What this futuristic Olympics video says about the state of generative AI

The Olympic Games in Paris just finished last month and the Paralympics are still underway, so the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles feel like a lifetime from now. But the prospect of watching the games in his home city has Josh Kahn, a filmmaker in the sports entertainment world who has worked in content creation for both LeBron James and the Chicago Bulls, thinking even further into the future: What might an LA Olympics in the year 3028 look like?

It’s the perfect type of creative exercise for AI video generation, which came into the mainstream with the debut of OpenAI’s Sora earlier this year. By typing prompts into generators like Runway or Synthesia, users can generate fairly high-definition video in minutes. It’s fast and cheap, and it presents few technical obstacles compared with traditional creation techniques like CGI or animation. Even if every frame isn’t perfect—distortions like hands …