Скриншоти з оновленої версії серіалу «Інший світ» від PetaPixel
In February, Netflix added the series «A Different World» — spinoff «The Cosby Show», which aired from 1987 to 1993, to the platform. But not a simple version, but an HD remaster, which somewhat puzzled and even scared viewers.
It is not known what technology Netflix chose to «enhance» the series from the original 480p or 360p resolution, but it shows clear signs of sloppy processing with artificial intelligence, which was first noticed by noticed developer and blogger Scott Hanselman.
«A Different World» now shows distorted hands and facial features, and the text in the background has turned into meaningless symbols.
Actually, a lot of footage from the updated show has since appeared on the Internet, so you can take a closer look for yourself:
In short, this is yet another example of how artificial intelligence is penetrating almost every aspect of the entertainment industry and our daily lives. And, of course, once again with a scandal: remember «Megalopolis» Francis Coppola, which was hated even before its release because of use of fake quotes from critics in the trailer generated by AIor the main contenders for «Oscar», the films «Brutalist» and «Emilia Perez», which predicted the loss of statuettes due to editing the pronunciation of actors with Respeecher technology.
«A Different World» is somewhat tarnished by the scandal of Bill Cosby being accused of sexual harassment and deliberately drugging another person, but at the time of its release it was culturally important, covering topics such as the HIV crisis and similar. Nowadays, there are some more pressing issues, so only longtime fans will watch the show — but do they want what Netflix has given them with enhancements? They would probably prefer the original blur of the show to distorted AI artifacts
«In the original format, the show was blurry, but it didn’t matter because it was watched from a distance on CRT TVs,» says Hanselman, who works on artificial intelligence at Microsoft. «You can zoom in on it, you can turn one blurry pixel into four pixels or four pixels into sixteen pixels. But you have to get this information from somewhere. It’s not enough here to make the main characters look right».
