Strengths and Weaknesses of AI Video

Now you look at what you just created — with open eyes. Not to criticize it, but to understand it. What can AI video do well? Where are its limits?

The Stunt Double Metaphor

Imagine you're a film director. You have a difficult, dangerous scene to shoot — for example, a spectacular stunt sequence. You could:

A) Put your star in mortal danger B) Hire an expensive stunt double C) Use CGI, create the scene digitally

For most scenes today, you choose C. A stunt double still exists, but not for the life-threatening moments.

That's exactly what AI video is: a digital stunt double. It can take on certain things — especially those that are hard, expensive, or impossible. But it's not the real star. It doesn't replace real footage. It helps it.

Three Strengths of AI Video

Here are three things AI videos really do well:

1. Movement Quality and Fluidity

When you tell your video generator: "A smooth camera pan over a mountain landscape" — you get exactly that. The movement is smooth, elegant, and looks like a drone shot. That's expensive and complicated in the real world, but easy for AI.

Why? Because AI has seen millions of real film shots. It knows what natural movement looks like. It can create this movement seamlessly without needing an expensive drone.

2. Style Consistency Across the Entire Scene

In classical animation, every frame had to be drawn by hand. That's tedious and time-consuming. AI generates all frames simultaneously while maintaining a consistent style — colors, lighting, texture — throughout the scene.

This is especially important for the human eye. If colors or surface shine jump around, everything looks unnatural. AI usually gets this right.

3. Generative Speed

A 5-second video that took 2-3 weeks with traditional animation methods takes 2-3 minutes with AI. That's not an exaggeration — that's the scale of the difference. This speed means: you can experiment. You can make five different versions and pick the best.

Three Weaknesses of AI Video

Every strength has its shadow side. Here are three things AI videos often struggle with:

1. Physical Errors and Impossibilities

This is the biggest weakness. AI can sometimes do things that are physically impossible. A human with four arms. A car driving through a wall without breaking it. Water flowing upward. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it jumps out at you.

Why? Because AI "sees" with statistics. It knows that humans usually have two arms, but it has no real physics engine to verify that. It just guesses.

2. Temporal Coherence and Continuity

This is subtler. Things sometimes change their size, position, or shape from frame to frame without good reason. A person who looks large in the first second but small in the second. A car that jumps instead of driving.

This happens because each frame is generated somewhat independently. There is a system that connects the frames, but it's not perfect. True video consistency over 10 seconds is hard.

3. Lip Sync and Subtle Movements

If you want to create a video with a speaking person — a person whose mouth moves and forms words — that's still very difficult for AI. The lip movement doesn't match perfectly with the words. This is one of the most common problems.

Subtle movements in general are hard: an eye blinks, fingers move individually, a facial expression changes slightly. AI can't do this with full confidence yet.

Reality Check: Three Questions for Your Video

Answer these questions about the video you just created:

1. "Does it obey physics laws?" Is there anything impossible? Or is everything plausible?
2. "Is continuity stable?" Do sizes, positions, colors stay consistent? Or do they jump around?
3. "Are the details natural?" How do small movements look — blinking, hair movement, skin shine?

Your answers are not right or wrong. They are observations. And these observations are the key to understanding how to work with AI video.

Cross-Link: The Spectrum of AI Media

Think back to K01 (Text), K02 (Music), K03 (Images). Each medium has its strengths and weaknesses with AI:

• K01-Text: AI is very strong. Text is discrete and structured. AI texts are often convincing.
• K02-Music: AI is passable. Music has strict rules (harmony, beat), but often lacks emotional depth.
• K03-Images: AI is very strong. Images are static, no continuity problems.
• K04-Video: AI is mixed. Video needs movement and consistency over time — exactly what AI struggles with.

The more continuity and logic a medium needs, the stronger AI's weaknesses become.

A Thought to Take Away

AI video is like a window into a parallel universe. On the other side, much is similar to our world — but with strange rules. Sometimes this other world is beautiful. Sometimes it's disturbing. But it's always interesting.

The point is not to deny that this world is imperfect. The point is to accept the imperfect world and work creatively with it.