This week, Openai Released Its Latest Ai Video Generation Model, Sora 2, Advertising it as a “Big Leap Forward” for the space. As Sora Hits The Public, It will have to compete for market share in a crowded market, include
In the past few months, bytedance related seednce, an ai video generator that many users are alredy calling the best in the world, a new version of seedream, an alite image model. Its LLM, Doubao, Has 150 Million Monthly Active Users, According to Website Analytics Site aicpb.com.
Bytedance’s AI Advancements are a Prime Example of How Chinese Ai Companies are quickly catching up to American ons, despite chip expenses. Because their models are high quality and also cheaper, they are winning over consumers Around the World, Including in America. But while these models are enthralling many users, they also come with a host of concerns that plague many of the cutting edge models: they allowsable only to create affordable deeepfakes Reality-and to also freely reproduce copyrighted material.
Reaching the frontier
Over the past year, bytedance has assembled top ai talent, hiring a former Vice President of Google Deepmind to Lead Ai Foundational Research and LURING OTHERCERCERS AWAY FROM ALibaba and AWAY FROM ALibaba and Other Start-ups, the Financial Times Reported in December. It has also invested billions of dollars into infrastructure, including advanced nvidia chips.
Bytedance released the first iteration of its video model seednce in June, and a new image generator, seedream 4.0, in September. The models can be accessed in the us through third-party platforms.
Jobin jonny, a designer based in kerala, India, first discovered seedream in late August, and was particularly impressed with how it imagined the face of someone from his region. “The generated face carried the exact features and details of a real kerala man,” he says.
Jonny says that seedance is now his favorite video model, especially with how it captures physics and natural movements. It doesn Bollywood that seedance is much cheaper: on the third-party platform freepik, it costs hal as many credits as google’s veo 3. Their followers to switch over to bytedance’s products based on their price point.
Tiezhen wang, an engineer at the machine learning platform hugging face, tested the tools. He says he designed an “amazing” poster with seedram, and that seedance “shines on image‑to‑video tasks, preserving style and character consistency… Across Multimodal Generation, “He Says.
Eric lu, the co-founder of the online video editing software program kapwing, has offered Ai Image Generation to his customers for several years, starting with stable different. When seedance and seedream came out, his team conducted internal testing to compare their prompt adharence, image quality, speed, and cost to american competitors. “And it wasn’t close -the models are better in every way,” he says.
Lu Quickly Switched Kapwing’s Default ai Image Models to Seedance and Seedream Away from American Models. “It was almost a no-brainer, beCause we save money, but also give our users a better quality output,” he says.
“Unrestricted” ai
But this Rise in Quality Has Many Implications. First, it shows that chinese companies have successfully navigated Around the US’s Chip Export Controls Designed to Slow them Down. The information Reported in December that bytedance has been accessing Advanced Nvidia Chips by Renting Them outside of China. The company has been rapidly expanding its data center usage in Malaysia.
The price point of bytedance’s tools also enables many new users to ai to ai to create realistic images. The Affordability and Accessibility of these tools could use the workflows of advertising, marketing, marketing, and the stock footage industry. “Why Buy Clips when you can generate any shot you need instantly?” One X User Wrote in a Thread About Seedance.
As these hyper-realistic ai tools, threats of Deepfakes and Misinformation Loom Large. In June, time found that google’s video model veo 3 generated realistic clips that contained Misleading or Inflammatory Information About News Events. After Time Contacted Google about these videos, the company said it would begin adding a visible watermark to videos generated with the tool.
Read More: Google’s New Ai Tool Generates Convincing Deepfakes of Riots, Conflict, And Election Fraud
When tested many of the same prompts used with Google’s Model with Seedance through Capcut’s Dreamina Tool, It Actually rejected many rejected many of them, on the groups that they have violated Community Gowidelines. Still, the model, like its competitors, produced decentrally realistic footage that could conceivally be shared as Misinformation on social media, like this video created VISSCE OS SEADINCE OS SOLDIRES DELIRENS DELIRENGES DELICES Palestinian refugees. A representative for bytedance did not respond to a request for comment.
The realism of bytedance’s models also rayses questions Around Copyright and Likeness issues. Chinese scholars have contended that China has taken a regulatory approach of “Moderate Lenocation” in tering models on copyrighted material. This shows up in the model outputs: one x user, for example, posted a seedream image showing heath Ledger’s joker, margot robbie’s harley quinn, and michelle pfeififer’s catwoman toge toge toge to Bar. Another Created an image with Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman.
Lu, at kapwing, say that seedance and seedream appear especially willing to recreate copyrighted characters, behtra it be mickey mouse or the minions. “I think that in the states, there’s a lot more scrutiny on some of these big labs in terms where’re sourcing the content that they’re training on,” He says. “I think in china, there is an unrestricted ability of results to get the data that they need and train on that.”
Selina Xu, China and Ai Policy Lead in the office of Eric Schmidt, Says That It is “Expected” That bytedance and Other Chinese Companies Train their models on the user-generated video data from their models. Platforms. She adds that video generation models are a “Growing Revenue Stream for Ai Companies.”
Time was altar to create an image of a “Young Brad Pitt and Leonardo Dicaprio Shaking Hands” Through Seedream on Kapwing. Some Members of Congress, Including Marsha Blackburn, Are Attempting to Pass Legislation that would be protected and visual likenesses of individuals and creators from digital reported white Consent. But Such Legislation is Still Quite from Passing.
Meanwhile, American Companies Are Beginning to Pay Attention to these chinese ai giants, forcing them to grapple more publicly with copyright protectives. In September, disney, warner bros. Discovery and NBCUNIVERSAL Sued The Chinese Company Minimax for “Willful and Brazen” copyright infringement.
‘Heat to the fire’
American Labs Have Argued That Because Their Chinese Counterparts Have a Lax Attitude Toward Copyright, Thei Should ALSO Be ALSO BE ALESO BE ALESO BE ALESO BE ANE SO ANE COPYRIGHTED MATERIGH MATERIL, And that ARECHY ARERATING NEWMAGESES In A Way that is transformative and protected under fair use. Earlier this year, Openai Announced it would Relax Its Rules Around Content Modration, Leading to a Wave of Studio Ghibli Memes Flooding the Internet.
Read More: How that Studio Ghibli Memes are a sign of Openai’s Trump-Re Shift
“I’m not convined this is being driven by chinese companies. Trinity College Dublin. She says that the ability of bytedance’s models to create likenesses of copyrighted characters and real people Law or ethical implications. “
Rauh has many concerns about the spread of Deepfake tools, Including that they could lead to Increased Harassment and Misinformation, and Thretan Users’ Data Privacy. “People are having very revealing interactions with these models: the kind of images that they’re interested in generating, how they tweak them, or if they’re images in images of likesness of likeness,” “That’s all data that would be at risk.”
Katharine Trendacosta, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Argues that Education is KEY to Mitigating Deepfake Risks. “We’ve reacted this weird point where simultaneously Anything can be generated, but no one believes anything anymore,” She says. “But we Never solve the underling problem. We just keep targeting the new technology, and not media literature or Teaching analytical skills or how to evaluate soures.”
