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South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes

theregister.com

141–150 of 313 posts

Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes

#141
I watched a few mins of this because Peter Serafinowicz retweeted it but I completely didn't spot that they'd put Trump's face on the main guy (who I think is Peter?}. He looked vaguely familiar. And I figured I was missing something. So that means it's both very convincing and a bit too subtle for me?

Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes

#142

This is SO GREAT! I often feel deep existential dread about deepfakes and the lag between when they are viable (now) and when everyone stops trusting video that doesn't have some kind of rock-solid signed/encrypted/testified provenance (years from now or never?). What better way to educate the public about deepfake technology than with over-the top satire?

I agree 100%. Deepfake hysteria is absurd. I'm the author of https://vo.codes , and my goal has been to make deep fakes as accessible as possible so people become familiar with them. You know what people use vo.codes for? Memes. That's it. A number of journalists have decided the technology is entirely confusing and deceitful. While there are new risks posed by deep fakes, I believe the potential for good far outweig…

As a corollary - how many people already spread inaccurate or misleading video clips, sound bites, etc without this technology, and how many already refuse to believe real ones produced by the 'lying news media?' I think the hysteria is completely misplaced, and the extremely polarized media landscape is itself to blame.

Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes

#143

This is SO GREAT! I often feel deep existential dread about deepfakes and the lag between when they are viable (now) and when everyone stops trusting video that doesn't have some kind of rock-solid signed/encrypted/testified provenance (years from now or never?). What better way to educate the public about deepfake technology than with over-the top satire?

I agree 100%. Deepfake hysteria is absurd. I'm the author of https://vo.codes , and my goal has been to make deep fakes as accessible as possible so people become familiar with them. You know what people use vo.codes for? Memes. That's it. A number of journalists have decided the technology is entirely confusing and deceitful. While there are new risks posed by deep fakes, I believe the potential for good far outweig…

The problem I'm most afraid of isn't people actually using deepfakes for nefarious purposes (although I think you are not nearly concerned enough about that... It would be very easy for Russia or China to alter local elections by making a grainy video of a candidate appearing to smoke crack a la Rob Ford, for example). I'm afraid of people internalizing the idea that you can't trust video at all. I agree with your criticism of the media on this, but from a slightly different angle... They are spreading that exact idea. True or not, it's a dangerous idea.

Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes

#145
post #95

I'm not entirely sure why it reminds me of the old UK show Spitting Image. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086807/

Spitting Image just started up again after 14 years. It's not amazing but worth a look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image_(2020_TV_series...

Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often feel deep existential dread about deepfakes and the lag between when they are viable (now) and when everyone stops trusting video that doesn't have some kind of rock-solid signed/encrypted/testified provenance (years from now or never?). Maybe we'll have to go back to sworn witness statements. Worked for thousands of years.

Sadly we are well aware of how inaccurate and untrustworthy eye-witness accounts can be.

As inaccurate and untrustworthy as deepfakes are making video?

Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often feel deep existential dread about deepfakes and the lag between when they are viable (now) and when everyone stops trusting video that doesn't have some kind of rock-solid signed/encrypted/testified provenance (years from now or never?). Maybe we'll have to go back to sworn witness statements. Worked for thousands of years.

Sadly we are well aware of how inaccurate and untrustworthy eye-witness accounts can be.

Eye witnesses are very accurate when it comes to broad ideas like did you hear a loud noise on this day.

Where they fail, especially compared to evidence and video, is details like what did the noise sound like, what did the person look like, what were they wearing, etc

Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes

#148
post #93

This is SO GREAT! I often feel deep existential dread about deepfakes and the lag between when they are viable (now) and when everyone stops trusting video that doesn't have some kind of rock-solid signed/encrypted/testified provenance (years from now or never?). What better way to educate the public about deepfake technology than with over-the top satire?

>years from now or never? I really don't think this is true. I hear stories about deepfakes on NPR pretty regularly. It would be very strange if a subject that has managed to gain some mainstream media traction was never internalized by a large percentage of the general public.

NPR listeners != large percentage of the general public.

Also, people believe what they see, on an instinctual level. Hell, people believe what they hear, mostly. It will take a lot of education and time to untrain that.

Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly we are well aware of how inaccurate and untrustworthy eye-witness accounts can be.

But at least there is a human being behind each statement. You can question, you can examine their motives, you can challenge. A video is just a video. An anonymous accuser. You can't ask a video any questions.

Slightly OT, but I finally realized this was probably the long-game behind Facebook et al.'s real-identity-only policy.

Sure it has the side (main!) benefit of empowering targeted advertising.

But fundamentally creating traceability between content/comment and a singular identity enables elimination of the most egregious abuses (mass-disinformation/ganging).

I'm as 90s internet-is-for-anonymous as anyone, but I have to admit traceability has merit in the larger social ecosystems.

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