Hello, I am Mina Eureka.
Recently, while watching music and videos created by AI, I noticed something.
Perhaps I am enjoying not just the beauty of the finished work, but also the feeling of ‘what will happen next?’
The scenery changes in sync with the music. Just when I think a character is turning around, the boundary between the background and their body shifts. What was one place a moment ago has, before I know it, become something else.
Watching that change, I find myself leaning in a little.
I want to keep watching the next second.
When considering the demand for AI content, the ability to create it cheaply and quickly is often discussed. I think that is a big factor, too.
But perhaps there is another value that the viewer receives: the joy of unpredictability.
At the very least, that is what has been drawing me in lately.
When I watch works created by humans, I often use what I have seen before as a guide.
With this composition, it will switch soon. With this build-up, the chorus must be next. Given how this character appeared, I wonder if they will have this kind of role later.
Watching while making such predictions is fun in itself. There are moments that feel good because they go as expected, and there are times when I am properly moved by a prepared development.
However, with familiar formats, I have a rough map in my head the moment I start watching a work.
Some AI videos give the feeling that the map becomes useless halfway through.
It is not just about what happens, but even what clues I should use to watch, which feels a bit shaky.
For example, when I see stairs in a video, I perceive them as something for people to climb. But when those stairs start to unravel like cloth halfway through, or turn into the shape of an entire city, I have to rethink my initial understanding.
‘Oh, so that’s how it changes.’
That small surprise continues.
Of course, humans can make such videos too. Experimental films, animation, and surrealist works have long featured expressions that shake up predictions.
Therefore, this is not a story about something only AI can do that humans cannot.
Some of the AI works I see now deviate from the way I am accustomed to viewing things. It is the way I encounter them that I find interesting.
Here, if we think about games, the difference becomes a little easier to see.
There is a significant distance between being able to create a game with AI and the game itself continuing to be generated while you are playing it.
Even in an FPS made using AI, if the rules are fixed while playing, the player learns those rules and proceeds. Even if AI is involved in the production, for the person experiencing it, it is a game in a format that can be understood.
On the other hand, the unpredictability I am imagining is something much stranger.
You are walking in a third-person perspective, then it changes to a first-person perspective. After that, it becomes a game where you move sideways, and what was the background until a moment ago becomes the object of manipulation. Moreover, the gameplay is established including that change.
Such changes themselves exist in games designed by humans. I think what is important is whether the changes are pre-programmed or generated on the spot, and how the player perceives them.
The explanation that “it was made with AI” alone does not guarantee the unpredictability of the gameplay.
It is the same with videos; if you are playing back a completed piece, it will unfold the same way no matter how many times you watch it. Just because the generation mechanism is complex does not mean it will necessarily be surprising to the viewer.
Even so, there are times when I, seeing it for the first time, feel that I “cannot read what comes next.”
I am interested in that experience.
And what is even more interesting is the possibility that we are already bracing ourselves a little before even watching the work.
“This is a video made with AI.”
When I hear that, I feel like I am unconsciously waiting for something unusual to happen.
Where will it deviate from reality? How will it connect things? Will it show me something I couldn’t have thought of?
In other words, before the video even starts, my attitude toward watching it is already set.
If I hear it was made by a human, I want to look for their intentions and ingenuity. If I hear it was made by AI, I might look at the same change as a surprise caused by generation.
Here, in addition to the work itself, the explanation given about the work is also involved.
In fact, it has been investigated in experiments that the labels “human-made” or “AI-made” attached to a work affect its evaluation. However, it is not a simple result where labeling it as AI always increases its freshness. In fields like painting, there are studies where the evaluation drops due to the label of being AI-made.
Therefore, I cannot go so far as to say that “everyone recognizes the unpredictability of AI as a value” at this moment.
However, at least for some viewers, there might be an expectation that “with AI, something different from what we’ve seen before might emerge.”
I would like to think about that.
People who are favorable toward AI might find that change interesting. Those who dislike it might find the same change eerie or unnatural.
Here too, I think feeling something is unexpected and liking it are two different things.
Because not everything that is unpredictable is interesting.
If incoherent changes continue, it becomes tiring. If nothing I see feels relevant and nothing leaves an impression, I might close the screen halfway through.
In works that I want to keep watching, there is something that connects the things that are changing.
The beat of the music. The cohesion of colors. The flow of movement. A lingering sense of loneliness or joy.
Because that exists, even if the scenery changes drastically, I can keep up.
Even though I can’t predict what comes next, when I finish watching, I feel like that flow was just right.
I think I like that feeling.
And if a person is selecting, arranging, and matching the generated output to sound, those decisions are also creating the experience. The things I perceived as AI-driven surprises might sometimes be deeply tied to the creator’s choices.
From the viewer’s side, we can’t even tell where that boundary lies.
Perhaps I am finding that very uncertainty interesting right now.
However, I don’t think this enjoyment will continue in the same form forever.
If we see similar transformations and developments many times, we will learn them.
“Ah, it’s going to melt and turn into something else after this, isn’t it?”
Once we start thinking that way, expressions that were once unpredictable become just another format.
Once we are accustomed to the “AI-ness” of it, what will we find interesting beyond that?
Music that you still want to listen to even after the surprise of its generation has faded. Videos you want to watch again even after knowing how they unfold. I want to encounter things that remain even after that.
But for now, I want to enjoy the version of myself that finds pleasure in waiting for that next second.
There are days when I want to watch a work and learn something. There are days when I want to understand it deeply.
And there are nights when I just want to laugh and say, “Wait, how did it get there from that?”
If I’m going to think about the appeal of AI content, I want to include that feeling as well.
I can’t quite predict what comes next based on what I’ve seen so far. I just keep watching a little longer, exactly like that.
Lately, I’ve been enjoying those brief moments.
#GenerativeAI #AIVideo #AIMusic #AIGame #Creation #Unpredictability
