At first I thought the sub-headings were summaries of sketches from the show (which I thought was an odd thing to do) so imagine my surprise that the article ends with announcing a new release of PyTorch. The article consists of 5 different small articles. Does anybody know where the new show by Trey Parker and Matt Stone called Sassy Justice is airing? Is it a free Youtube series?
South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
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Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
#32I _think_ that the Michael Cain section is Peter Serafinowicz doing a Michael Cain impression (which has then been deepfaked), but it could be Lyre Bird or similar! The fact that I really can't make my mind up which it could be and the weird sense of doubt, to me, means that this has hit the mark perfectly. I've been thinking about this video a lot since I first saw it. It's genuinely very unsettling.
NYT did an article about it [0], which has some details on the casting. Peter Serafinowicz is indeed doing his Michael Caine impersonation, and also does Trump. Other characters are done by Trey Parker and various family members.
0: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/arts/television/sassy-jus...
Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
#33This feels like the start of something very bad - they are going to be upfront about the deepfakes... others are not. It’s going to get to the point where you can’t even say in a court room “well we have video of him doing this”. The fact that deepfakes will exist will erode confidence in even those things that are true. At the same time it will add additional fake situations to the conversation. Worst part is that e…
The synthetic media apocalypse is even worse then these examples. The ability for liberal democracy to exist at all is highly in doubt. We need serious leadership to be attacking this problem head-on. Instead, I'm pretty sure that our current administration (in the US but also elsewhere) only see it as a welcome propaganda tool.
Wouldn't surprise me if society gets completely blindsided. As corona has shown, the people who know lack power, and the people with power don't give a shit.
Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
#34This feels like the start of something very bad - they are going to be upfront about the deepfakes... others are not. It’s going to get to the point where you can’t even say in a court room “well we have video of him doing this”. The fact that deepfakes will exist will erode confidence in even those things that are true. At the same time it will add additional fake situations to the conversation. Worst part is that e…
I think it'll be similar to the situation with pictures. We've had the ability to 'photoshop' people's faces in and out of images for a long time now. I think the first question asked of a video is going to be "is this a deep fake?" just like we currently ask "is this picture photoshopped?". It doesn't mean that we no longer use pictures, or that we don't alter pictures, just that we are more critical of them. That s…
The issue is cost. Proving that an image is or isn't photoshopped isn't all that difficult/expensive. Anyone well versed in digital imagery can use basic tools to expose 99.99% of photoshopped images. But moving pictures are different. Due to compression artifacts and the overall lower quality of each frame there is much more room for opinion. An answer one way or another may be possible but it will be a much greater and more expensive battle of experts.
Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
#35Impressive. A show that puts those figures in their real-world roles and surroundings, but satirizing everything they do will raise hell indeed. Something like House of Cards, but with satire and known figures.
Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
#36This feels like the start of something very bad - they are going to be upfront about the deepfakes... others are not. It’s going to get to the point where you can’t even say in a court room “well we have video of him doing this”. The fact that deepfakes will exist will erode confidence in even those things that are true. At the same time it will add additional fake situations to the conversation. Worst part is that e…
It's never perfected, just look to the animal kingdom for examples. Mimicry and camouflage is a never ending evolution.
Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hold a similar view. In my opinion Deepfakes will help accelerate the end of the democracy experiment, and you know what? good riddance. Only people that know you on, at least, a last name basis, should have political power over you.
If you think the end of democracy will mean the end of people having power over you who don't know your name, I have some really bad news.
At least under this scheme I'll have an easier time telling my friends from my enemies.
Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hold a similar view. In my opinion Deepfakes will help accelerate the end of the democracy experiment, and you know what? good riddance. Only people that know you on, at least, a last name basis, should have political power over you.
That view makes sense if the only alternatives are democracy, extreme localism, and benign anarchy. A brief historical survey should suffice to demonstrate that there are, in fact, other less pleasant alternatives.
True, but maybe deepfakes can help challenge or prevent the "alternatives"? They are fairly cheap to make. They seem like they could be a great tool for challenging authoritarianism.
Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
#39This feels like the start of something very bad - they are going to be upfront about the deepfakes... others are not. It’s going to get to the point where you can’t even say in a court room “well we have video of him doing this”. The fact that deepfakes will exist will erode confidence in even those things that are true. At the same time it will add additional fake situations to the conversation. Worst part is that e…
Well, others would be doing it anyway. Deepfakes are something you can do at home, today (if you're willing to spend some time and money on power to train them).
By being so open about it Stone and Parker will just increase awareness of how easy it is to do, so people will know how realistic these things can look and not blindly believe what they see.
So, again, what these guys are doing is a true public service.
Re: South Park creators have new political satire series with AI-generated deepfakes
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think the end of democracy will mean the end of people having power over you who don't know your name, I have some really bad news.
The governments will get it right this time. They just need absolutely authority to ensure it goes smoothly for everyone.
The problem has always been accountability. If we can devise a system that includes accountability in the authority we could be on to something.
Democracy has accountability by virtue of everyone having a vote. It’s a small power that everyone can use to hold their leaders to account. But it still allows people to hold arbitrary power over each other. If you can convince enough people, you can apply your morals and beliefs on others. For instance, lots of discrimination is a function of democracy and codifying oppression of certain people.
We sit here furiously debating who can use a bathroom, who gets preferential treatment, who you have to interact with and a million other things. “Both sides” are bent on forcing people to behave a certain way and they use the power of the vote everyone has to accumulate power and make things “how they ought to be”.
I think this could be done democratically but everyone has different interests. How do we find a common, singular interest and then optimize around that?
Or maybe democracy is the “best bad system” and we just have to make do. I do believe with the hyper connected world we have today, cryptography, and resource abundance that we could transcend the modern system and discover liberation from each other to be ourselves and pursue truly enriching lives at a mass scale within local communities. And this means a different thing to different people. But just about everything in our modern system would need to be disposed of and recast.