This charming short puts the "art" in artificial intelligence.

What can you expect when you blend the power of an AI image generator, an elderly woman of 98 years named Lillian, and Harry Potter? The result is "HAIRYPOUTER is a film of a shorter length from director Chris Carboni that incorporates ever more whimsical AI-generated visuals and a commentary on the classic novel by a hilarious nonagenarian.

"Lillian is my grandma," says Chris. "She has always had a very close relationship and I've been recording her reviewing for around 10 or more years."

When AI image generators started to dominate the web around mid-2022, Chris saw the stars collide to form a new venture which could make use of his hours of listening and assist him in exploring his connection to this new technology. "I was surrounded by conflicted feelings about [these generatorsthat I wanted to explore] and was searching for an opportunity to learn about them," explains Chris. "At the at the same time, I was talking to my mother-in-law who had just finished the Harry Potter series, which I had purchased for her as a birthday gift."

From there, the film began to come together with a nimble crew - "my grandmother and my wife and our sound designer and composer and the entire team" - - and the rest is (futuristic) history. The capabilities of AI continue to evolve at an alarming rate, we caught up with Chris Carboni and discussed the world of AI and art.

The imagery in this video is incredible. What did you use and how did you achieve the outcomes?

Chris: Then we tried MidJourney at the time of its initial version. The first step was to enter Lillian's uncut words and then seeing what it would generate using just the words from the interview. We loved the artistic style that it had come up with through just a few rounds of creating new images. Therefore, I had written down the characteristics of the artistic direction that was based on this picture it produced.

The first picture we saw was Ron wearing his long, wavy hair, and he looked amazing. It was a bit with shoulders up. Also, it was clear that he didn't have a shirt on. He just looked like this beach god. Then, when we saw the opportunity to capture Harry and Ron together, it posed they were almost hugging which we were thinking, "Oh, this is wonderful."

The AI was allowed to create these fascinating theories, and once we found one we loved we coached it to go along with that particular thread to ensure that it will always be entertaining and easy to follow.

How was it to apply AI to this incredibly human-centric story?

Chris Chris: When I was making this film I was a bit of concern [about AI[AI]]. However, I definitely enjoyed using it on this particular project. I believe that this was an excellent use-case for this project since using AI was fundamental to the narrative.

That's what made it feel exciting, interesting and unique. It was a bit about the clumsy but charming relationship between AI and humans. This wasn't an instance that we decided to not put a dollar into an illustrator and tried to make use of artificial intelligence instead. It was a project where the use of artificial intelligence was the basis of storytelling.

What do you think about AI becoming a creative force?

Chris: There's certainly something intriguing about this, but it's certainly become more complicated since now these generators are so ubiquitous. Their potential has been unleashed, and expanded into every one of these uses. The subject is now a bit more complex than I think like it once was from my personal understanding and feelings about it.

Anyone who is working in the creative field must figure out the implications of this for their work, and be prepared to accept that things are probably going to change. Along with this change, will be opportunities for doing amazing innovations, as well as the automatedization of many of the work we artists love. It does make me feel a bit sad, if I'm being sincere. I worry about art being reduced in value and becoming more expensive that it already is.

Would you use this technology to help you in the near future?

Chris Chris: Well I am a huge fan of the use of AI to boost my email and as a sort of personal assistant that can answer questions, explaining complex ideas and completing repetitive jobs. For creative tasks though, I don't fully know. I don't intend to employ it to the extent which would substitute human talent on my teams. I believe that the results would not be as good.

A large part of the work we do is due to collaboration with people. The entire process from beginning through to end using AI relies on the inputs generated by one's brain. Some cases may be fine However, generally speaking projects benefit from an entire team of professionals that work in tandem, each one bringing their own expertise and unique insights on the table.

The most appealing use-cases I see are for generating preliminary ideas as well as kicking off the process of creating. Maybe for raising funding for a project and showing some initial concept work for getting something off of the ground. But for animation it is essential to have complete control over the details of the scene to produce and creative motives. The level of control you need is probably coming but isn't that far off.