The adaptation of The Last of Us into a television series has been welcomed by many, with the show treating the source material with respect, but a VFX company has wondered what it would be like if artificial intelligence turned it back into a game. With the rise of AI technology such as ChatGPT being a hot topic at the moment, gamers, artists, and others in the creative industries are either expressing their joy over what machine learning can achieve or sharing their dismay over the potential for loss of that human element in art.As for Naughty Dog's award-winning franchise, The Last of Us is considered one of the greatest post-apocalyptic games of all time. Although mixed into the already diluted zombie genre, its captivating story and compelling character development made it a landmark release back in 2013. While the second installment did split audiences somewhat, with a few criticizing some of the story elements, it was still a critically acclaimed sequel. Then the remake of the first game came out, followed by the small screen adaptation.HBO's take on The Last of Us seems to be succeeding where others, such as the Resident Evil Netflix series, have all but been forgotten. But to make the circle complete, YouTube channel Corridor Digital decided to see whether artificial intelligence could work its magic on the TV show in order to turn it back into a game. Using "cutting edge technology," the team set the algorithm to task, converting the visuals of the adaptation into something more digital. Obviously, this is just meant as a joke, but the tech involved does look impressive, with the real-life cast almost looking like their video game counterparts when run through the AI.
Corridor Digital is known for its parody videos involving special effects, such as when the VFX crew turned Harry Potter into an R-rated flick. However, some feel this recent TLoU video is a tone-deaf moment for the team, as Corridor were hit with backlash recently after the short AI generated anime Rock Paper Scissors opened the crew up to criticism. While some feel animation created by AI is a marvel of modern technology, others believe it could threaten the future of real animators.
In any case, Corridor's The Last of Us video does show what's possible with the current technology at people's disposal. It may be just a joke, but it does fit right into the ongoing discussion about where machine learning should stand when it comes to generating works of art without human input.
The Last of Us Part 1 is currently available on PS5 and will be available for PC on March 28, 2023.
Source: The Gamer