We want to believe in AI

It's everywhere you look, everyones talking about what a game changer it is. The future is here now, and all the magic from sci-fi books is available today!

So I took the dive into AI, and tried out a few different use cases. Here's what I found.

Video editing

My first jump into the frenzy was using AI plugins for video editing like Gling and Descript. Youtube is awash with videos claiming they're saving hours video editing by usiing the AI tools t do it.

So, as any curious technologist would, I downloaded Gling, sent it a talking head clip for one of my videos, and what did I get back? Well, it was ok... it did cut make cuts where the silences where, but it did not do a good job removing the bad tags.

In fact, it took more time ( 4minutes longer) for me to review the edits the AI made than to just do the editing myself. Removing the silences is somewhat useful, but with the visuals in final cut pro, its pretty easy to see where the pauses are and make cuts quickly.

That being said, I do love being able to edit using text, but I also found errors in the transcpription. The AI also removed some good takes, and left in some bad takes.

Logo Creation

The next project I tried was creating a logo for my youtube channel. I'm not a super visually creative guy, so I took inspiration from my favorite animal at the beach, the pelican. The goal was to create something minimal, that conveyed the idea of playing on and over the water.

Here's the type of stuff I was able to get from midjourney after 6+ hours of playing with it:

Here's what I was able to get from a graphic designer:

Basically no amount of synonyms for minimal, outline, hand drawn would get the AI to create something simple and clean enough. Obviously I can improve as a prompt writer, and Ill definitely do this type of test again in the future.

Summary

So my take away is that the technology is at a point where it's an incremental feature, as slight improvement over what was previously being done. Especially for someone who is more of a power user. For total beginner video editors, a tool like this might be a bigger lift, it helps get them from 0 to 1 faster than having to learn how to use final cut pro or premier.

AI at the moment is interesting, something to keep tabs on, but no yet a game changer.