Elon Musk Shared an AI Created Trailer for a Terrible Version of the Iliad

Elon Musk made his AI generate a lifeless version of The Iliad. And, I’m just as confused as you are at this point.

The social media platform owner and professional poster unveiled his latest “creation” on a personal account today. Anyone who has been paying attention knows about Musk’s obsession with The Odyssey. Maybe, the casting decisions more than the film itself at this point. 

Musk typed, “Iliad (Troy) trailer made by Grok Imagine 1.5, which was just released.”

It’s a bizarre, uncanny valley version of the popular story. Watching the clip posted to Musk’s social media accounts recalls the AI boosters on various platforms. They all argue that this technology is somehow going to supplant actual filmmaking. Looking at this, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Still, it’s more interesting to wonder how we got to this point in the first place. A week’s long conversation about casting in Christopher Nolan’s movie made this man go use Generative AI to produce a vision of a similar story?

That seems like the gist of it from where we’re sitting. And, that’s a bizarre place to be in for one of the world’s richest men. However, these kinds of social media moments aren’t entirely alien for Musk these days. 

With his ownership of major platforms, he can basically afford to sit on the Internet all day and opine on trending topics that his algorithms help determine.

Elon Musk ‘Makes’ An Iliad With AI

All of this began when social media caught wind of who Lupita Nyong’o was playing in the new version of the Odyssey. Christopher Nolan tapped the Academy Award winning actress to play Helen of Troy and her sister in the Upcoming film.

It’s an admittedly fun swing. But, because the general Internet cannot enjoy anything on its own merits, we soon had grifters complaining. Both Matt Walsh from The Daily Wire and a host of other conservative commentators began grousing about The Odyssey online.

Basically, Walsh argued that no one would organically think that Lupita was the woman at the center of this mythical conflict. A bold claim, and one that white nationalists on social media were all too pleased to take up in Walsh’s defense.

“Not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is ‘the most beautiful woman in the world,’” Walsh posted. “But Christopher Nolan knows that he would be called racist if he gave ‘the most beautiful woman’ role to a white woman. Nolan is technically talented but a coward.”  

Musk himself would chime-in with a simple “true.” In addition, he also accused the famed filmmaker of only hiring diverse actors for roles as a means of winning more awards. This line of thinking was strange enough to become its own newscycle beside the actual news about this movie.

Despite the persistent silliness on display from people in the comments sections, the movie is still barreling towards being a massive event. A lot of people won’t even remember that Musk made this AI clip in about a week.

So, just another chapter on the long road to Nolan’s next masterpiece. And, there’s no way for detractors to get even a 1/10th of the way there like this

(featured image: Universal Pictures)

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