On February 9, technology company ByteDance released Seedance 2.0, the latest version of its AI video generator.
It was quickly hailed across the Chinese internet as:
“The world’s most powerful model, surpassing OpenAI’s Sora 2.”
超越 Sora2 的地表最强模型。
But just two days later, the Seedance portal for uploading photos was locked and beta access on the mobile app was revoked.
ByteDance gave no announcement or explanation about the restrictions.
But a clue could be a review of Seedance posted by Mediastorm (影视飓风) which went viral on the same day.
Mediastorm is one of China’s most popular video production and tech review channels on Bilibili, with tens of millions of followers.
The review was by their CEO, Tim Pan (潘天鸿). In the video, he uploaded a single static photo of himself into Seedance with a simple prompt. He didn’t provide his name, or any audio recording of this voice.
Within seconds, an AI version of Tim appeared on screen and began to speak. The digital version was identical in every way. The same voice, same speaking style, and same facial expressions.
But Tim’s shock didn’t stop there:
“What makes it even more deeply unsettling is the perspective.
The photo provided only showed the front of Mediastorm’s office building. Yet the AI-generated content automatically panned to the back of the building, rendering the car park in perfect detail — exactly as it appears in reality.
This means the AI isn’t just processing the image provided. It has a fundamental understanding of the entire physical space.”
更细思极恐的是视角。上传的照片只是公司大楼的正面，但 AI 自动生成的运镜，居然准确地绕到了大楼的背面，画出了停车场的细节，与现实丝毫不差。这意味着 AI 不是在处理图像，它是在理解物理空间。
Tim concluded that ByteDance must have extensively trained Seedance 2.0 on Mediastorm’s copyrighted video content to produce such detailed and accurate results.
Whether or not this review was the direct trigger for the restrictions on Seedance remains unclear. But it certainly achieved what one commentator described as a “public execution” (公开处刑) of the platform.
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It also proved something even more chilling:
“With current technology, the cost of creating fakes has become infinitely close to zero.”
现在的技术，造假成本已经无限趋近于零。
Within hours of the Seedance 2.0 release, Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok, also owned by ByteDance) was flooded with AI remakes of well-known movies. Among the most shared were Stephen Chow (周星驰) classics, such as A Chinese Odyssey (大话西游), Kung Fu Hustle (功夫), and King of Comedy (喜剧之王). Life-like AI-generated clips of Chow’s characters, with fluid movements and even his signature comic timing, were put together and shared using nothing but simple prompts.
This quickly sparked anxieties about copyright and the ease of creating deepfakes. With the arrival of Seedance of 2.0, the tools to create them are now available to anyone with a smartphone and a single photo, at virtually no cost.
ByteDance is already facing lawsuits from Disney and others over the legality of training its models on their content without permission, and the infringement of the generated content on their IP.
The impact on China’s job market was another theme in the online discussion.
In the short term, Seedance 2.0 could lead to significant job losses across the film industry, because it has something which no earlier model has been able to achieve: “director’s thinking” (导演思维).
One commentator captured the unease:
“We’ve created a knife that’s too sharp. So sharp we don’t dare hand it to ordinary people.”
我们造出了一把太锋利的刀，锋利到我们不敢把它递给普通人。
In the longer term, the threat of mass job losses isn’t just limited to the film industry.
For middle-income professionals across many sectors, whose experience and expertise is built up over many years, could soon be rendered obsolete by a simple AI prompt:
“Since AI can now mimic or even outperform the skillsets of mid-level professionals at very low cost, the value of this ‘experience’ is rapidly shrinking.”
由于AI能够以极低成本模拟甚至超越中等收入者的逻辑应用能力，这使得”经验”这一无形资产迅速贬值。
So ByteDance now faces a dilemma: Should it stop innovating with Seedance and risk ceding ground to competitors, as we saw with Alibaba’s recent AI push? Or should it carry on and face lawsuits on multiple fronts.
It’s a big moment for AI in China.
And that’s the story we’re exploring this week!
Favourite Five
1. 侵权 qīn quán
infringe on rights, infringement
一段包含动作、表情、声音的视频，其侵权性质要明确得多 - A video containing movements, facial expressions, and sound makes it much easier to determine if there is copyright infringement. [3]
2. 倒计时 dào jì shí
countdown
距离传统影视被AI海啸冲走已经彻底进入倒计时了 - The countdown has officially begun for traditional filmmaking to be washed away by the AI tsunami. [2]
3. 细思极恐 xì sī jí kǒng
deeply unsettling
更细思极恐的是视角 - What makes it even more deeply unsettling is the perspective. [1]
Related:
瑟瑟发抖 sè sè fā dǒu - trembling with fear
4. 风声鹤唳 fēng shēng hè lì
be frightened by the slightest sound, be overly alarmed
影视从业者对此风声鹤唳 - Filmmakers are on edge about this. [2]
5. 背脊发凉 bèi jǐ fā liáng
a chill runs down one’s spine
对于所有关注 AI 伦理的人来说，这个实验让人背脊发凉 - For everyone who cares about AI ethics, this experiment sends a chill down the spine. [1]
Consuming the Conversation
Useful words
6. 趋近 qū jìn
draw close to, approach
现在的技术，造假成本已经无限趋近于零 - With current technology, the cost of creating fakes has become infinitely close to zero. [1]
7. 伪造 wěi zào
forge, fabricate
未来一切缺乏官方权威渠道背书的视频，都可能是伪造的 - In the future, any video not officially endorsed may be fake. [1]
Related:
造假 zào jiǎ – falsify, fake
8. 媲美 pì měi
be comparable to, rival
效果足以媲美前端工程师、后端工程师等多人协作的成果 - The AI-generated products can rival what a team of engineers can achieve. [2]
9. 饭碗 fàn wǎn
rice bowl, livelihood
各国政府即使明知道AI会对部分人的饭碗产生影响，也无法停下发展的脚步 - Even though governments know that some will lose their jobs because of AI, they cannot put a stop to its development. [2]
10. 震怒 zhèn nù
be furious, enraged
流量狂欢的背后，是版权方的震怒 - Behind the hype lies the fury of the owners of the original content. [3]
11. 雷区 léi qū
minefield, danger zone
这种“技术民主化”看似降低了创作门槛，实则是在版权的雷区上跳舞 - This “democratization of technology” appears to lower the barrier to entry for creators, but in reality it is dancing through the copyright minefield. [3]
12. 博弈 bó yì
game, strategic contest
AI时代的版权博弈，可能不会像今日头条时代那样容易收场 - The copyright battle in the AI era may not end as easily as it did in the era of Toutiao. [3]
