mamabonus Commentary: China’s AI video rush is a wake-up call for the world

TOKYO: Chinese tech companies are racing ahead with artificial intelligence tools that can turn text into short videos. The public release of a handful of AI video generators from big companies and start-ups aims to show how the country is narrowing the gap with the United States when it comes to the technology. But they are simultaneously opening a Pandora’s Boxmamabonus, allowing anyone to create short clips from almost any prompt they can imagine.

I tried some out. They wouldn’t give me any videos of Chinese President Xi Jinping breakdancing, but one did make a clip from my headshot that removed my jacket and shirt when I was testing what these could potentially be used for.

While the videos were not always high quality, I was still ultimately left feeling sorry for a generation of girls and young people who are growing up with this technology so easily accessible.

In recent weeks, internet giant Kuaishou Technology released its AI video tool Kling; start-up Zhipu AI launched Ying; TikTok parent company ByteDance unveiled Jimeng; and start-up Shengshu AI, with help from Tsinghua University, launched Vidu. Alibaba Group is also reportedly working on its own AI video-generating application.

The rush to offer these services to the Chinese public stands in stark contrast to firms in the US. OpenAI teased a first look at its video-generating tool, Soramamabonus, in February, but has yet to publicly release it. Google’s Veo is only available to a handful of select creators and testers via a waitlist at the moment.

AI-generated videos from Kling AI (left) and Sora (right), using identical prompts. CNA generated the Kling AI video while Sora's was retrieved from OpenAI’s official website.

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