Deepfake shown in “Travessia” gets a real version – 04/18/2023 – Tech

Chris Anderson, TED organizer, appeared “doubled” in the first session of the talk event, on Monday night (17), thanks to the technological tricks of “deepfake” and artificial intelligence (AI), which he soon classified as ” alarming and incredible at the same time”.

As Anderson was live interviewing Tom Graham, CEO and co-founder of Metaphysic, his face appeared on the theater’s big screen in the face of Graham himself. Even his voice was mimicked live to perfection as Graham spoke to the audience.

The “deepfake” technique, when super realistic videos are edited with other people’s faces, has been drawing more attention due to the possibility of being used live, and not just pre-recorded.

The new feature has already arrived in fiction plots, as in the soap opera “Travessia”, by Globo. This month, the character Karina (Danielle Olímpia) is intimidated by a pedophile during a video call, when he impersonates a woman, pretending to be influencer Bruna (Giullia Buscacio).

The 2019 BBC series “The Capture” also used live “deepfake”, then a technique considered practically science fiction. In the story, anti-war activists manage to hack the city’s security camera circuit to frame a former British soldier (he appears in the video kidnapping a woman).

At TED, the feature was shown live to show how technology has already left the world of fiction.

“Oh, I’m so uncomfortable with this, so uncomfortable,” Anderson told the audience as he saw himself duplicated and heard himself as Graham spoke. “I am deeply sorry to subject all of you [da plateia] to that,” he continued, laughing.

Anderson clarified that Metaphysic took pictures of him a few weeks ago, making different facial expressions to create a video model. The result can be used on any face, and a woman in the audience was another guinea pig for the night, getting Anderson’s male face when she saw herself on the big screen.

Graham explained that the technology is the most advanced in terms of AI. “We’re moving from offline processing to where processing is so fast that you can do it in real time,” Graham said.

He helped found Metaphysic in 2021 in London, and the firm uses AI tools to create hyperrealistic avatars and content. They are responsible for the TikTok parody account @DeepTomCruise, which posts deepfake videos “featuring” actor Tom Cruise.

“I am worried”

For TED, which runs until Friday in Vancouver (Canada), Metaphysic made a video as if Cruise were outside the theater, waiting for the presentation to end. The firm also “resurrected” Elvis Presley for a performance on “America’s Got Talent” and will help in Miramax’s “Here” to rejuvenate actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright.

“Personally, we build these things and I’m worried. Worried is the right instinct for everyone,” Graham said when interviewed by Anderson at TED. “It’s going to be kind of hard to figure out what’s computer generated and what’s real. There are things we can do, like raising public awareness about manipulated media.”

“It’s a very attractive technology. Everyone is trying to create this type of content today. No matter what you do, it will happen and is happening very, very quickly”, defined Graham.

Lawyer turned internet researcher and entrepreneur, Graham is concerned with the legal elements and investigates new ways to copyright our own lifelike avatars, the way they are created and used.

“We need to retain ownership of our own data that is used to train the algorithms,” said Graham, who claimed to be the first person to copyright his AI likeness to the US Copyright Office.

During the performance, he also showed a video of a non-Spanish-speaking artist singing in Spanish perfectly, with his own voice, based on the voice of a native Spanish-speaking woman.

“Anyone in the future will be able to speak any language. It will sound perfectly natural. This content is becoming easier and easier to create,” he said.

TED 2003 focused on AI

TED 2023 will be heavily focused on AI. The first performance of the event was precisely an excerpt from an opera made with the help of AI, called “Song of the Ambassadors”, performed live by three artists.

Also in the first session, artist Jeremy Torman showcased his AI-powered animation, transforming audiences at previous events into little monsters and famous speakers into superheroes. Click here to see the animation.

On Tuesday, TED welcomes Greg Brockman, co-founder of OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT), Gary Marcus, AI expert and professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at New York University, and Alexandr Wang, founder of Scale AI, a platform for data to help companies with AI capabilities.