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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 21 2020, @02:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the alternate-history dept.

A Nixon Deepfake, a 'Moon Disaster' Speech and an Information Ecosystem at Risk

What can former U.S. president Richard Nixon possibly teach us about artificial intelligence today and the future of misinformation online? Nothing. The real Nixon died 26 years ago.

But an AI-generated likeness of him shines new light on a quickly evolving technology with sizable implications, both creative and destructive, for our current digital information ecosystem. Starting in 2019, media artists Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teamed up with two AI companies, Canny AI and Respeecher, to create a posthumous deepfake. The synthetic video shows Nixon giving a speech he never intended to deliver—half a century after the subject it addresses.

Here's the (real) backstory: In July 1969, as the Apollo 11 astronauts glided through space on their trajectory toward the moon, William Safire, then one of Nixon's speechwriters, wrote "In Event of Moon Disaster" as a contingency. The speech is a beautiful homage to Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the two astronauts who descended to the lunar surface—never to return in this version of history. It ends by saying, "For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."

The full deepfake speech can be viewed at https://moondisaster.org.


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 21 2020, @04:38PM (6 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 21 2020, @04:38PM (#1024636) Journal

    I thought Facebook and Twitter were the worst things that could happen to our society, and indeed all of humanity.

    But deep fakes? Wow.

    Imagine the fake videos as we near election time.

    Consider a video of Trump, speaking coherently, in complete sentences, without undue emotion or racist undertones -- and making sense!

    That would be instantly recognizable as a fake.

    <no-sarcasm>
    Imagine something more subtle and sinister. Imagine a mass media barrage of Trump going full Hitler (or "President Clark" in Babylon 5 sci fi). Calling for overthrow of the government, or open race war, or something equally abhorrent. Someone putting words in his mouth for their own agenda, to manipulate his supporters to take radical action. Imagine this appearing suddenly, and widespread in many media outlets. Or worse, carefully selected media outlets.

    This would be an example of using someone's name, image and position to manipulate the public to be enraged and take radical action.

    Imagine simultaneously, let's say, Pelosi (or take your pick) saying equally and oppositely offensive things and calling for radical action but in different selected media outlets.

    Now suppose while this is happening in the US, the same is going on in several other major nations.

    What if the right people could be baited somehow into starting a nuclear war?
    </no-sarcasm>

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday July 21 2020, @05:30PM

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday July 21 2020, @05:30PM (#1024663)

    the ascension of the ordinary man

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
  • (Score: 2) by AssCork on Tuesday July 21 2020, @05:38PM (3 children)

    by AssCork (6255) on Tuesday July 21 2020, @05:38PM (#1024669) Journal

    Imagine something more subtle and sinister. Imagine a mass media barrage of Trump going full Hitler (or "President Clark" in Babylon 5 sci fi). Calling for overthrow of the government, or open race war, or something equally abhorrent. Someone putting words in his mouth for their own agenda, to manipulate his supporters to take radical action. Imagine this appearing suddenly, and widespread in many media outlets. Or worse, carefully selected media outlets.

    Kronk has entered the chat

    https://images.app.goo.gl/kPt7J4ujK4xcm4Ce7 [app.goo.gl]

    --
    Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 21 2020, @07:06PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 21 2020, @07:06PM (#1024710) Journal

      I suppose I could have called it:

      A Tail Of Two Echo Chambers

      Release two deep fakes, one targeted at each echo chamber.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2020, @09:24PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21 2020, @09:24PM (#1024752)

      Artificial Stupidity is more difficult than Artificial Intelligence.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 22 2020, @01:33PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 22 2020, @01:33PM (#1024931) Journal

        I understand the drive to invent machines to do things that are difficult, unpleasant or dangerous for humans to do.

        But why, oh why, have Artificial Stupidity when the real thing is readily available in such abundant supply. Just go to Facebook or Twitter.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Wednesday July 22 2020, @11:54AM

    by stormwyrm (717) on Wednesday July 22 2020, @11:54AM (#1024908) Journal
    Neal Stephenson envisioned something of the sort in a side plot from his 2019 novel Fall; or, Dodge in Hell. A well-orchestrated bit of fake news involving the supposed detonation of a nuclear device in Moab, Utah winds up dividing the world into groups of people who rightly believe that the supposed nuking of Moab is a hoax (as there is no actual verifiable evidence of the event ever really happening), and those who believe the false narrative, who eventually become increasingly radicalised. Stephenson calls this "the Facebooking of America". He says of this in an interview [pcmag.com]: "...actually when I originally wrote an earlier version of the Moab section, it was prior to the events of the 2016 election and at the time I sort of was patting myself on the back for really being on top of things and predicting the future. And then I discovered that the future was way ahead of me."
    --
    Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.