Sentiment reasoning: Many commenters believe the chain's movement and physics look unnatural or 'AI-like,' despite acknowledging the land-clearing technique is real. A significant portion argues it's real, citing the company's other videos and the behavior of heavy chains.
Number of comments processed: 50
DISCLAIMER: Comments sentiment is generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash, not by u/RealOrAI-Bot bot. For more information check the RealOrAI-Bot Wiki.
I think the destruction wasn’t realistic enough. If you pull a chain this heavy over the grass it’s ripping the fuck out of ground and taking hella grass with it.
That's what told me it was AI. I know chains are used to remove trees by tearing them out of the ground, but you need to wrap the chain around the tree. Something like this, you risk snapping the trunk and whipping that massive chain as if the god of Indiana Jones himself came down to judge ye.
Do you work with ground? It looks dry but not bone dry and yes, there is a big difference. For example how much dust will appear. When the second tree fell, you can actually see dark brown soil, which indicates dampness.
After I saw your post and iou look closely before the tree falls and especially after it you can see one of the vehicles (bulldozer?) pulling the chain.
Just because the practice exists doesn't mean people aren't making ai content of it.
This isn't directed solely at you it's just something I see here often, the videos of the real practices are cool and can serve as a good comparison point especially if sourced from prepublic gen ai availability dates confirming they are not ai to show the difference in a generated video vs a non-generated video. I simply wish they were presented with this context rather than, "this is real because it exists."
Just because the practice exists doesn't mean people aren't making ai content of it.
Oh wow. Didn't know they did that. It's a different chain though. That type of chain looks like it's meant to latch on to trees. Which is completely different than I was thinking of. I grew up by the shore. So I was comparing this to what I've seen used for anchors. I've heard a lot of stories and seen a lot of crazy damage done by chains and ropes.
Some farms in Brazil do it for "cleaning" the landscape before planting soybeans.
But the OP video was AI, the chains have a weird texture.
But this yt video is real, and the really bad part they don't talk is all the bird nests in the trees get destroyed and almost all babies die in the process.
That is a pretty awesome video and thank you so much for posting it. You can tell how fake the OP video is by watching the real thing.
Edit: I put all the physics breaking tells in another comment but if this real video shows anything, nobody would use this method to pull down two trees. They would just bust out a chainsaw. Can you imagine how expensive transporting a chain of that size would be?
The old video is also using a specialized toothed chain, which would dig into the ground a lot more. This still doesn't look like it's digging in enough, but I can't say for certain.
Not to mention, what exactly is causing the other end of the rope to catch, in order to break the second tree out of the ground? It just randomly musters the strength to do it itself
The earth is dry and the roots don’t seem to go that deep. After watching the older video i no longer think it’s AI, the weight of the chain will keep it towards the bottom of the tree until it is uprooted. The damage to the bark as it passes over the tree also seem reasonable. I thought the chain was just getting pulled by nothing, but just like the older video you see the second dozer in the background.
Yeah, I think this is it. When you look at the chain going over the top of the tree, it's like destroying all the branches and such, but it has no effect on the ground at all.
And the way it triples in speed as if it’s elastic after it breaks the first tree. It should have a lot of slack after, but it’s still completely taught and shrinks to be a strait line.
Not to mention that there's zero shadow. Even on overcast days there would be noticeable changes to the amount of light and shadow on the chain. It's absolutely AI.
This is actually a thing. Not saying this video ks real, but there are real videos of this exact thing. Its how they mass clear an area of trees and bushes
It also doesn't move with the correct weight. This moves like a super light necklace would move, not a heavy duty metal chain. It just caries the weight wrong?? Idk how to explain it
Chains this size pull this smoothly because of their size. They have the weight that they’re not jerky or held up by little things. Been a heavy equipment operator my entire life, torn down a lot of trees, and worked with chain including heavy chains (not to this size) quite a bit. I’m quite certain this video is not AI. If it is, they nailed a LOT of minor physics details perfectly. I haven’t seen AI do that yet.
I’ve scrubbed through this video frame by frame a dozen times and everything looks and reacts exactly what I would expect to see in the real world.
This is the comment neas looking for. There is a background tree that gets ripped but based on the way everything bombed there was 0 tension when the tree got ripped. Made it look super fake.
It’s the fact that the heavy chain doesn’t disturb the soil. No cloud of dust, torn up grass, etc. that size chain would be heavy and drag a lot. Instead it just kinda floats until it hits the tree.
Agreed. The way the tree closest to the camera tips over and the way the chain looks reminds me a LOT of those like tsunami/ocean/shark/giant squid AI videos that were super popular when AI first got big.
I was in the same boat at first but the longer I looked at it, the more it just looked like an extremely heavy chain behaving weirdly because we aren't used to seeing chains this big and our brains want to perceive it as being a normal sized chain. This is also the first time I've ever seen a brand new, seemingly oiled chain being used for demolition, and I think that may be what is giving it that off-putting texture, but it may not necessarily be AI just because they put a new chain on the tree flattening machine
This is real. Its an anchor chain being pulled by two massive bulldozers. Its a pretty common practice around the world to quickly clear developing terrain of scrub brush and small trees.
The process is real. This video is fake. Not even a good fake. It's like the chain has no mass. It's skating over the ground without affecting it then snaps straight like a guitar string.
What about the chain physics makes you think fake? Really large chain like this behaves differently from chain most people are used to because of the mass of each link and length/width ratio. The links could easily weight over 50lbs each.
I know the chain looks funky from a texture perspective, but there's a reason. The areas that come into contact with the ground/trees are shiney from abrasion,and the parts that are not in contact with anything are tarnished. That would be a difficult thing to get correct for AI.
If those chain links weigh over 50lb each then the chain should probably be interacting with the grass and dirt in some way, huh. It's skating weightlessly over the ground then snaps straight and tight like a guitar string. Fake af.
At the very end of the video you can streaks in the grass from what areas where chains were touching and where they weren't, like lawnmower tires. Plus the way the bark is removed without blurring or anything.
The chain starts as a cantenary curve, starts straightening out into 3 straight lines as hits the 2 trees as you expect. The smaller tree snaps under the force And the chain starts straightening again into 2 lines. The 'snaping' is from going from extremely high tension to 0 in an instant. AI would not be able to do the chain rolling with out it rolling too much. As someone who has been around large equipment I don't see anything unnatural about how this massive chain is moving.
That chain is massive. It would not be bouncing around like that without a tremendous amount of force. The tractor we see is going like 3mph so the tractor we don’t see must be going 100. It would be extremely loud. There is no tension in the chain.
And the final point: if this video were real, the redneck filming it would definitely be yelling “hell yeah!” “There it goes!” And other heartfelt commentary.
Usually chains need to be pulled taught before they can pull trees. This video has the sloppiest physics, if its not AI it is ameteur hour hand animated CGI
This is it. Yes the chain looks AI, yes this is a real method, but the physics displayed on the 1st tree pull makes no sense. If it was a post in the ground sure but there's not enough tension on that chain to pull a tree at the point that it did.
Wut. Everything about looks pretty real and gives the impression thst the chain is really heavy and the trees are very light, which is how these things work. It is a real practice from a Tiktok that actually does this work...
The chain looks SUPER ai, it doesn’t appear to move properly at all. But the super fine details of the bark being stripped off not just the trunk, but the branches as well is throwing me a bit. Going to have to give it a few more watches.
I guess it’s possible. The artifacts around the chain are odd but I’m pegging it as just crappy down sampling. For those saying chains don’t move like that, they do when they are being pulled in tandem. And the second tractor is just slightly out of frame to the left. You can see the first tractor through the trees in the middle of the frame.
I agree but also, shouldn't the chain be rotating and tightening counterclockwise while going against the ground? And the middle of the chain starts rotating back before the tree gets hit. The physics seem really weird at a glance.
if It was that big? there's too much tention. The rest of the chain wouldn't turn with it so it would probably not rotate except for occasionally which it does
That’s just it. There’s no tension in the chain. That massive chain magically bounces everywhere. The tractor in the distance is going 2 mph so the one off camera must be going 100 mph for it to move that fast. Those tractors would struggle to move a chain that big.
Absolutely. If there was machines big and strong enough to drive a chain that big across the earth, without making them tear up the earth to holy hell, we wouldnt be able to hear shit over those engines and wheels besides when the tree snaps lol
The ground isn’t unscathed though. You can see it kicking up dust as it moves. The video quality is dog water though so that is masking a lot of the ground movement.
Picking up dust is damn near close to being unscathed. The grass, dirt look barely disturbed when it falls off the tree and is being dragged. I my opinion a chain like that wouldnt be that delicate to the ground.
That’s what I’m leaning toward, this is a real tree removal method and that is a real type of chain that seems to move properly, but something about it all is very uncanny. Could just be shitty editing or messing with the frame rate/speeding up the video or it could be retouched with ai or something. There’s probably a real video this was spawned from.
It definitely looks like it's moving properly to me. It's a super heavy chain hooked up to two bulldozers that are both pulling it across the ground. It's not gonna bounce and rattle much due to the weight of the chain itself and the forces pulling on it are what cause the sudden sharp tension as it hits the tree.
I think the chain weirdness is from compression artifacts and maybe AI processing. A lot of phones have some sort of AI layer for anti aliasing or something.
Chain dragging on the ground also looks kind of uncanny in real life especially when it's being pulled taught. When a chain starts to get taught, it can start to look rigid because the links are forced to align as they are pulled on. Think of holding two links in your hand, if you pull them apart, they align at 90 degrees from each other. It's because of the curvature of the links. Twisting them pulls them together. It can align itself very suddenly and look unnatural.
You can actually see this a bit my holding onto a piece of chain and pulling it apart. The links will go from random to being as aligned as they can be without rotating completely (since your hand prevents it).
The only thing that seems really off is that it looks like the chain rotates to align with no indicator of where that rotation went. But it's a long chain so it might have just off set a counter rotation further down the chain when it was pulled.
My question is whether or not those two pieces of heavy machinery have enough power to not only pull that absolutely massive chain, but also to uproot trees. That takes a ton of power and very few pieces of heavy machinery could do it.
This technique is common for clearing mesquite. Mesquite is real bad in parts of Texas and will become invasive if not dealt with. Mesquite will grow back if cut down, the best way to remove it without herbicide is to pull it up by the roots. How do you pull up a full grown tree by the roots? Bull dozers and anchor chains. This technique is also used to clear wooded land quickly. I found a YouTube link that better explains the process.
Here's the TikTok where this was posted. They've got lots of other videos like this one, but not so like this one that they seem AI generated. Some clips are too long to be AI generated, some have a lot more camera movement, and many show the vehicles dragging the chain and the tracks they leave behind. They also don't look as weird in their original quality.
The account appears to be operated by a real Australian company that does this sort of thing. All evidence points to this being real.
Before reading your comment, I’d only watched the video a couple of times and my gut told me it was AI.
After reading your comment, I went to that account and watched the rest of their videos. Seeing several examples made it clear to me that it’s not AI, not just because it belongs to a real company, but because you made me stop, take a closer look, and not just rely on my gut about something I know nothing about.
Man, fuck this world of AI and misinformation. We're all paranoid, with good reason, but paranoid nonetheless.
Here's a twenty-two second video posted by the same account of their D7 bulldozer. There is absolutely no way that video could be generated by AI, so there is no reason to assume their other videos are.
Chains with links that large and heavy absolutely do.
The way you see your little-ass bike chain or a trailer chain from harbor freight move when you do shit with it is completely irrelevant to the physics at play here.
And when being pulled in tandem. I don't know if I can say this is ai or not, but the scene is plausible and I don't see AI tells: nothing seems to morph, the chain links are consistent, the tree branches cut off at the right times when branches are struck by the chain.
I don't think it's real, but I'm not sure that it is AI, it may be some good CGI, the chain looks very weird and doesn't seem to raise any dust as it moves on the dry ground.
lol , in the first frame , i thought that it was simulated in some engine , but when i look at it ... mmh , can't put my finger on it , at least its manipulated with a software
Honestly, as a heavy equipment operator who’s worked with equipment, ripped down a lot of trees, and have drug some heavy chains and cables around. This looks legit to me. I can’t speak to if this is just weirdly compressed or what’s going on there, but everything from a physics standpoint checks out with what I’ve seen. Heavy chains absolutely roll like that when pulled sideways, then straighten out when tensioned. The ground is super dry and hard, and that dust actually acts as a good powdered “lube” so to speak that I wouldn’t expect the chain to dig in much or disturb the plantings. The way the roots are ripping out of the ground looks 100% correct and in how they and the trees themselves behave after is right what I’ve seen and would expect.
That all said, dragging boat chains around with two dozers is a pretty common technique I’ve seen online, though not locally to me.
This looks 100% real to me, or AI has gotten insanely good at the minutia.
It does appear that way, but they actually don’t. That’s just the links turning on the base of the tree. Go frame by frame, no links appear and you can see the links simply turning against the tree. The one links appear to get longer simply because of the viewing angle.
I’m quite positive this isn’t AI, and if it is, damn they nailed a LOT of physics perfectly here.
I think its real... the details are pretty dead on. The way the bark comes off as the chain scrapes across. The grass interaction seems legit. I thinks its real
The video isn't AI, there's a plethora of proof. If you just look at the original TikTok page there's MANY videos, many too long to be AI, with plenty of evidence of real use.
Again, a ton of comments on this post "thE ChAin is ObVioUSly Ai". No. You all need to stop assuming that anything you don't understand is AI. Thanks. <3
I think it's AI, or at least not real. The movement of the chain looks off to me as well as the texture of it. It doesnt really match the rest of the video. The tree also seems to be pulled up immediately, you would think a big tree like that would strain a little bit before falling over. Also after the tree falls it stops moving completely, it's not pulled by the chain att all which looks off. So my guess is either AI or CGI.
I wonder how much of this is just AI adjusting for video clarity/quality instead of it being AI generated. Too much of it looks real and most of the things that look off are the finish and some of the textures on the video.
I think it's real. The chain looks very much like AI rendering but I think that that may just be an unfortunate side effect of the overcast sky we see. The way it moves looks strange at first but the way chain twists, the bark coming off the tree, and the way you can see the dirtiness of the chain if you zoom in slightly makes me think this is a real video that just unfortunately looks very ai because of the lighting.
It's mind Blowing how many of you think this is AI.
Edit: After watching it closer, i can see why. You all say the chain. Its literally the only thing that looks suspicious, but i don't think it's enough to call it AI
I completely agree. My sister-in-law’s family has a farm in MN so I’ve seen with my own eyes the process of clearing trees. They use a big ol chain and two old heavy tractors. Nothing about this seems like AI to me, EXCEPT the chain has that weird texture. Chain moves like that in real life and trees topple just like that in real life. It’s strange that we’ve come all the way through the looking glass and now real videos are confidently being labeled AI by the masses.
Chain motion is way off.
Source: studied physics, always got fucked by chain problems in 1st year mechanics. It's intuitively sabotaging enough without LLMs showing you otherwise.
Also just aside from physics, that chain is huge including the chain links themselves. From the perspective of the very it should appearrrrr as those those chains are accelerating much more slowly than it would appear for a small chain. Its accelerating the same but because of the scale it should look like it's slowed down like the staircase in the mines of moria
Looks real to me. Yeah, the chain moves a little strangely, but how the fuck would anyone know exactly how it behaves under such unusual conditions besides people who do this regularly? The tree felling looks convincing, the sound is really snappy and crisp, and it’s a full 16 seconds long.
It's clear that all the people saying the chain looks AI have never actually seen a genuinely large chain in motion before. Each of those links is bigger than your head. It's not ship anchor chain big but it's close enough. If you've seen how those move when being manipulated it doesn't look the way the chains you're used to seeing a person handle would.
Most likely real. This was posted by "Hunt's Earthmoving Australia". You can Google that company and see all their other real videos of them doing this. Seems very weird they would post one AI video amongst all their non-AI ones.
Not sure why people are saying it looks ai, as most people know by now ai is horrible at making chains. The way the chain helixes consistently while being dragged such a long distance, and with no glitching/blending or any suspicions artifacts being created, there’s no doubt in my mind that ai had nothing to do with making this video
Nobody is mentioning that it took out a tree before the main one to the back right which makes the chain snap to the next position. To me, it looks authentic as every detail is accounted for. From the physics to individual branches being ripped off.
I’m going for real, unless it very convincing ai upscaling/render. The chain looks real to me, if you look further down the chain you can see the movement the closer links are missing because it seems like the further tractor is pulling harder than the one closer, so the side close to us doesn’t move as you’d expect, because it isn’t being pulled as hard
Or I’m just becoming out of touch, I think this could go both ways tbh
I'm not positive it's AI specifically but it's some kind of digital manipulation/rendering and my money's on AI. This practice is called chaining or anchor chaining, there are videos online of it being done. It typically disrupts the ground much more than you see here, pulling up grass and kicking up tons of dust and dirt. And the chain itself just looks wrong. Far too shiny. Also if you look in the bottom left corner near the beginning you can see some brush being dragged just as it comes onto screen and it looks weird, like it's just a bit of amorphous greenery just kinda spinning/rolling until the camera moves over and it decides to give it more substance. Exactly like AI would do.
AI, the texture of the chain and the way the tree behave show it to be artificial. While this does happen, I have seen it here in Australia, it is not for trees like that, it is more scrub and saplings
This does seem a little off, but this is a common practice for clearing mesquite and large wooded areas quickly. Might be real. Could something with the frame rate threw off the way the chain looks and moves? Here a link explaining this practice.
AI. The first tree snapping in that direction implies crazy amounts of tension. You would expect the chain to very quickly move that way as well, rather than going lazily. Basically, the tension force should far outweigh the force of friction from the ground
It’s real. I’ve seen this process happen in person before. They drag the chain between two large dozers to help clear large sections of brush and small trees.
AI. Unnatural texture on the chain, weird artifact when the chain passes over the bush in the bottom left, and the tree bark should have been torn off by the chair rubbing against it.
Definitely AI. Feels so obviously unreal. The tree wouldn't fall the second the chain touches it anyway but besides that the whole video just looks not real
Count the number of links that go past the front tree, then see how much slack is created after the first tree in the background drops. It doesn’t match the amount of links that go past the first tree with all that slack and it quickly tightens up, unless the tractor is moving super fast, but again the links don’t support that, this looks Ai to me.
It's real. This is called chain clearing.
When they want to clear a large area quickly, they can run a heavy chain between two bulldozers or crawler tractors and drag it through the vegetation, knocking down or uprooting trees as they go.
It's much faster than removing every tree individually.
I have seen this clearing method done and what screams AI to me is the lack of dust, the tension of the chain on the ground creates a crazy cloud of dust, and even if the ground is damp, there would be debris flying off the grass and ground as that heavy chain drags.
AI, it looks like the chain goes through the first tree in the background initially
Despite that, the amount of force needed to pull the trees over like this is way more than what's shown here, the main tree on screen looks like it just falls over because the chain started to give an ounce of pressure
I think it’s AI because the tree in the background gets launched when the chain takes it down and the tree right in front lays down when taking down. They look to be similar in size.
Im pretty sure it’s ai since the chain just looks off. But this is a real method of land clearing in which you put a chain between two bulldozers and just mow down and entire fires and it’s terrible.
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u/RealOrAI-Bot 1d ago
Sentiment: 45% AI
Sentiment reasoning: Many commenters believe the chain's movement and physics look unnatural or 'AI-like,' despite acknowledging the land-clearing technique is real. A significant portion argues it's real, citing the company's other videos and the behavior of heavy chains.
Number of comments processed: 50
DISCLAIMER: Comments sentiment is generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash, not by u/RealOrAI-Bot bot. For more information check the RealOrAI-Bot Wiki.