South Park creators announce the world's first DeepFake sattire TV show

By Matthew Griffin Intelligence and the Senses 15th November 2020

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

DeepFakes and synthetic content will continue to redefine how we make content and the tools we use to make it.

Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog.

Wherever you look at the moment it seems increasingly difficult to avoid fake, or digital humans, DeepFakes, virtual influencers, and virtual this or virtual that – that’s probably because we’re witnessing the birth and rise of a new megatrend.

The world's first molecular robots go to work on the production line

Now, jumping on the synthetic content, or fake content, bandwagon the creators of South Park have announced they’ve launched a weekly satire series called Sassy Justice that uses DeepFake tech – check it out below.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker joined forces with Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians Of The Galaxy, Shaun Of The Dead) for the new project.

Its first instalment just landed on YouTube and features deepfakes of Donald and Ivanka Trump, the president’s senior advisor Jared Kushner, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Caine. And whereas back in the 1980’s satirists would have used badly constructed puppets to mimic famous people now new tech lets them be the famous person IRL instead, which is just another example of how quickly technology has evolved in a short space of time.

Humans suck at saving the planet so AI is coming to the rescue

“Fred Sassy is an American Consumer Advocate and reporter for the Cheyenne news at 9, a local TV station in Cheyenne, Wyoming,” an official description reads. “On his weekly show, Sassy Justice, Fred goes to battle for the common man in his hometown.

“This week, he’s uncovering the dangers behind manipulated videos that are increasingly popping up on the internet.”

Deepfakes, like this one of Elon Musk that was used to bomb a Zoom call a while ago, make use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) software to combine and superimpose existing images and videos of a person to make it appear that they’ve said or done something they have not.

“The times they are a-changing,” a voiceover states at the start of the 15-minute episode. “Scammers are finding new ways to take advantage of you, the consumer. Now, with a technology called deep fake, you can get screwed over and lied to in ways never before possible.”

China's Manus releases the world's first autonomous general AI agent

One viewer in the comments section wrote: “So this is what Matt Stone and Trey Parker have been up to this year.”

Another added: “This is how you do satire in 2020.” And this is just the beginning …

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.