Mu isn’t the only comedian who has tried to emulate the style of AI-generated videos, but he really managed to capture all the elements: awkward body movements, blurry facial expressions and unpredictable plot developments. Many viewers, including myself, were shocked by how accurately he captured the essence of the sloppy AI movies.
Mu told me that the half-dozen AI-imitating films he’s made are only a miniature part of his acting career. Since his studies, he wanted to become an actor. He spent the summer after his freshman year at Hengdian World Studios – the largest film studio in the world – looking for background acting opportunities. He started creating comedy skits on Chinese social media in 2019, and content creation now takes up most of his time.
The success of the artificial intelligence videos landed him a sponsorship deal with a Chinese generative artificial intelligence company, which paid him RMB 80,000 (about $11,000) to produce two more sketches promoting the company’s video model. It’s a nice performance, but I honestly expected Mu to get more exposure thanks to his global virality.
As part of the sponsorship, Mu shot two versions of the sketches, one with AI-generated footage and one without it. Deep down, he hoped that the advertiser would choose the latter option because it showcased human acting skills first. But the advertiser chose the one with AI. “It’s kind of like it’s starting to steal work from human actors, right?” She tells Him.
Mu says there’s a constant battle going on as AI accelerates, but it’s not man vs. machine. Rather, the battle is between humans and non-humans who create AI models, with each side constantly trying to outdo the other. “We make fun of some of AI’s shortcomings, its weirdness and absurdity, but AI creators are probably improving them too. You see, this year’s AI already looks much more human,” Mu says.
How to act like AI
Before he made his first artificial intelligence sketch in July 2024, Mu watched many videos of artificial intelligence to learn about their common characteristics. He wanted to understand what mistakes artificial intelligence often makes and then reproduce them in his own scripts.
For example, when an object appears in a frame, the AI often misunderstands why it is there. For example, a hanger can be used to hang clothes, but it is also often a weapon of choice when parents in China physically punish their children. Inspired by this dual exploit other from Mu’s videos from last year, where halfway through pretending to hit his “son” with a hanger, the boy’s shorts mysteriously fall off and Mu looks like he suddenly forgot what he was doing and decided to hang up his shorts instead.