AI video generating hardware: Hands-on with the 1stAI Machine

‘Is that this what AI {hardware} ought to appear to be?‘

That’s been one of many many questions percolating round my thoughts because the starting of this month, once I noticed Cristóbal Valenzuela, the CEO of well-funded generative AI video startup Runway ML post a video clip to his X account of one thing known as the “1stAI Machine.”

Valenzuela known as it “the primary bodily gadget for video enhancing generated by AI,” and included the next quote:

“We anticipate that the standard of movies will quickly match that of pictures. At that time, anybody will be capable to create motion pictures with out the necessity for a digicam, lights, or actors; they are going to merely work together with the AIs. A device like 1stAI Machine anticipates that second by exploring tangible interfaces that improve creativity.”

The video confirmed “the primary AI enhancing board,” a chunky, angular matte silver gadget resembling a sound mixing board and that appeared a minimum of two or 3 times as giant as your common fashionable laptop computer — with bodily dials and nobs for controlling completely different enter types and coverings.

I used to be instantly intrigued. As a journalist overlaying AI instruments for creativity and media manufacturing for VentureBeat, I needed to be taught extra concerning the machine and its targets: was Runway, heretofore a software program startup centered on its Gen-1 and Gen-2 web-based packages, entering into the {hardware} sport?

And in that case, how a lot did the machine value, when wouldn’t it ship, and who was the meant userbase?

AI {hardware} emerges

One other AI {hardware} gadget, the Ai Pin from Humane, a startup fashioned by ex-Apple engineers, debuted last week to mixed reactions, particularly round its $699 upfront price plus a $24 monthly subscription, and its distinctive type issue — a magnetic pin with battery pack and built-in laser projector that’s clipped in your clothes. That gadget is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 AI mannequin, and meant to behave as a type of life assistant and potential smartphone substitute, and it has already earned a spot on Time Magazine’s 200 Best Inventions of 2023.

Clearly, AI-powered {hardware} is rising quick. So the place does the 1stAIMachine slot in, who constructed it, and what impressed it?

The person behind the machine

Valenzuela credited “SpecialGuestX for 1stAveMachine” in his publish on X for creating the machine, which is powered by Runway’s software program. I emailed Valenzuela, SpecialGuestX (SGX) and 1stAveMachine final week and obtained a response from Miguel Espada, co-founder of SGX, the latter of which is described on its web site as “inventive company exploring new narratives of information, automation and synthetic intelligence.”

Espada confirmed the gadget had been created by his small group in Madrid, Spain, the place he calls house, and was sort sufficient to reply my questions on it, in addition to give me a hands-on demo on the Brooklyn places of work of his collaborators, 1stAveMachine, a “collective” of artists, designers, scientists and different creatives who work with main manufacturers, creating commercials and different promoting supplies for them.

Artistic businesses are a fancier time period for promoting businesses, so SGX and 1stAveMachine are in some methods analogous to modern-day, real-life equivalents of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (SCDP), the fictional, modern advert company on the coronary heart of certainly one of my favourite TV collection, Mad Males. However with a hipster, transatlantic bent, as if later season Stan Rizzo took over the company.

Espada has had lengthy expertise with AI for inventive pursuits on this function, being an early member of the Disco Diffusion community that later morphed into the Secure Diffusion picture era AI mannequin. For a previous shopper, Carvana, his company used Secure Diffusion code and tweaked it to create on-demand AI generated video for 1.3 million customers of the no-hassle auto buying and supply service, emailing them vignettes from the imagined point-of-view of their vehicles being delivered to them and all the joy the automobiles would have, if personified.

Can you purchase it?

Very first thing’s first: don’t get your hopes up about getting your arms on a 1stAI Machine anytime quickly. Espada confirmed the gadget was a one-of-a-kind prototype.

“Presently there aren’t plans for promoting it however we’ve acquired some {hardware} merchandise on the roadmap…” Espada wrote previous to our assembly in an electronic mail to VentureBeat.

Fittingly for a inventive company, Espada mentioned the 1stAI Machine was born from the remnants of a pitch to a shopper within the automotive area across the concept of turning storyboards and idea sketches of a brand new automobile mannequin into generative video utilizing Runway’s software program, Gen-2. Gen-2 accepts uploads of nonetheless pictures and applies real looking (typically surrealistic) movement to them.

The shopper didn’t go for the concept to show their auto sketches and storyboards into AI generated video, however the pitch caught in Espada’s head and he and his group determined to go forward and construct a generative AI video enhancing board as a proof-of-concept. They did so on their very own, with out searching for the help of Runway.

“It’s powered by Runway, nevertheless it’s not a Runway product,” Espada clarified, writing, “Its CEO, Cristóbal Valenzuela re-shared it as a result of he thought it was an fascinating product.”

The way it works

In 1stAveMachine’s places of work within the DUMBO (Down Beneath Manhattan Bridge Overpass) neighborhood of Brooklyn overlooking the East River, Espada confirmed me the 1stAI Machine arrange on a desk.

It’s a sublime and refined piece of kit, not almost as janky wanting as some prototypes I’ve seen, with a clean, matte aluminum chassis and black and silver knobs and dials which can be as satisfying because the classic midcentury fashionable stereos depicted in Mad Males and now coveted by audiophile collectors. The chassis was designed in 3D modeling software program by the human creatives at SGX and laser reduce into a number of items that have been fitted neatly along with screws, aligned like knowledgeable grade studio product.

Its defining characteristic, although — as one would possibly anticipate for a video-focused product — are screens: there are literally eight separate shows on the gadget, together with a full shade LCD for taking part in the ultimate video product, and 6 smaller black-and-white screens that present storyboards from which the ultimate video is constructed. There’s additionally a slender strip that shows the gadget’s standing in a textual content bar, similar to “enjoying” or “producing.”

Espada took me via the way to function it. The gadget helpfully is split into numbered sections for the steps of its workflow: 1. story (storyboards) 2. fashion 3. music (the fourth part is solely a speaker grill that performs the music).

For now, the gadget is restricted to drawing from a set of a couple of dozen storyboards and nonetheless frames sourced from iconic movies — Pulp Fiction, E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, Titanic, The Godfather, and Star Wars, are amongst these movies whose storyboards have been preloaded onto it.

The consumer selects six storyboards they wish to use as supply materials (this being a single-use prototype analysis gadget designed solely for use in non-public, Espada and his collaborators are unconcerned about copyright) utilizing the six small LCD screens, with the highest most display comparable to the primary body within the remaining video.

These storyboards solely function the premise from which Runway’s Gen-2 AI mannequin applies transformations, linking all of the remodeled storyboards collectively right into a 30-second-long video with figures and scenes that resemble the unique storyboards, however solely barely — Espada’s demo video he created for me on the spot transformed the iconic balcony scene in Titanic right into a hallucinogenic fever dream of two masculine-presenting figures with quick blonde hair leaning out from a mass of sticky pink substance over neon blue water.

However earlier than we get to the outcomes, there’s two different necessary processes to the 1stAI Machine workflow we should always point out: the fashion tuner and the music selector.

Let’s begin with the music selector first, because it is a little more intuitive and apparent: the machine lets you choose a soundtrack of AI generated music in numerous genres, from nation to pop to reggaeton to rave/EDM and k-pop. These music items type the soundtrack to the generated video, and are themselves generated by SunoAI fashions. The music selector management is a slider, so you possibly can really produce hybrid sounds between two genres, say a fusion of pop and reggaeton. There isn’t any dialog in these movies — as with many generated AI movies. As an alternative, it’s extra like a movie from the silent period, albeit in shade and created with machine studying algorithms relatively than human performers or digicam operators.

As well as, earlier than rendering the video, the consumer should choose the fashion utilizing a knob: company ladder, barbie obsession, infantile regression, nordic noir, modest polycount, and sudden future are all distinctive generative video aesthetics devised by Espada and his collaborators at SGX/1stAve Machine utilizing Runway Gen-2, which lets you management completely different parameters via its software program interface. These types have completely different qualities and traits that seem within the remaining rendered video — barbie obsession, for instance, produces the type of shiny, neon pink, tropical surroundings proven two pictures above.

Espanda and group have taken Runway’s software program interface and rendered it in bodily type, albeit with the constraints of a variety of pre-determined types they made.

However sooner or later, Espada himself sees the potential to have the consumer’s customized types inputted right into a hypothetical future 1stAI Machine (2ndAI Machine), maybe proven on one other LCD show.

“You’ll personal your distinctive fashion and get to determine who can use it,” Espada informed me throughout the demo, noting that the boostraped AI startup Midjourney had simply unveiled a novel fashion generator for nonetheless pictures.

Contained in the machine is a Mac Mini laptop operating a Linux / Ubuntu working system, with the software program operating on Python and Openframeworks. There’s additionally a router inside permitting completed video to be ported over wirelessly to a pc.

What’s subsequent for the 1stAI Machine and AI {hardware}?

Espada mentioned that whereas the 1stAI Machine was solely ever designed to be a standalone prototype, the curiosity it has generated from Valenzuela and others within the on-line AI video enhancing neighborhood have recommended to him that there ought to be a second, extra superior mannequin, one that would run on even lighter and cheaper computing sources, say a Raspberry Pi microcomputer or just a few.

A future model might need the flexibility for the consumer to add their very own storyboards or supply imagery as nicely.

Espada envisions a future model of the 1stAI Machine getting used at music festivals or giant occasions similar to conventions, the place attendees may come up and “vee-jay (VJ)” by creating their very own AI generated movies via Runway software program and projecting them type the gadget to a bigger show, one the dimensions of jumbotron like at a Taylor Swift Eras Tour live performance.

Ever the inventive advertiser, Espada thought this might make a superb expertise to be sponsored by a big model, a hypothetical Coca Cola or PepsiCo or related.

Nonetheless, he was adamant that he was not taken with pursuing a stand-alone {hardware} enterprise.

“{Hardware} requires years and years to make it a mass consumption gadget,” Espada informed VentureBeat throughout our hands-on. “I wish to keep centered on creating tales utilizing AI and different instruments for manufacturers and our purchasers.”

That mentioned, he was prepared to show the design over to Valenzuela or others at Runway to pursue if they need to need it, for a good and affordable compensation.

General, Espanda and his collaborators imagine that there’s worth in having devoted {hardware} for AI packages in sure contexts, because it focuses the consumer on the AI manufacturing course of, liberating them from the opposite myriad distractions and pings they’d get on a laptop computer or desktop setup.

And as Espada identified to VentureBeat, skilled creatives in visible arts, movement graphics, particular results, and music typically undertake such devoted {hardware} setups — be they mixing boards or different peripherals like digital drawing pads and styluses — regardless that their work may theoretically all be accomplished on a regular PC.

After viewing the 1stAI Machine up shut, I can say I solidly agree: that is in all probability would AI {hardware} ought to appear to be.