Associated Incidents
The problem with reality is that discerning what truly is can take an enormous amount of work. Take science, for instance. There is actually pretty consistent data on what types of food most should be eating — particularly if you do deep dives into the research to investigate the methodology of this or that study. But most people (and, seemingly, members of the press) don’t have time to investigate each of these. That makes it very easy for someone to come in with a bogus source and claim something that is, that just ain’t so.
Jordan Peele is now among those sounding alarm bells about a potential “fake news apocalypse.” With technology and particularly machine learning tools making it easier to replicate people’s faces and re-jigger them to do whatever (see also: fake porn). Peele, Academy Award-winning director of Get Out, has put out a PSA warning about how easy it will be in short order for people to create their own videos of famous world leaders saying just about anything. And when that era comes, what can we do?
In the video above, Peele has Obama saying things like “Killmonger was Right” and “Donald Trump is a Dipshit.” This is all based on some new innovations in tech allowing computers to take videos of people, and augment their expression with AI. Combine that with a talented voice actor or the type of vocal reproduction tech we saw last year, and you can start getting disturbing close to something that could start tricking people.
The seems are still pretty obvious for now, but how many of your relatives have you seen sharing and believing low-res meme images on facebook? Muck the video up a little, and it’d fool someone today, probably. In a few years, this tech could be truly terrifying.
In the video, which was made in partnership with BuzzFeed and, Peele pleads for more rigorous consumption of media. And he quite cleverly plays with BuzzFeed’s rather odious reputation thanks to clickbait-y title, “You Won’t Believe What Obama Says in This Video! 😉”
We sure are living in a time.
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