AI turns famous disaster girl meme into a video and it takes an unexpected turn

AI is back again turning all of our favourite memes into artificially generated videos - and they're seriously creepy.

Artificial intelligence may be destined to overtake mankind one day but it seems it's not yet figured out a way around the software version of human error.

To celebrate AI site Luma Dream Machine being just eight days old, one social media user shared the software's take on various famous memes across the decade - but not all of them were a hit.

While there are a couple of passable examples, most of the AI videos had a seriously creepy vibe to them.

Almost as if they were created by a robot.

One of the latest memes to get the AI treatment is the 'Disaster Girl' meme.

Originally a photo taken by Dave Roth in 2005, the photo shows his daughter Zoe watching a house burning down for the local firefighters to reportedly undergo training.

After seeing his daughter turn back and smiled towards the camera, Dave took her photo. He would later enter and win a photo contest in 2007 with the image.

However most of us will be very familiar with this photo thanks to it being used countless times over the years as a meme template for various things.

The meme tended to follow a simple format, with her face having also been superimposed onto various disasters such as the extinction of the dinosaurs, nuclear explosions or the sinking of the Titanic.

Disaster Girl went on to be so popular that Zoe was even able to reap financial benefit from the viral craze - seeing the image turned into an NFT in 2021.

In AI's version the image takes on a life of its own, with two firefighters walking towards the camera while Zoe is now sporting a ponytail and high-vis vest.

Take a look below:

2. Disaster girl with firefighterspic.twitter.com/zHX7MKsJq1

— Madni Aghadi (@hey_madni) June 15, 2024

Of course social media users weren't happy to see the animated version of the meme and were quick to share their disappointment online, calling it one of the 'great AI fails of our time'.

Complaints focused on the video shifting the focus away from Zoe's reaction and onto a pair of random firefighters, saying it was 'editorially wrong'.

"Those firefighters are background scene setting and now they are the focus of the scene," the user added.

"Gee, I wonder what "publicly available data" was used to achieve this TV drama shot of two actors walking up to the panning camera and checking their marks before starting a dialogue scene," another added, noting that the AI firefighters looked like they'd walked straight of the set of Station 19.

Looks like AI can't replicate everything humans can do... yet.