I don’t know the actual budget, but I think it probably cost much more than 1kUSD, though probably still less than real human work would cost.

It’s important to note that no shit could last more than a second or two because after that the generated video starts to much more noticably have errors. So at minimum you still need editors (plus the music needed to be composited, etc). Also, as the article notes, all the logos needed to be added in post as well because GenAI cannot reliably do text or logos. With that in mind, I’d guess there was probably a significant amount of “cleaning up” that had to be done in post as well.

With all that said and done, I’m sure the commercial was not exactly dirt cheap, but it WAS probably still cheaper than having dignity and paying humans.

What’s actually kind of wild, though, is a lot of these shots just look like bland stock imagery. And since they couldn’t have any cohesion between shots because of GenAI’s own limitations, the majority of these shots could have been replaced with stock footage and they probably would have only needed to CGI a few different shots…

Even if you felt comfortable dismissing the environmental impacts of burning down a rainforest because you were too lazy to Google a picture of a factory fire, GenAI as a technology is morally indefensible at its core, since it is based entirely on theft.

I have seen scores of people defend the theft saying intellectual property is the true crime, etc. And while I agree IP laws are abused by massive conglomerations, GenAI isn’t just stealing from them. It’s stealing from every writer and artist on the planet. Anyone who has ever posted their art online to share with their community has had their art hoovered up by for-profit institutions who then sell it to the masses.

GenAI could only be a morally viable technology if: A) It didn’t consume an ungodly amount of energy to run it B) You run a model who’s training data was entirely sourced by you to only include sources that have given permission and are properly compensated (if necessary)

A does not seem likely in the foreseeable future; and while B is possible, the scale of data required for constructing a GenAI model, makes it basically infeasible for the average user.

With all of that said, I think it is valid to conclude the technology of GenAI is just as reprehensible as the morally bankrupt corporations that vend it.

While I do not think the users are inherently bad people did using GenAI, there are much more eco-friendly and less theft-based alternatives that are just as easy; and I think it’s questionable to throw those out the window for the rainforest-burning, plagiarism machine…

That lines up pretty similarly with what I found also. The angle should be a constant since there is only one angle where the relationship would be true. I just left it in terms of π because I try to avoid rounding.

Having said that, L would be a ratio of r; which I think lines up with what you found as well.

Someone may want to double-check my math on this one, but the length of the sides will be dependant on the radius of the smaller circle