TCL Releases Second AI-Generated Film, “Message in a Bot”

Generative AI is now everywhere and the entertainment industry is increasingly embracing it. After showcasing a film made using generative AI earlier this year, TCL is back with another short film made with AI and available on its TVs.

The TCLtv+ app on the company’s Google TV and Fire TV is a FAST (Free and Ad-Supported TV) streaming app that’s growing in popularity. Earlier this year, TCL announced that it would begin producing “original” content for the app using generative AI.

The first experiment was a short film called “Next Stop Paris” which had an original script, voice actors and animators, but most of the visuals were created using generative AI, and it was pretty obvious. The film was full of trippy images and artificial faces, and that was only in the trailer.

TCL is now offering a second film, this time a science fiction story called “Message in a Bot.”

This four-and-a-half-minute short film tells the story of humans discovering advanced technology from a crashed alien ship and building a spaceship for interstellar travel. TCL summarizes:

Humanity has been given a gift: technology that allows it to open up the universe.

Message in a Bot is a short film that explores what happens when an alien ship crashes on Earth, containing advanced technology and instructions. Humanity builds and launches a spaceship capable of traveling into space and traversing the universe in an attempt to make contact.

This time around, the visuals are significantly better, but they still rely heavily on generative AI.

The story is fun and has a funny twist at the end that I definitely wasn’t expecting – it also provided some nightmare fuel.

You can watch the full short film on YouTube, as well as in the TCLtv+ app on Google TV and Fire TV.

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