this we've got tools that now people love to call as AI and think it's the same as an AI generator.

I really wish I knew more of the process of making the video, but I feel that so many people think this video was completely written, "drawn" and edited by an AI. That's... just not possible. The AI as we know it, is not that advanced yet really. I'm not so experienced with AI generators and other tools, but this video was way too structured and made too much sense to be by AI alone. It matches with the lyrics too well, so it was definitely cut and edited by a human being. It uses German and English sometimes, as in real alphabets, which AI can't do -> edited by a human being.

There are some scenes with AI generator type of scribbling, such as this:

And with this next one I'm not sure if it's supposed to resemble Greek alphabets, or if it's just AI not understing any kind of alphabets. But we can still read it, right?

And it's got the Gwendoline logo right, too.

I really wish there was some sort of a behind-the-scenes thingy for this video as I'd be so curious to know how this was done. If we look at how the video is promoted on the website and Youtube desc, it says this:

It says "AI has recalculated die ärzte", which is why I assume they used some sort of AI to create the new fake dä. As I said, I haven't used the AI tools much because I don't like them and prefer doing everything myself, so I'm not sure what they're capable of today. My first thought was that he just fed the videos to AI to get them out with a cartoon filter on them. I'm not sure if you can do that in these softwares already. I would not be surprised if, say Adobe After Effects, had some sort of "turn your videos into paintings!" AI feature in it. They already advertise rotoscoping and tracking as AI, which it technically is because it's the computer doing the motion tracking but as I said, AI is the trend word so it sounds "cooler" and more profitable if they mention AI at the side too.

What comes to the rest of it, it's edited by a human being FOR SURE. I know that today AI can do some cutting for a video, but it can mostly just do stuff like cut out silent parts of a video if it's e.g. a podcast, but it still has to be reviewed by a human being because it might also miscalculate and cut out bits a human being would keep in the video. But it cannot take clips and edit them into together. It can create a video from a prompt, but it cannot build a video from other videos, and that is EXACTLY what this video is: it's built from pieces that are different video clips. So so so many different video clips.

My last point with this video is that, as the description says too, it is really fitting. Does Die Ärzte using AI generated video mean they support AI generators? No. Is it a statement? Could be! There are constantly news about governments using AI to monitor and track and literally spy on their people. Something that is forbidden in EU due to privacy, but it does happen in the US (not sure about Canada), Russia, China... you name it. And then the fake news, you literally cannot trust anything on the internet anymore because a news article could have been written by an AI. Or someone creates a photo or article with an AI and spreads it as a fact. Or they post it as fake, but it's not clear enough so someone else takes it as real. GOOGLE does this nowadays, it just references articles and uses photos without fact-checking and you literally cannot trust any first results anymore, because the chances are that it is not real.

I feel that this was another point the band wanted to make with this video. AI is everywhere, and it's not necessarily a good thing. It says Fake-DÄ fighting against fake-news. It's the same case as just because someone writes a book about a murdered, does not mean the author is a murderer. A band can make a music video with AI to have a statement, and not support AI generated art.

Things are not so black&white.

DEMOKRATIE music video

[simplytolkien]

One last post about Rings of Power. Last defense post anyway. Any other posts about it will just be normal posts from someone enjoying a tv show. Well, this post really isn’t about Rings of Power. It goes beyond that. I never ever intended on being one of those people who paste their opinions all over the internet just because I have them. My first post about RoP was just because I don't know anyone else who is even interested in a Tolkien show, so I just wanted to say something here on my humble Tolkien tumblr to people who would know, maybe have a little dialogue with people who love Tolkien. But geez, the messages are stupid. And oh my word, I should never have scrolled through the Rings of Power tag that one time. People are losing their minds over something that is happening with every other show they watch and love. Look, Amazon isn't MAKING Rings of Power. They are FUNDING Rings of Power.

This is how the entertainment world works, since so many people don't seem to have a clue: A person or people have an idea and would love to make a show or movie. They are usually not the people with the money, and since they need this money to create their project, they approach studios with their pitch as to why this project is a good investment. If all goes well, the studios agree that yes, this is a project people will be interested in and will, therefore, make us a lot of money. If the creators are fortunate and multiple studios are interested in the project, they get to pick the offer they prefer. The studio then gives the creators the money, and the creators take it and make their idea a reality.

That is why every studio invests in every project ever. Period. Because they can make money from it. Amazon is just doing what every other tv or movie production company does. They put in the money but aren't working on the project. The actual people behind the show are doing it because they love Tolkien. Yes, people can quibble about this all they want, but if you want to make a movie or tv show of a book you're not actually legally allowed to use, then you'll find that you have to change some things that you probably don't even really want to change. I am impressed with what they've been able to do NOT being able to use any of Tolkien's books besides LotR and The Hobbit. It's pretty creative. I’ve worked on screenplays for projects I would love to see made purely to the book, and I was shocked at how much harder it was than I thought it would be, even without the limitations of copyrights or the difficulties of stories that span thousands of years.

My first thought when I heard that Amazon was funding this project was, 'Hey, they'll have the budget to hopefully do justice to it.' And who on earth could refuse such a budget when they have the dream to bring Tolkien’s big, rich, lush world to life on the screen? Yeah, they're doing a great job. No, it's not always perfect, but again, there are usually compromises somewhere. Every project has its weak spots, but there are a lot of strengths so far. Off the top of my head, that scene where Míriel has the dream about the destruction of Númenor was awesome. Just incredibly beautiful. Númenor itself is just beautiful. Among other beauties. And I'm looking forward to what is to come. 

Yes, Jeff Bezos is evil. Yes, he is a crazy narcissist completely out of touch with reality. Yes, all of the criticisms about Amazon are real and valid, and I agree. But Amazon isn't doing anything that just about every other company does, even the ones who charge $3000 for a freaking pair of shoes. And Amazon only recently started actually selling their own brand. All these years they’ve simply been a platform where other companies could sell things. All these years the other companies you have shopped from have used these evil production/selling methods while those of us protesting were thrown in the corner as loonies. No, none of these injustices should happen in any society EVER, but it does, and unless all of you 'activists’ are making the huge massive effort and financial investment it would take for an American to NOT rely on companies who exploit workers and destroy the environment and all that really crappy evil stuff (hint: it’s all of them who sell you anything you want unless you’re making your own {but then where do you get your supplies?} or only buy locally-made products {but then where do they get their supplies?} or from small companies who still have ethics. but can you buy locally-made cars or tvs or computers or smartphones or name-brand clothes? no. and do all the companies you buy your stuff from make efforts to have a much more environmentally-friendly fleet of transport vehicles? no.), then you can criticize Amazon all you want, but you're just being a hypocrite sitting there in your name-brand clothes and mainstream personal grooming products with your fancy new cars and electronics watching all the other shows and movies that come out from all the other studios while you eat genetically-modified foods thinking up your next ‘activist’ tumblr post just because Amazon is funding a Tolkien project. Yes, you’re right about Amazon to a point, but follow your arguments all the way to their ends and you’ll realize we’re all part of the bigger problem no matter how much noise you make about one part of it. 

I do subscribe to Amazon. It took me a while to do it, but I finally had to because I had to move to a small town in Texas due to health issues that hit my life like a nuclear bomb, and being an organic vegan who only uses 100% natural (truly 100%, not the marketing crap so many pull), cruelty-free, sustainable products and has to do it on a tiny budget, it is now almost impossible for me to support companies with an ethos I believe in unless I buy online. And because my budget is so small while I rebuild my life, the free shipping without having to spend $50 or more per order to qualify for it helps me massively and saves me enough money to be able to feed a good-quality food to a TNR colony of 40 homeless cats that was starving and reproducing until I stepped in.

I also would prefer to buy, for example, from a company that pays women in disadvantaged countries fair-trade prices to beautifully craft sustainable wooden knitting needles so that they don't have to succumb to prostitution to feed their families rather than go to the only store I have here in town that sells them, Walmart, and buy crap plastic ones that benefit no one. So until the day I can afford options that aren’t evils, I'll weigh all the info and pick the lesser of the evils for my situation and order my knitting needles or whatever from ethical sellers who sell on Amazon. And if I ever find a less evil option that tics all of the boxes I have at the moment, I’ll jump right on it. I live by a mantra from Maya Angelou: ‘I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.’ Many times in my case I have to change it to ‘I did then what I could afford to do. Now that I can afford better, I do better.’ And I will continue to know better and do better and hopefully afford better until the day I die.

Here is an E.M. Forster quote that sums up my take on it as someone who can’t afford to live 100% according to her ideals at the moment: ‘We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth facing the sunshine.’

So again, why all of this has to be said in a post about a tv show is insane. All of the big studios are backed by deep pockets who are evil and corrupt and don't care about you and are invested in companies that would surprise you. If this is your gripe with Rings of Power, you had better cancel your Netflix, Hulu, Disney, etc. subscriptions too! Bezos just has the disgusting arrogance to do it openly and publicly.