MASON CITY — When the Iowa Supreme Court adopted its new artificial intelligence rules on July 21, the standard it landed on was not really about judges. The machine may assist, it may not replace, and a person has to independently verify the output before anyone relies on it.
Those rules take effect Jan. 1, 2027, and they apply to a few hundred people in the judicial branch. The standard behind them is about to matter to a lot of North Iowans who will never file a brief.
Video generation is the reason. The tools that a year ago produced a jittery four seconds now produce something a customer would sit through, and they cost less than a single run of radio spots. A shop in Charles City, a contractor outside Osage, a nonprofit chasing donations before the county fair, all of them can now put out a clip that looks like somebody was hired to shoot it. Nobody was.
The model getting the most attention is Seedance 2.5, which ByteDance unveiled June 23 at its Volcano Engine FORCE conference. One written prompt returns a single continuous 30-second shot at native 4K, with sound generated alongside the picture rather than added afterward. It will also work from a photograph, and it accepts up to 50 reference inputs, images, video or audio, to hold a product or a face consistent through the shot.
For comparison, Seedance 2.0 capped out at four to 15 seconds, 1080p, and 12 references. ByteDance says the newer model follows written instructions about 20 percent more closely. That figure is the company’s own, and it should be read as such.
The pricing is the part local operators actually ask about. Credits start at $12.99 for 160, which is roughly eight five-second clips at 480p, and a pack stays valid for 45 days. New accounts get a small block of credits free. What that does not buy is a full 30 seconds at 4K, which costs considerably more per render. Anyone promising a finished commercial out of the free tier is selling something.
Not every use is an advertisement. A band booked at the Surf can build a music video for a single release without renting a location, which until recently meant the song went out with a still image and a waveform.
Where the court’s standard applies
Generated video fails in specific, unglamorous ways. Hands do odd things. Text on a sign comes back misspelled. A face drifts between the tenth second and the twenty-fifth. None of it is obvious at thumbnail size, and all of it is obvious to a customer who knows what your storefront looks like.
Which is the same instruction the Supreme Court wrote down for its own staff. Check the work before you rely on it. A clip that is 95 percent right is worse than no clip at all when the five percent is your price, your address or your name.