A wild AI video depicting a miniature Miami being wiped out by a huge wave as an imaginary film crew captures it has gone incredibly viral on Instagram — as some question why Meta is pushing such content.
The video shared by a page called “wonderfulworldai” has been viewed close to 700 million times after being posted just two days ago.
“No CGI. No compositing. Just a hand-built miniature Miami and a 40-foot wave tank. Months of work. One take,” reads the caption, suggesting, at first glance, that the footage is real. It does later say that it’s an AI video, and it also appears to be an ad for the AI company Higgsfield. There is a small ‘AI info’ label that periodically disappears on the upper left-hand side of the video.
Jeremy Carrasco, who investigates synthetic content, questions why Instagram is pushing AI videos so hard. For context, the miniature Miami video has gotten more views than any real behind-the-scenes video and even more views than any MrBeast Instagram reel.
“What type of algorithm rewards lying to viewers? Only hinting that this is an AI video once you name an AI video sponsor?” says Carrasco. “Is an algorithm rewarding confusion and angry comments going to keep working as improving AI videos can effectively game it better than any human can?”
Carrasco calls the Miami video a “wake-up call” as it shows that synthetic content is “winning the recommendation algorithms.”
Despite many users asking for an AI filter, Instagram Head Adam Mosseri recently said on Lenny’s Podcast that, “I don’t think we should filter out AI content. I think we should let you know if it’s AI content or not.”
But of course, Meta is all in on AI technology and is hoping for a mass adoption of its models. Meta recently published an ad arguing that artificial intelligence will not “make us less connected” or “leave us behind.” But the optimistic message was somewhat undermined by using David Bowie’s apocalyptic song Five Years as a backing track — a song that literally describes the end of the human race.
To read about real behind-the-scenes camera work, check out PetaPixel’s interview with Johanna Coelho, the director of photography for The Pitt.
