London Rail

Google Veo3

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Autistic London Blogger

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Soon we will have fake railway and other transport videos that are too good to be true! The launch of Google Flow (or Google Veo3) the other day has given AI generated videos a huge step – and the first fake historical railway and London bus films have already made their appearance!

The Google Flow labs page – which is different from the official Google VEO page. The Labs page is where one should go if they wish to try out Veo3/Flow.

Here are a few AI video renders from Veo/Flow that have a strong transport theme! Be prepared to be astounded!

Its incredible that this video conveys a historic atmosphere without any need for actors or props or even a film set. Its an early example of the latest in AI video rendering – but given time there are sure to be some stupendous transport videos that are entirely AI generated. With a bit of care and attention these could easily describe events in transport history with more detail and accuracy than what can be done now with the current levels of Youtubing or even blogs!

“Video of a Chicago and Northwestern passenger train coming into the Wausau train station in 1953. Families with kids wait on the platform in anticipation. A small boy is giddy with excitement.”

Accuracy is of course something that can easily reveal these videos to be fake. The Wausau station (in Wisconsin on the Milwaukee Road) scene reveals several things that are from the modern era – let alone their having been extant in 1953! The single yellow line and also the modern platform edging should not be there for a start! The signage has its letters repeated – a common feature where AI regularly finds the spelling of words problematic. The locomotive is rendered quite well but even so it has details that are missing.

The next to be featured is transport orientated as well – there’s no doubt about that! The images of the London buses are great even though there are some issues with how these have been rendered. The Routemasters are completely wrong – among other things the fronts and the radiator areas aren’t correct – and Routemasters didn’t exist in 1952 anyway!

The Bedford buses are nice but each one that is shown are not historically correct. At least two of them seem to have adopted taxi radiator fronts and one other has a hybrid front that has been adopted from a Routemaster! Then there’s what is meant to be a RF bus – again something that had barely existed in 1952 since that was the first year AEC Regal IV production models had begun to be introduced. That bus also has a quasi Routemaster radiator front and headlights!

Creating an AI enhanced first British VR feature film, ‘Once Upon A Time In Britain’, set in London during the Great Smog of 1952 with Google Gemini for scene concepts, props, photos, short films and more.

One thing that impresses me is how Portcullis House has been rendered as a building that looks Victorian or Edwardian! Its nice but again, its a feature that didn’t exist in 1952. Another surprise is the modern Portcullis House has also been rendered – its further down the road with its unmistakable roof! And that building in front of the Elizabeth Tower, well that shouldn’t be there! Westminster bridge is shown completely wrong too. It’s depicted as extending right past Portcullis House but in reality it doesn’t even do that.

There’s one other element missing and that’s trams! London’s trams were extant until the summer of 1952, thus even if this was later in that year there should still have been a pair of tram tracks on the bridge itself – regardless of whether there were trams or not. TBH there are markings in the road on the left side of the bridge that somehow mimics a tram track, but its not certain that is meant to be this because if fades out quite soon. The bridge itself is too narrow for a start anyway so it would have been quite a squeeze to even incorporate a London tram!

In terms of the presentation however – and in view of it being entirely AI generated – there’s no arguing its certainly very impressive!

Try making a video that closely represents history as accurately as it should be – and the problem then is even video and film makers create all sorts of inconsistencies that reveal its evident construct. And even in these examples given (especially the two transport videos shown above) again its the given constructs that reveal these to be AI. At this stage its quite clear AI can’t get rid of the fakery that is implicit in these movies – thus it has a long road ahead in terms of accuracy.

A modern car exhibition (shown next) might be easy to generate but its evident that AI sorts of falls apart in terms of accuracy depending on historical context and location and even in that car show video, there are subtle elements that show its not even a real video in any way. For example the AI rendering can’t even spell Hell’s Angels! The lanyards are way off too!

In spite of those shortcomings, this next example is certainly impressive – and the subtitles are great too! Fake news/media has been something humanity has had to contend with for a good while – but now things have gone in leaps and bounds – and one will no doubt have a harder job telling whether something is faked or not! There are some blips if one can spot those even though this is a complete AI generated car showroom report!

The subtitles (or captions) don’t feature in this version however those can be seen in the versions on ‘X’ providing the ‘CC’ is enabled.

Before you ask: yes, everything is AI here. The video and sound both coming from a single text prompt using #Veo3 by @GoogleDeepMind. Whoever is cooking the model, let him cook! Congrats @Totemko and the team for the Google I/O live stream and the new Veo site!

This next one has a railway station scene completely AI generated – and with subtitles too! The one about the oceans is impressive too!

There’s all the usual caveats that its dangerous, its an existential crisis, its the end of humanity blah blah… I don’t think so. If humans want to use it with a given responsibility then AI can be used as a great asset. if humans want to use it for nefarious and even dangerous purposes – then clearly its humanity and not AI that is the danger.

The main feature image is a screencap from the ‘Once Upon A Time In Britain’ video.

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