The A.I.-generated video was an attempt to hop on the POV trend. It backfired.
The video may have lasted less than 30 seconds, but it was long enough to provoke anger from historians and members of the French public.
In honor of National Resistance Day, which commemorates those who resisted German occupation and the Vichy authorities during World War II on May 27 each year, the French government released a 27-second celebratory video on its Instagram and TikTok accounts. The occasion is keenly promoted by France’s Ministry of Education and the goal was to reach younger audiences through social and by leaning on the modern tool of artificial intelligence.
The problem was that authorities did not check the video for historical accuracy. In a scene of Parisians jubilantly celebrating the end of Nazi occupation in August, 1944, a soldier wearing a German-style helmet can been seen in the crowd. In the background, someone on a balcony waves the flag of Japan, a wartime ally of the Nazis.
The pushback was swift and forced authorities to withdraw the video. On Instagram, one user wrote, “You can see that a soldier celebrating the liberation has a German helmet. If you want to use A.I., do it correctly.” Elsewhere, academics and historians chimed in. “It really worried me,” Sylvie Zaidman, the director of the Liberation of Paris Museum, told the London Times. “It comes from an official source that many people will consider to be reliable.”
In response, Michaël Nathan, the director of France’s Government Communication and Information Service told Le Monde that it was a regrettable error.
“The teams have the daily challenge of adapting content and narrative forms to new audience habits, particularly on social media,” Nathan said. “A.I. tools are never used alone and each script is prepared and validated by agents, ministries, and specialists, based on reliable and sourced elements. The visual translation of the script, however, was not viewed by them.”
Nathan said that a new version of the video would be released after being verified by historians from the Resistance Foundation.
Stills from the A.I. video released by the French government. Photo: Screenshot.
The video was an attempt to connect with the trend of short-form POV content that casts viewers into pivotal moments of history or the lives of famous people. Popular examples include the final moments of the Titanic or what daily life was like during the Black Death with accounts such as @timetravellerpov accruing nearly 600,000 followers. The government’s video was inspired by the testimony of Madeleine Riffaud, a celebrated hero of the French Resistance. The video states “POV: You are a woman who resisted in World War II,” before showing the woman distributing a clandestine journal, being captured and tortured by Germans, and celebrating liberation in the streets of Paris.
While some complained about the government’s lack of fact-checking, others rejected the use of A.I. in the first place. “Pay artists? No, let’s contribute to the polluting A.I. race instead.” Another user wrote, “where are the period images with the names of the resistance fighters? Instead of making A.I., make history.”
Source: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/french-government-pulls-ai-video-over-historical-inaccuracy-2658044
