Pity the Poor Impressionist
April 7, 2020 7:20 PM Subscribe
Impressionist, comedian, and actor Jim Meskimen is creating videos of himself with the help of deepfake reciting his own poems in the styles of various celebrities. The technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated as worries about them and the neural networks used to create them keep growing.
Old previously without deepfake.
Old previously without deepfake.
It’s not the false positives so much as the false negatives that concern me. If Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh/Alex Jones broadcast tomorrow that no, that video of 45 saying that CV-19 would probably disappear in April was just deep state computer trickery, a hundred million people would agree.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:00 PM on April 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:00 PM on April 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
Yeah, this is Very Bad Technology.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:22 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:22 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm rather hoping that things involving deepfakes will be eschewed even while I'm hoping that technology to detect them will be deployed so they are appropriately (and automatically) tagged.
If we don't have this, we basically have a covidvirus for our culture.
posted by hippybear at 9:55 PM on April 7, 2020
If we don't have this, we basically have a covidvirus for our culture.
posted by hippybear at 9:55 PM on April 7, 2020
If Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh/Alex Jones broadcast tomorrow that no, that video of 45 saying that CV-19 would probably disappear in April was just deep state computer trickery, a hundred million people would agree.
More precisely, they'll say they agree, whether or not it's a question they've actually examined, because examining the question matters precisely not at all to these people, only playing whatever card they can to affirm the status of their team/argument.
The potential good news is that I think this only matters at the margins, because the people who will do this already play the media bias outlet card or whataboutism or any number of other deflections when confronted with things critical of their team/arguments.
posted by wildblueyonder at 10:30 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
More precisely, they'll say they agree, whether or not it's a question they've actually examined, because examining the question matters precisely not at all to these people, only playing whatever card they can to affirm the status of their team/argument.
The potential good news is that I think this only matters at the margins, because the people who will do this already play the media bias outlet card or whataboutism or any number of other deflections when confronted with things critical of their team/arguments.
posted by wildblueyonder at 10:30 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
they'll say they agree, whether or not it's a question they've actually examined, because examining the question matters precisely not at all to these people, only playing whatever card they can to affirm the status of their team/argument.
Yeah, placing the tribalism of politics above all other concerns annoys me. I live in the most populous province in Canada which, historically, has for most of a century usually had a political party in power which is at odds with the party running the show federally. (Right now the Liberal party is in office federally and the Conservatives at the provincial level.) Because I feel both of these parties are open to criticism, I am outed regularly on social media as being a fascist conservative bootlicker and a tree-hugging airhead communist. Often on the same day. Sometimes by the same people.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:41 PM on April 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
Yeah, placing the tribalism of politics above all other concerns annoys me. I live in the most populous province in Canada which, historically, has for most of a century usually had a political party in power which is at odds with the party running the show federally. (Right now the Liberal party is in office federally and the Conservatives at the provincial level.) Because I feel both of these parties are open to criticism, I am outed regularly on social media as being a fascist conservative bootlicker and a tree-hugging airhead communist. Often on the same day. Sometimes by the same people.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:41 PM on April 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
I didn't know that I was watching Bill Hader's Al Pacino impression with deep fake, and I was completely tripped out at first how he changed his face so well.
Then I watched the one with him doing schwarzenegger and felt oh so boomer.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 6:33 AM on April 8, 2020
Then I watched the one with him doing schwarzenegger and felt oh so boomer.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 6:33 AM on April 8, 2020
I'm rather hoping that things involving deepfakes will be eschewed
That's a nice hope. I would not expect that to happen unless no one can work out how to weaponize them without undesirable risk of backfire, as has been the case with biological weapons. However, the literal physical infrastructure for the transmission and creation of deep fakes is much better understood and controlled than that for biological processes, which would seem to lead to a very different risk calculus. Given that, I expect deepfakes to be at least as common as photo alteration if not moreso.
I have been attempting to change the way I talk and reason about politics in such a way as to not rely on or give special credence to video evidence. It's pretty hard. Mostly I have come to lean on provenance pretty heavily, which has its own problems.
posted by PMdixon at 6:49 AM on April 8, 2020
That's a nice hope. I would not expect that to happen unless no one can work out how to weaponize them without undesirable risk of backfire, as has been the case with biological weapons. However, the literal physical infrastructure for the transmission and creation of deep fakes is much better understood and controlled than that for biological processes, which would seem to lead to a very different risk calculus. Given that, I expect deepfakes to be at least as common as photo alteration if not moreso.
I have been attempting to change the way I talk and reason about politics in such a way as to not rely on or give special credence to video evidence. It's pretty hard. Mostly I have come to lean on provenance pretty heavily, which has its own problems.
posted by PMdixon at 6:49 AM on April 8, 2020
I took part in a EU think tank scenario writing exercise - a bunch of "what if..." thinking about future events so policy writers could anticipate what might happen. A fairly rigorous thing if done properly, and it was disturbing to see how easy "Deep Fakes" could influence these predictions. These things will hit us hard. And indeed no need to wait for the 2024 election year.
posted by DreamerFi at 6:59 AM on April 8, 2020
posted by DreamerFi at 6:59 AM on April 8, 2020
I know I've seen the sci-fi story where the celebrity is piloted by actors.
I'm watching Star Wars the Clone Wars right now. They hire voice actors who try very hard to get the voices right, and model the face to be similar. Elsewhere in the star wars universe, we have Carrie Fisher's character still performing in scenes after she passed on. And, we had Grand Moff Tarken played by a CPU years and years after his passing.
This technology is coming along at a good pace - certainly it's much more believable than the best CG from 15 years ago. I imagine there could soon be a live action star wars film series with numerous "deep" characters. I don't think it's a question of technology - I think it's a question of which Star Wars cast member is willing to be the first?
And that's for "fakes" - but film is nothing but fakes, really. I expect they do a lot of "fix it in post" CG already - but imagine a scene that required both complex choreography requiring a stunt double, and close-up shots of the actor in dialogue.
posted by rebent at 2:28 PM on April 8, 2020
I'm watching Star Wars the Clone Wars right now. They hire voice actors who try very hard to get the voices right, and model the face to be similar. Elsewhere in the star wars universe, we have Carrie Fisher's character still performing in scenes after she passed on. And, we had Grand Moff Tarken played by a CPU years and years after his passing.
This technology is coming along at a good pace - certainly it's much more believable than the best CG from 15 years ago. I imagine there could soon be a live action star wars film series with numerous "deep" characters. I don't think it's a question of technology - I think it's a question of which Star Wars cast member is willing to be the first?
And that's for "fakes" - but film is nothing but fakes, really. I expect they do a lot of "fix it in post" CG already - but imagine a scene that required both complex choreography requiring a stunt double, and close-up shots of the actor in dialogue.
posted by rebent at 2:28 PM on April 8, 2020
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I'm now thinking I might have been 4 years off.
posted by tclark at 7:36 PM on April 7, 2020 [1 favorite]