> For instance, that ladybug looks pretty natural, but there's a little glitch in there that an unwitting observer, who's never seen a ladybug move before, may mistake as being normal. And maybe it is! And maybe it isn't?

Well, none of the existing animation movies follow exact laws of physics.

I grew up watching Looney Tunes interpretation of physics and turned out just fine.

Between omnipresent cgi in movies and tv, animation, and video game physics (all of which are human-coded approximations of real physics, often intentionally distorted for various reasons), that ship has long since sailed.

> The sinking of the elephant into snow - how deep is too deep? Should there be snow on the elephant or would it have melted from body heat? Should some of the snow fall off during movement or is it maybe packed down too tightly already?

Should there be an elephant in the snow? The layers of possible confusion, and subtle incorrect understandings go much deeper.

> inaccurate impressions of physics

Or just inaccurate impressions of the physical world.

My young kids and I happened to see a video of some very cute baby seals jumping onto a boat. It was not immediately clear it was AI-generated, but after a few runs I noticed it was a bit too good to be true. The kids would never have known otherwise.

YouTube Shorts are full of AI animal videos with distorted proportions, living in the wrong habitat, and so on. They popped up on my son’s account and I hate them for the reasons you outline. They aren’t cartoonish enough explain away, nor realistic enough to be educational.

I’d be more worried about the inevitable “we’re under nuclear attack, head for shelter” CNN deepfakes.

I dont think you are overthinking it.

Facebook seems full of older people interacting with AI generated visual content who don't seem to understand that it is fake.

Our society already had a problem with people (not) participating in consensus reality. This is going to pour gasoline on the fire.

> A little worried how young children watching these videos may develop inaccurate impressions of physics in nature.

I'm less concerned with physics for children--assuming they get enough time outdoors--and more about adulthood biases and media-literacy.

In particular, a turbocharged version of a problem we already have: People grow up watching movies and become subconsciously taught that flaws of the creation pipeline (e.g. lens flare, depth of field) are signs of "realism" in a general sense.

That manifests in things such as video-games where your human character somehow sees the world with crappy video-cameras for eyes. (Excepting a cyberpunk context, where that would actually make sense.)

Fair! I watched a lot of Superman as a kid and I killed myself jumping off a building

Yes, entertainment spreads lots of myths. But bad physics from AI movies is only a tiny part of the problem. This is similar to worries about the misconceptions people might get from playing too many video games, reading too many novels, watching too much TV, or participating too much in social media.

It helps somewhat that people are fairly aware that entertainment is fake and usually don’t take it too seriously.

> A little worried how young children watching these videos may develop inaccurate impressions of physics in nature.

And why don't we worry this about CGI?

CGI is not always made with a full physical simulation, and is not always intended to accurately represent real-world physics.

Me too. While I'm generally optimistic about generative art, at this point the models still have this dreamlike quality; things look OK at first glance, but you often get the feeling something is off. Because it is. Texture, geometry, lights, shadows, effects of gravity, etc. are more or less inconsistent.

I do worry that, as we get exposed more and more to such art, we'll become less sensitive to this feeling, which effectively means we'll become less calibrated to actual reality. I worry this will screw with people's "system 1" intuitions long-term (but then I can't say exactly how; I guess we'll find out soon enough).

Here's the obligatory AI enthusiast answer:

What is physics besides next token/frame prediction? I'm not sure these videos deserve the label "inaccurate" as who's to judge what way of generating next tokens/frames is better? Even if you you judge the "physical" world to be "better", I think it's much more harmful to teach young children to be skeptical of AI as their futures will depend on integrating them in their lives. Also, with enough data, such models will not only match, but probably exceed "real-physics" models in quality, fidelity, and speed.

i wouldnt expect young children to learn how to walk by watching people walk on a screen, regardless of if its a real person walking, or an ai animation.

the real world gives way more stimulus

watching the animations might help them play video games, but i again imagine that the feedback is what will do the real job.

even for the real ladybug video, who says the behaviour on screen is similar to what a typical ladybug does? if its on video, the ladybug was probably doing something weird amd unexpected

Sure this is problematic for society although I'm not concerned about what you are mentioning. I remember as a kid noticing how in looney tunes wile e coyote could run off the cliff a few steps and thinking maybe there's a way to do that. Or kids arguing about whether it was possible to perform a sonic boom like in street fighter. Or jumping off the playground with an umbrella etc

Don't be, physics laws miss interpretation are very quick to correct with a reality check. I'm more worried for kids that have to learn how the world works trough a screen. Just let them play outside and interact with other kids and nature. Let them fall and cry, and scratch and itch, it will make them stronger and healthier adults.

> Hopefully I'm just overthinking it.

I think it's unnecessary to worry about obviously bad stuff in nascent and rapidly developing technology. The people who spent most time with it (the developers) are aware of the obviously bad stuff and will work to improve it.

A little worried how young children watching these videos may develop inaccurate impressions of physics in nature.

Pretty sure cartoons and actions movies do that already, until youtube videos of attempted stunts show what reality looks like.

Young generation that will grow up with this tools will have completely different approach to anything virtual. Remember how prople though that camera stole part of their soul when they see themselves copied on picture?

Video games and movies have existed for a long time. I think children today will end up being more discerning than us because they will grow up sifting through AI generated content.

That could be nice. If you think that rabbits crawl like on the sora.com homepage, but then you see one hopping in real life, you might have more of a sense of wonder about the world.

AI physics isn't worth worrying about compared to other inaccurate things kids see in movies. It doesn't seem to hurt them.

If you really want something to worry about, consider that movies regularly show pint-sized women successfully drop kicking men significantly bigger than themselves in ways that look highly plausible but aren't. It's not AI but it violates basic laws of biology and physics anyway. Teaching girls they can physically fight off several men at once when they aren't strong enough to do that seems like it could have pretty dangerous consequences, but in practice it doesn't seem to cause problems. People realize pretty quick that movie physics isn't real.

You are not overthinking it, moreover, text LLM have the same problem in that they are almost good. Almost. Which is what gives me the creeps.

I share your concern as well and at times worry about what I'm seeing too.

I suppose the reminder here is that seeing does not warrant believing.

I am not sure if you have kids or not but you are in for a big surprise if you don’t have kids. Watching videos =\= real life.

I know this sounds judgmental, but this reminds me of the idiom “touch grass”. Children should be outdoors observing real life and not be consuming AI slop. You are not overthinking this, this will most likely be bad for children and everyone in the long run.

Also, I guess its just normal for a car lane to just merge seamlessly into a pedestrian zone

Yes Bugs bunny and willie the coyote harmed ours physics.

Don’t worry, you are.

Kids are fine with fiction.