On Actors and Deepfakes (Part 2)
The second in a series on how media companies can leverage Neural Network tech, to make more money selling content.
Please first read Part 1 — On Actors and Deepfakes
Software, powered by the latest in AI and Machine Learning (AI/ML) — like Deep Learning neural networks — will soon make deepfakes of any length and perfect quality, on common computer hardware available to almost anyone — which continues to grow in power and shrink in cost.
You might ask, what’s considered a “perfect” deepfake? We can define it as: in-detectable to all humans, and most algorithms.
Digital tools exist today to synthesize images, sound, and video like the Adobe suite. Artists can create “synthetic images” (aka fake, photoshopped, doctored, touched-up) that are near-perfect quality (mostly imperceptible to human viewers). Many talented technologists use professional CGI software and game engines like UE5 to make video so real you’d think the actor themselves filmed the generated lines.
It’s not as common yet to create making professional-quality deepfake video or CGI e.g. through video apps like TikTok or on iPhones, due to the powerful computers and servers required. With time this requirement will shrink however, thanks to ever-improving computer chips and devices, high-bandwidth Internet, and Cloud services for compute and GPUs. We could see perfect deepfakes generated on a common smartphone, putting it easily within reach of both big studios and indie filmmakers alike.
So how can the creators of tomorrow benefit from this new technology in the film industry? What aspects can help aspiring artists and filmmakers break in to Hollywood, creating amazing new original content for us all to enjoy?
Positive Usage of Deepfakes
Actors can learn about AI “synthetic media” and how to use it for their career roles, especially the “below-the-line” aspiring actor trying to break in. Having recently enjoyed Robert Pattinson in The Batman on the big screen, I was excited to see incredible deepfakes of him portrayed for short clips in The Dark Knight. You can see the deepfake below from this amazing creator (Sham00k): https://www.youtube.com/c/Shamook
One way Hollywood studios and actors can benefit is by scaling up sales of existing and current work, by having publishers and distributors translate (aka localize) for theatrical release in more markets like China, Europe, India, South America, Africa, the Middle East, or anywhere else and in any number of languages.
Shoot a TV commercial in English, but your product is also available in France? Translate to French and advertise in new markets. Film a movie for the circuits and festivals, and want to show in Cannes? Translate to French, Mandarin, Spanish, German, and let the audience and judges enjoy watching in their native language, bettering your chances of rave reviews, award nominations, and ticket sales.
For now I think there are still many benefits for professional actors to not rely on deepfakes and there will always be a place for human acting in the life of cinema. It’s important to hone your craft, gain a following and network of references, feel the scenes and roles yourself, perform better through interaction with fellow human actors, real scenery locations, costumes, props, sounds, which greenscreens simply can’t replicate.
Finally, actors should also employ a more defensive posture, and ensure your management teams are working with Big Tech and the government to flag your unsanctioned deepfakes on the Web and across streaming services, if you can afford it and are popular enough for this to be occurring (and costing you income). Similar to todays bootleg video, pirated movies, “deep porn” deepfakes, and other illegal content, you can ensure your paid content and acting talent is not stolen and monetized on YouTube, TikTok, or anywhere.
It sounds scary, but actively providing trusted technical partners with your library of media content to scan and analyze will likely help them in their task, searching and flagging your stolen likeness with direct efficiency and fast results. Companies like Comcast, YouTube, and Meta (Facebook) are already very good at this, and probably take down millions of media infringements uploaded every day.
Your Face Your Right — Actors Taking Charge of their Likeness Career
There are almost 200 countries on planet Earth today, and inevitably some governments will use deepfake tech or try to ban it (possibly keeping it for personal covert use). Terrorists and autocratic leaders will continue its use and soon likely cause a seriously real international incident, possibly attacking from operations in the field overs-seas with basic 2G connections on dated yet powerful smartphones, and some future illicit app anyone can code with available open source algorithms and ML models.
Unfortunately some day we may see illegal datasets of human faces and video on the dark web for rogue actors to train ML Models with, just like leaked data seen recently in company hacks and dumps. The dark web is also known to hold illegal media data, “child porn” and “revenge porn”, some stolen through social and technical hacks. It is hard to control, and may become important for worldwide governing associations like the UN (UNICRI), NATO, EU, WHO, Interpol, NIST, OECD, or others clamping down on the spread of harmful deepfakes and any illegal data models.
Weekly working in San Francisco and LA we hear people saying they hate “smart robots”, wishing humanity wouldn’t create any. To an extent I agree, in that I recognize the concern around AGI. We certainly have a healthy respect and fear for AI, and are aware of ways it can be used for harmful purposes. It’s critically important companies thinking about AI study the basics like: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone
It’s never smart to ignore technology and hope it goes away. Use it to your advantage, decide when to draw the line and limit usage (with respect to your rights and privileges around your face and voice).
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References
Top image from Entertainment Weekly (EW)
Middle photo from Pexels (Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko)
Bottom photo purchased from iStock
Robert Pattinson deepfake (Sham00k created using DeepFaceLabs) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmuYz0aZGgU
Mark Hamill deepfake (Sham00k created using DeepFaceLabs) for Star Wars episode (spoiler alert) See also: https://www.creativebloq.com/news/star-wars-deepfake
https://www.youtube.com/c/Shamook
AI NGOs
Other active AI NGOs include MIRI, ACM, IEEE, Stanford University HAI, OpenAI, Montreal AI Ethics Inst., DARPA, Future of Life Inst., AJL, CIS, CHAI, CSER, CITP.
Free-ish Courses (MOOCs) AI/ML
[1] AI For Everyone (Andrew Ng) Offered by DeepLearning.AI on Coursera.org (link)
[2] Machine Learning for Business with Python — CS 68 (Charlie Flanagan) Offered by Stanford Continuing Studies (link)
[3] Machine Learning (Andrew Ng) Offered by Stanford on Coursera.org (link)
[4] Prediction Machines — The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence (Agrawal, Gans, Goldfarb) HBR Press 2018 (book)
More books to read about AI Safety
[1] Superintelligence — Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Bostrom) Oxford University Press 2014
[2] The Age of AI — And Our Human Future (Kissinger, Schmidt, Huttenlocher) Little, Brown, and Co 2021
[3] Our Final Invention — Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era (Barrat) Thomas Dune Books 2013
[4] The Singularity is Near — When Humans Transcend Biology (Kurzweil) Penguin Books 2005
[5] AI Superpowers — China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order (KF Lee) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2018
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