WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the barriers to creating high quality DeepFake content disappear soon we’ll all be able to create our very own DeepFakes. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have made it far easier...
As the barriers to creating high quality DeepFake content disappear soon we’ll all be able to create our very own DeepFakes.
Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More.
Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have made it far easier to create “fake” or “synthetic” audio, video and text content than ever before. And as the technology develops, becomes democratised and escapes from the labs and into the wild, and eventually the apps on your smartphone, and then gets to the point where it’s ubiquitous and free to use, we will witness an explosion in content creation like nothing we’ve ever seen before.
Anyway, one of the trends I’ve been watching with interest is the field of AI based “Text to Video” creation – this is where you simply type whatever you want, and an AI will generate the corresponding video for you, and the reason why I’ve been watching it intently for over two years now is because it democratises content creation for everyone – good and bad. Imagine for example creating an advert or a movie just from some text or a script – hopefully I don’t have to spell out the sheer disruptive power of this amazing, and terrifying, technology for you.
Have a look at the tech for yourself
Now the team behind the first ever Text to Video AI that I wrote about last year have gone one step further and developed an algorithm that simplifies the process of creating a DeepFake, of anyone or anything, to a terrifying degree that lets people make a video subject say anything they want by just editing the video’s transcript – as you can see from the video. And unsurprisingly, even its creators are concerned about what might happen if the tech falls into the wrong hands.
First, the AI analyzes a source video of a person speaking, but it isn’t just looking at their words – it’s identifying each tiny unit of sound, or phoneme, the person utters, as well as what they look like when they speak each one.
There are only approximately 44 phonemes in the English language, and according to the researchers, as long as the source video is at least 40 minutes long, the AI will have enough data to gather all the pieces it needs to make the person appear to say anything. And yes, over time, the amount of training data it needs will drop from 40 minutes to sub a minute so watch out for that article in I’ll say about six or so months.
After that, all a person has to do is edit the transcript of the video, and the AI will generate a DeepFake that matches the rewritten transcript by intelligently stitching together the necessary sounds and mouth movements.
Based on the video showing the new algorithm in action, it appears best suited for minor changes, which is understandable given its stage of development. In one example, the researchers demonstrate how the AI can replace “napalm” in the famous “Apocalypse Now” quote, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” with the far more innocuous “French toast.”
But even they worry that some might find far more destructive uses for the new algorithm. And let’s face it – we all can so imagine this in “less noble” hands…
“We acknowledge that bad actors might use such technologies to falsify personal statements and slander prominent individuals,” they write in their paper, later adding that they “believe that a robust public conversation is necessary to create a set of appropriate regulations and laws that would balance the risks of misuse of these tools against the importance of creative, consensual use cases.”
And I for one would argue that debate needs to happen now, not three years after the technology first appeared as happened previously, and that that debate needs to discuss how to control where the technology is going before it gets there, not where it is today. Because by the time you find a way to control today’s technology we’ll already be multiple generations further on in its development and all those conversations will have been wasted. After all, let’s face it – technology waits for no man, it only accelerates and gets better, cheaper, and faster. Etc.
In the meantime though I want one… it’s still an awesome piece of tech!
Matthew Griffin, described as “The Adviser behind the Advisers” and a “Young Kurzweil,” is the founder and CEO of the World Futures Forum and the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures consultancy working between the dates of 2020 to 2070, and is an award winning futurist, and author of “Codex of the Future” series.
Regularly featured in the global media, including AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, RT, Viacom, and WIRED, Matthew’s ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of revolutionary emerging technologies on global culture, industry and society, is unparalleled. Recognised for the past six years as one of the world’s foremost futurists, innovation and strategy experts Matthew is an international speaker who helps governments, investors, multi-nationals and regulators around the world envision, build and lead an inclusive, sustainable future.
A rare talent Matthew’s recent work includes mentoring Lunar XPrize teams, re-envisioning global education and training with the G20, and helping the world’s largest organisations envision and ideate the future of their products and services, industries, and countries.
Matthew's clients include three Prime Ministers and several governments, including the G7, Accenture, Aon, Bain & Co, BCG, Credit Suisse, Dell EMC, Dentons, Deloitte, E&Y, GEMS, Huawei, JPMorgan Chase, KPMG, Lego, McKinsey, PWC, Qualcomm, SAP, Samsung, Sopra Steria, T-Mobile, and many more.
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