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WATCH: The Weeknd’s new concert teaser was made with AI video, image generators

Directed by Yza Voku, made with Midjourney, Runway’s Gen-3, Luma’s Dream Machine and Google's invitation-only Veo AI video generator.

Case in point: earlier this week, pop star The Weeknd, real name Abel Tesfaye, unveiled a new teaser trailer for a YouTube livestream of his upcoming concert in São Paulo, Brazil on Sept. 7, made using a list of cutting-edge generative AI tools. The visuals contained in the video feature the Weeknd’s typical yet richly phantasmagoric, neon gothic, dark disco style, with monstrous faces, masks, fire, lightning, shadowy figures with burning heads, a car sinking underwater and a figure wading into it, a neon gross grave, robed occultists and hands reaching up from hell, sparse trees, screaming visages, temples and his own head appearing briefly. So clearly, even though a vocal group of artists is unhappy with gen AI and taking it to court for allegedly violating copyright by training on their prior works without permission or compensation, other, massively popular acts see use in the tech and are releasing new projects made with it — despite or perhaps even because of its controversial reputation.

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