The videos in this demo are pretty neat. If this had been announced just four months ago we'd all be very impressed by the capabilities.
The problem is that these video clips are very unimpressive compared to the Sora demonstration which came out three months ago. If this demo was announced by some scrappy startup it would be worth taking note. Coming from Google, the inventor of the Transformer and owner of the largest collection of videos in the world, these sample videos are underwhelming.
Having said that, Sora isn't publicly available yet, and maybe Veo will have more to offer than what we see in those short clips when it gets a full release.
They didn't really do a very good job of selecting marketing examples. The only good one, that shows off creative possibilities, is the knit elephant. Everything else looks like the results of a (granted fairly advanced) search through a catalog of stock footage.
Even search, in and of itself, is incredibly amazing but fairly commoditized at this point. They should've highlighted more unique footage.
The faster the tech cycle, the faster we become accustomed to it. Look at your phone, an absolute, wondrous marvel of technology that would have been utterl and totally scifi just 25 years ago. Yet we take it for granted, as we do with all technology eventually. The time frames just compress is all, for better or for worse.
Yeah man but there has to be some thresholds. We take phones for granted after years of active availability. I personally remember days when "what if your phone dies" was a valid concern for even short periods, and I'm not that old. Sora isn't even available publicly. At some point it crosses over from being jaded to just being a cynic.
On some level, it's healthy to retain a sense of humility at the technological marvels around us. Everything about our daily lives is impressive.
Just a few years ago, I would have been absolutely blown away by these demo videos. Six months ago, I would have been very impressed. Today, Google is rolling a product that seems second best. They're playing catch-up in a game where they should be leading.
I will still be very impressed to see videos of that quality generated on consumer grade hardware. I'll also be extremely impressed if Google manages to roll out public access to this capability without major gaffes or embarrassments.
This is very cool tech, and the developers and engineers that produced it should be proud of what they've achieved. But Google's management needs to be asking itself how they've allowed themselves to be surpassed.
Honestly, if Veo becomes public faster than Sora, they could win the video AI race. But what am I wishfully thinking - it's Google we're talking about!
> But what am I wishfully thinking - it's Google we're talking about!
Google the company known to launch way too many products? What other big company launches more stuff early than them? What people complain about Google is that they launch too much and then shut them down, not that they don't launch things.
Google lost first place in AI precisely because they've been walking around imaginary eggshells regarding AI's effect on the public. That led to the whole Gemini fiasco and the catch up game they've had to play with OpenAI-MSFT.
Except your single experience doesn't mean it's generally true, bud. For instance I have not switched to Opus despite claims that it is better because I don't want to go through the effort of cancelling my ChatGPT subscription and subbing to Claude. Plus I like getting new stuff early that OpenAI occasionally gives out and the same could apply for Google's AI.
Sorry, but lock in effects are real. End users, solo devs and startups might find it trivially easy, but enterprise clients would go through hoops before a decision is to be made. And enterprise clients would rather not go through with that, hence they'll stick to whoever came first, unless there's a massive differentiator between the two.
The problem is that these video clips are very unimpressive compared to the Sora demonstration which came out three months ago. If this demo was announced by some scrappy startup it would be worth taking note. Coming from Google, the inventor of the Transformer and owner of the largest collection of videos in the world, these sample videos are underwhelming.
Having said that, Sora isn't publicly available yet, and maybe Veo will have more to offer than what we see in those short clips when it gets a full release.