WEBVTT - Deep Background Presents: Brave New Planet 0:00:18.396 --> 0:00:21.116 Noah Feldman here. I'm excited to tell you about a 0:00:21.156 --> 0:00:25.236 special five part Deep Background mini series called Deep Bench. 0:00:25.956 --> 0:00:28.556 The first episodes will appear in your feed on Saturday, 0:00:28.596 --> 0:00:32.316 October seventeenth. The battle for the Supreme Court has become 0:00:32.356 --> 0:00:35.956 a huge issue in the presidential election. In many ways, 0:00:36.236 --> 0:00:40.676 it's a culmination of a conservative legal revolution spearheaded by 0:00:40.676 --> 0:00:44.956 the Federalist Society. Deep Bench is the inside story of 0:00:45.036 --> 0:00:48.476 how these legal conservatives gained power and how, at the 0:00:48.516 --> 0:00:52.556 height of their influence, they're actually in danger of splitting apart. 0:00:53.436 --> 0:00:57.156 But first, we're presenting an episode from Pushkin Industry's newest show, 0:00:57.556 --> 0:01:01.756 Brave New Planet. Every day we see how powerful technologies 0:01:01.796 --> 0:01:06.156 are advancing at a breathtaking pace. They have amazing potential upsides, 0:01:06.636 --> 0:01:09.356 but if we're not careful, some might leave us a 0:01:09.356 --> 0:01:13.556 lot worse off. In Brave New Planet, doctor Eric Lander 0:01:13.596 --> 0:01:16.036 and his guests weigh the pros and cons of a 0:01:16.116 --> 0:01:20.916 wide range of powerful innovations in science and technology. Doctor 0:01:20.996 --> 0:01:24.516 Lander directs the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He 0:01:24.636 --> 0:01:27.796 was a leader of the Human Genome Project for eight years. 0:01:27.796 --> 0:01:31.156 He served as a science advisor to President Obama's White House. 0:01:31.676 --> 0:01:36.596 In this episode, doctor Lander explores deep fakes. Deep fakes 0:01:36.636 --> 0:01:40.156 can be useful in art, education and therapy, but could 0:01:40.156 --> 0:01:43.596 they be weaponized to provoke international conflicts or swing elections? 0:01:44.036 --> 0:01:46.036 And where does the right to free speech fit in? 0:01:46.996 --> 0:01:50.716 Every episode of Brave New Planet will grapple with opportunities 0:01:50.716 --> 0:01:53.316 and challenges that are too big to fit in a tweet, 0:01:53.436 --> 0:01:57.316 but will shape our future. You can subscribe in Apple Podcasts. 0:01:57.836 --> 0:02:08.796 Here's the brilliant Eric Lander and Brave New Planet. Your 0:02:09.396 --> 0:02:13.436 to Brave New Planet, a podcast about amazing new technologies 0:02:13.516 --> 0:02:17.076 that could dramatically improve our world, or, if we don't 0:02:17.076 --> 0:02:19.796 make wise choices, could leave us a lot worse off 0:02:20.596 --> 0:02:35.236 Utopia or dystopia. It's up to us. On July sixteenth, 0:02:35.396 --> 0:02:40.476 nineteen sixty nine, Apollo eleven blasted off from the Kennedy 0:02:40.516 --> 0:02:45.756 Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida. Twenty five million Americans 0:02:45.836 --> 0:02:49.956 watched on television as the spacecraft ascended toward the heavens, 0:02:50.476 --> 0:02:55.996 carrying Commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldron, and 0:02:56.076 --> 0:03:00.716 Command Module pilot Michael Collins their mission to be the 0:03:00.796 --> 0:03:04.556 first humans in history to set foot on the Moon. 0:03:05.636 --> 0:03:10.236 Four days later, on Sunday, July twentieth, The lunar module 0:03:10.356 --> 0:03:14.716 separated from the command ship and soon fired its rockets 0:03:15.076 --> 0:03:21.636 to begin its lunar descent. Five minutes later, disaster struck 0:03:22.556 --> 0:03:26.236 about a mile above the Moon's surface. Program alarms twelve 0:03:26.276 --> 0:03:29.556 oh one and twelve O two sounded loudly, indicating that 0:03:29.596 --> 0:03:36.996 the mission computer was overloaded, and then well, every American 0:03:37.076 --> 0:03:51.396 knows what happened next lost date of five good evening, 0:03:51.676 --> 0:03:56.196 my fellow Americans. President Richard Nixon addressed a grieving nation. 0:03:57.316 --> 0:04:00.276 Fates has ordained that the men who went to the 0:04:00.276 --> 0:04:04.516 Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon 0:04:05.036 --> 0:04:13.556 to rest in peace. These men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Auburn, 0:04:14.916 --> 0:04:19.756 know that there is no pope for their recovery, but 0:04:19.876 --> 0:04:23.996 they also know that there is hook for mankind in 0:04:24.076 --> 0:04:29.236 their sacrifice. He ended with the now famous words for 0:04:29.396 --> 0:04:31.996 every human being who looks up at the Moon and 0:04:32.036 --> 0:04:35.156 the nights to come, will know that there is some 0:04:35.276 --> 0:04:44.156 pun or another word that is forever mankind. Wait a minute, 0:04:44.676 --> 0:04:48.636 that never happened. The Moon mission was a historic success. 0:04:49.236 --> 0:04:53.316 The three astronauts returned safely to ticker tape parades and 0:04:53.356 --> 0:04:58.316 a celebratory thirty eight day World Tour. Those alarms actually 0:04:58.436 --> 0:05:02.836 did sound, but they turned out to be harmless. Nixon 0:05:02.916 --> 0:05:06.716 never delivered that speech. His speech writer had written it, 0:05:07.036 --> 0:05:10.476 but it sat in a folder labeled an event of 0:05:10.716 --> 0:05:16.596 Moon disaster until now. The Nixon you just heard is 0:05:16.596 --> 0:05:20.156 a deep fake, part of a seven minute film created 0:05:20.156 --> 0:05:25.276 by artificial intelligence deep learning algorithms. The fake was made 0:05:25.356 --> 0:05:29.476 by the Center for Advanced Virtuality at the Massachusetts Institute 0:05:29.476 --> 0:05:32.716 of Technology as part of an art exhibit to raise 0:05:32.756 --> 0:05:36.636 awareness about the power of synthesized media. Not long ago, 0:05:37.276 --> 0:05:40.316 something like this would have taken a lot of time 0:05:40.316 --> 0:05:43.836 and money, But now it's getting easy. You can make 0:05:43.916 --> 0:05:47.436 new paintings in the style of French Impressionism, revived dead 0:05:47.556 --> 0:05:52.316 movie stars, help patience with ner degenerative disease, or soon 0:05:52.436 --> 0:05:55.396 maybe take a class on a tour of ancient Rome. 0:05:55.836 --> 0:05:59.596 But as the technology quickly becomes democratized, we're getting to 0:05:59.636 --> 0:06:03.396 the point where almost anyone can create a fake video 0:06:03.436 --> 0:06:06.876 of a friend, an ex lover, a stranger, or a 0:06:06.916 --> 0:06:12.316 public figure that's embarrassing, pornographic, or perhaps capable of causing 0:06:12.436 --> 0:06:17.196 international chaos. Some argue that in a culture where faked 0:06:17.196 --> 0:06:22.196 news spreads like wildfire, and political leaders deny the veracity 0:06:22.236 --> 0:06:25.996 of hard facts. Deep faked media may do a lot 0:06:26.116 --> 0:06:33.396 more harm than good. Today's big question will synthesized media 0:06:33.556 --> 0:06:38.276 unleash a new wave of creativity or will it erode 0:06:38.316 --> 0:06:42.476 the already tenuous role of truth in our democracy? And 0:06:43.596 --> 0:06:46.316 is there anything we can do to keep it in check. 0:06:55.196 --> 0:06:57.556 My name is Eric Lander. I'm a scientist who works 0:06:57.596 --> 0:07:00.316 on ways to improve human health. I helped lead the 0:07:00.396 --> 0:07:03.756 Human Genome Project, and today I lead the Broad Institute 0:07:03.756 --> 0:07:08.036 of MIT and Harvard. In the twenty first century, powerful 0:07:08.116 --> 0:07:11.956 technologies have been peering at a breathtaking pace related to 0:07:11.956 --> 0:07:16.476 the Internet, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and more. They have 0:07:16.716 --> 0:07:20.836 amazing potential upsides, but we can't ignore the risks that 0:07:20.956 --> 0:07:24.716 come with them. The decisions aren't just up to scientists 0:07:25.036 --> 0:07:28.756 or politicians. Whether we like it or not, we all 0:07:28.756 --> 0:07:31.596 of us are the stewards of a brave New planet. 0:07:32.116 --> 0:07:35.916 This generation's choices will shape the future as never before. 0:07:38.476 --> 0:07:42.436 Coming up on today's episode of Brave New Planet, I 0:07:42.556 --> 0:07:46.916 speak with some of the leaders behind advances in synthesized media. 0:07:47.116 --> 0:07:50.236 You could, certainly, by the way, generate stories that could 0:07:50.636 --> 0:07:54.276 be fresh and interesting and new and personal for every child. 0:07:54.636 --> 0:07:58.476 We got emails from people who were quadruplegic and they 0:07:58.476 --> 0:08:01.156 asked us if we could make them dance. We hear 0:08:01.236 --> 0:08:04.876 from experts about some of the frightening ways that bad 0:08:04.876 --> 0:08:08.756 actors can use deep fakes. Creditors would chime in and say, 0:08:09.196 --> 0:08:11.996 you can absolutely make a deep fake sex video of 0:08:12.036 --> 0:08:14.836 your ex with thirty pictures. I've done it with twenty. 0:08:15.076 --> 0:08:16.876 Here's the things that keep me up at night. Right 0:08:17.556 --> 0:08:20.436 a video of Donald Trump saying I've launched nuclear weapons 0:08:20.436 --> 0:08:23.836 against Iran. And before anybody gets around to figuring out 0:08:23.836 --> 0:08:25.956 whether this is real or not, we have global nuclear 0:08:26.036 --> 0:08:30.476 mountdown and we explore how we might prevent the worst abuses. 0:08:31.316 --> 0:08:37.076 It's important that younger people advocate for the Internet that 0:08:37.116 --> 0:08:39.716 they want. We have to fight for it. We have 0:08:39.836 --> 0:08:49.676 to ask for different things. Stay with us, Chapter one, 0:08:50.276 --> 0:08:55.196 Abraham Lincoln's Head. To begin to understand the significance of 0:08:55.276 --> 0:08:58.956 deep fake technology, I went to San Francisco to speak 0:08:58.956 --> 0:09:02.476 with a world expert on synthetic media. My name is 0:09:02.716 --> 0:09:07.796 alexey Or sometimes called alyosha Eros, and I'm a professor 0:09:07.836 --> 0:09:11.716 at UC Berkeley and Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department. 0:09:12.236 --> 0:09:18.116 My research is on computer vision, computer graphics, machine learning, 0:09:18.836 --> 0:09:24.636 various aspects of artificial intelligence. Where'd you grow up? I 0:09:24.716 --> 0:09:28.596 grew up in Saint Petersburg in Russia. I was one 0:09:28.636 --> 0:09:33.036 of those geeky kids playing around with computers or dreaming 0:09:33.036 --> 0:09:40.196 about computers. My first computer was actually the first Soviet 0:09:40.716 --> 0:09:44.676 personal computer. So you actually are involved in making sort 0:09:44.676 --> 0:09:49.916 of synthetic content, synthetic media. That's right. Alexei has invented 0:09:49.996 --> 0:09:53.876 powerful artificial intelligence tools, but his lab also has a 0:09:53.916 --> 0:09:58.196 wonderful ability to use computers to enhance the human experience. 0:09:58.876 --> 0:10:02.276 I was struck by a remarkable video on YouTube created 0:10:02.316 --> 0:10:06.116 by his team at Berkeley. So this was a project 0:10:06.196 --> 0:10:11.556 that actually was done by my students who didn't even 0:10:11.596 --> 0:10:15.356 think of this as anything but a silly little toy 0:10:15.436 --> 0:10:19.396 project of trying to see if we could get a 0:10:19.516 --> 0:10:24.316 geeky computer science student to move like a ballerina. In 0:10:24.356 --> 0:10:28.116 the video, one of the students, Carolyn cham dances with 0:10:28.156 --> 0:10:31.796 a skill and grace of a professional, despite never having 0:10:31.796 --> 0:10:35.956 studied ballet. The idea is you take a source actor 0:10:36.036 --> 0:10:40.156 like a ballerina. There is a way to detect the 0:10:40.316 --> 0:10:43.596 limbs of the dancer have a kind of a skeleton 0:10:44.236 --> 0:10:48.956 extracted and also have my student just move around and 0:10:49.036 --> 0:10:52.716 do some geeky moves. And now we're basically just going 0:10:52.796 --> 0:10:58.596 to try to sympathize the appearance of my student driven 0:10:58.956 --> 0:11:01.716 by the skeleton of the ballerina. Put it all together, 0:11:01.876 --> 0:11:05.716 and then we have our grad student dancing pirouets like 0:11:05.876 --> 0:11:12.276 a ballerina through artificial intelligence. Carolyn's body is puppeteered by 0:11:12.316 --> 0:11:15.396 the dancer. We weren't even going to publish it, but 0:11:15.476 --> 0:11:19.916 we just released a video on YouTube called Everybody Dance Now, 0:11:20.356 --> 0:11:25.516 and somehow it really touched the nerve. Well, there's been 0:11:25.556 --> 0:11:29.596 an explosion recently a new ways to manipulate media. Alexei 0:11:29.676 --> 0:11:33.196 notes that the idea itself isn't new, it has a 0:11:33.276 --> 0:11:37.236 long history. I can't help but ask, given that you 0:11:37.236 --> 0:11:41.916 come from Russia. One of the premier users of doctoring 0:11:41.956 --> 0:11:47.196 photographs I think was Stalin, who used the ability to 0:11:47.236 --> 0:11:51.716 manipulate images for political effect. How did they do that? 0:11:52.276 --> 0:11:54.236 Can you think of examples of this and like, what 0:11:54.316 --> 0:12:01.156 was the technology? Then? The urge to change photographs has 0:12:01.236 --> 0:12:05.196 been around basically since the invention of photography. For example, 0:12:05.196 --> 0:12:08.796 there is a photograph of Abraham Lincoln that still hangs 0:12:08.796 --> 0:12:13.836 in may classrooms. That's fake. It's actually Calhoun with Lincoln's 0:12:13.836 --> 0:12:17.956 head attached it. Alexei's referring to John C. Calhoun, the 0:12:17.996 --> 0:12:22.396 South Carolina senator and champion of slavery. A Civil War 0:12:22.516 --> 0:12:27.636 portrait artist superimposed a photo of Lincoln's head onto an 0:12:27.636 --> 0:12:32.396 engraving of Calhoun's body because they thought Lincoln's gangly frame 0:12:32.956 --> 0:12:35.836 wasn't dignified enough, and so they just said, okay, we 0:12:35.916 --> 0:12:39.436 can use Calhoun. Let's slap the Lincoln's head on his body. 0:12:39.676 --> 0:12:42.956 And then, of course, as soon as you go into 0:12:43.276 --> 0:12:46.796 the twentieth century, as soon as you get to dictatorships, 0:12:47.196 --> 0:12:50.876 this is a wonderful toy for a dictator to use. 0:12:51.356 --> 0:12:55.156 So again, Stalin was a big fan of this. He 0:12:55.236 --> 0:12:59.716 would get rid of people in photographs once they were 0:12:59.716 --> 0:13:02.676 out of favor or once they got jailed or killed. 0:13:03.156 --> 0:13:09.436 He would just basically get them scratched out with reasonably cruetics. 0:13:10.076 --> 0:13:13.316 Hitler did it, Mao did it, Castro did it, Bresnev 0:13:13.436 --> 0:13:16.316 did it. I'm sure US agencies have done it also. 0:13:16.836 --> 0:13:20.876 We have always manipulated images with a desire to change history. 0:13:21.356 --> 0:13:24.356 This is Honi for Reed. He's also a professor at 0:13:24.356 --> 0:13:27.276 Berkeley and a friend of Alexei's. I'm a professor of 0:13:27.316 --> 0:13:31.196 computer science and I'm an expert in digital forensics, where 0:13:31.196 --> 0:13:35.436 Alexei works on making synthetic media. Honey has devoted his 0:13:35.516 --> 0:13:39.476 career to identifying when synthetic media is being used to 0:13:39.556 --> 0:13:45.196 fool people, that is spotting fakes. He regularly collaborates on 0:13:45.236 --> 0:13:49.356 this mission with Alexei. So I met Alyosha efros ten 0:13:49.436 --> 0:13:54.036 twenty years ago. He is a really incredibly creative and 0:13:54.316 --> 0:13:58.196 clever guy, and he has done what I consider some 0:13:58.236 --> 0:14:00.716 of the most interesting work in computer vision and computer 0:14:00.796 --> 0:14:04.476 graphics over the last two decades. And if you really 0:14:04.516 --> 0:14:06.996 want to do forensics, well, you have to partner with 0:14:06.996 --> 0:14:10.116 somebody like Alyosha. You have to partner with world class 0:14:10.196 --> 0:14:13.756 mind who knows how to think about the synthesiside so 0:14:13.956 --> 0:14:17.236 that you can synthesize the absolute best content and then 0:14:17.356 --> 0:14:20.036 think about how to detect it. I think it's interesting 0:14:20.076 --> 0:14:22.516 that if you're somebody on the synthesis side and developing 0:14:22.596 --> 0:14:24.836 the forensic there's a little bit of a jekylin hide there, 0:14:24.836 --> 0:14:27.676 and I think it's really fascinating. You know, the idea 0:14:27.836 --> 0:14:32.396 of altering photos, it's not entirely new How far back 0:14:32.436 --> 0:14:35.676 does this go? So we used to have in the 0:14:35.716 --> 0:14:40.796 days of Stalin, highly talented, highly skilled, time consuming, difficult 0:14:40.876 --> 0:14:46.116 process of manipulating images, removing somebody, erasing something from the image, 0:14:46.436 --> 0:14:51.036 splicing faces together. And then we moved into the digital age, 0:14:51.316 --> 0:14:55.036 where now a highly talented digital artist could remove one 0:14:55.036 --> 0:14:57.356 face and add another face, but it was still a 0:14:57.436 --> 0:15:01.636 time consuming and required scale. In nineteen ninety four, the 0:15:01.676 --> 0:15:04.916 makers of the movie Forrest Gump won an Oscar for 0:15:05.036 --> 0:15:09.676 Visual Effects for their representations of the title character interacting 0:15:09.676 --> 0:15:14.476 with historical figures like President John F. Kennedy gratulate. How 0:15:14.516 --> 0:15:18.316 does it feel to be an all Americans? Very good gratulation? 0:15:18.516 --> 0:15:26.276 How do you feel? I believe it. Now computers are 0:15:26.316 --> 0:15:28.236 doing all of the heavy lifting of what used to 0:15:28.236 --> 0:15:31.836 be relegated to talented artists. The average person now can 0:15:31.916 --> 0:15:35.276 use sophisticated technology to not just capture the recording, but 0:15:35.356 --> 0:15:38.676 also manipulate it and then distribute it. The tools used 0:15:38.676 --> 0:15:42.316 to create synthetic media have grown by leaps and bounds, 0:15:42.476 --> 0:15:45.396 especially in the past few years, and so now we 0:15:45.436 --> 0:15:49.356 have technology broadly called deep fake, but more specifically should 0:15:49.356 --> 0:15:53.556 be called synthesized content where you point an image or 0:15:53.596 --> 0:15:56.916 a video or an audio to an AI or machine 0:15:56.996 --> 0:16:00.276 learning system, and it will replace the face for you. 0:16:00.516 --> 0:16:01.916 I mean it can do that in an image, it 0:16:01.916 --> 0:16:04.276 can do that in a video, or it can synthesize 0:16:04.276 --> 0:16:10.956 audio for you in a particular person's voice. It's becomes 0:16:10.996 --> 0:16:15.836 straightforward to swap people's faces. There's a popular YouTube video 0:16:16.236 --> 0:16:20.236 that features tech pioneer Elon Musk's adult face on a 0:16:20.276 --> 0:16:24.316 baby's body, and there's a famous meme where actor Nicholas 0:16:24.396 --> 0:16:28.636 Cage's face replaces those of leading movie actors, both male 0:16:28.676 --> 0:16:32.156 and female. You can put words into people's mouths and 0:16:32.276 --> 0:16:35.996 make them jump and dance and run. You can even 0:16:36.076 --> 0:16:40.356 resurrect powerful figures and have them deliver a fake speech 0:16:40.836 --> 0:16:49.596 about a fake tragedy. From an Altered History, Chapter two, 0:16:50.596 --> 0:16:55.916 Creating Nixon. The text of Nixon's Moon disaster speech that 0:16:55.956 --> 0:16:58.356 we heard at the top of the show is actually 0:16:58.396 --> 0:17:01.396 not fake. As I mentioned, it was written for President 0:17:01.476 --> 0:17:05.676 Nixon as a contingency speech and thankfully never had to 0:17:05.716 --> 0:17:08.956 be delivered. It's an amazing piece of writing. It was 0:17:09.156 --> 0:17:13.156 written by Bill Safire, who was one of Nixon's speech writers. 0:17:13.556 --> 0:17:17.116 This is artist in journalist Francesco Panetta. She's the co 0:17:17.316 --> 0:17:21.916 director of the Nixon Fake or MTS Moon Disaster Team. 0:17:22.556 --> 0:17:27.476 She's also the creative director in MIT's Center for Advanced Virtuality. 0:17:27.836 --> 0:17:32.396 I was doing experimental journalism at the Guardian newspaper. I 0:17:32.476 --> 0:17:35.556 ran the Guardians Virtual Reality studio for the last three years. 0:17:35.836 --> 0:17:38.316 The second half of the Moon Disaster team is sound 0:17:38.436 --> 0:17:42.796 artist Halsey Bergund. My name is Halsey Bergund. I'm a 0:17:42.956 --> 0:17:45.796 sound artist and technologist, and I've had a lot of 0:17:45.836 --> 0:17:49.956 experience with lots of sorts of audio enhanced with technology, 0:17:50.236 --> 0:17:53.596 though this is my first experience with synthetic media, especially 0:17:53.676 --> 0:17:57.156 since I typically focus on authenticity of voice and now 0:17:57.196 --> 0:18:00.636 I'm kind of doing the opposite. So together Halsey and 0:18:00.716 --> 0:18:04.556 Francesca chose to automate a tragic moment in history that 0:18:04.836 --> 0:18:07.996 never actually happened. I think it all started with it 0:18:08.036 --> 0:18:10.396 being the fiftieth anniversary of the Moon landing last year, 0:18:10.556 --> 0:18:13.356 and add on top of that an election cycle in 0:18:13.396 --> 0:18:16.556 this country, and dealing with this information, which is obviously 0:18:17.196 --> 0:18:21.276 very important in election cycles. It was like light bulbs 0:18:21.596 --> 0:18:25.076 went on and we got very excited about pursuing it. 0:18:25.076 --> 0:18:28.436 It's possible to make mediocre fakes pretty quickly and cheaply, 0:18:28.796 --> 0:18:32.596 but Francesca and Halsey wanted high production values. So how 0:18:32.596 --> 0:18:36.476 does one go about making a first rate fake presidential address. 0:18:36.956 --> 0:18:40.116 There are two components. There's the visuals and there's the audio, 0:18:40.156 --> 0:18:44.396 and they are completely different processes. So we decided to 0:18:44.436 --> 0:18:48.716 go with a video dialogue replacement company called Kenny Ai, 0:18:49.156 --> 0:18:51.716 who would do the visuals for us, and then we 0:18:51.796 --> 0:18:56.436 decided to go with Respeecher, who are a dialogue replacement 0:18:56.476 --> 0:19:01.556 company for the voice of Nixon. They tackled the voice first, 0:19:01.716 --> 0:19:04.476 the more challenging of the two mediums. What we were 0:19:04.516 --> 0:19:07.596 told to do was to get two to three hours 0:19:07.676 --> 0:19:10.876 worth of Nixon talking. That was pretty easy because the 0:19:10.996 --> 0:19:14.996 Nixon Library has hours and hours of Nixon, mainly giving 0:19:15.076 --> 0:19:19.276 Vietnam's speeches. The Communist armies of North Vietnam launched a 0:19:19.356 --> 0:19:23.036 massive inversion of South Vietnam. That audio was then chopped 0:19:23.116 --> 0:19:26.916 up into chunks between one and three seconds long. We 0:19:27.036 --> 0:19:32.676 found this incredibly patient actor called Lewis D. Wheeler. Lewis 0:19:32.716 --> 0:19:36.396 would listen to the one second clip and then he 0:19:37.036 --> 0:19:45.796 would repeat that and do what I believe was right. Speech. 0:19:45.876 --> 0:19:47.996 Would say to us things like we need to change 0:19:48.036 --> 0:19:52.636 the diagonal attention, which meant nothing to us. Yes, we 0:19:52.676 --> 0:19:59.196 have a whole lot of potential band names going forward. Yeah, 0:19:59.276 --> 0:20:02.436 Synthetic Nixon is another good one. So once we have 0:20:02.836 --> 0:20:06.236 our Nixon model made out of these thousands of tiny clips, 0:20:06.596 --> 0:20:10.956 it means that whatever our act says will come out 0:20:11.076 --> 0:20:14.476 then in Nixon's voice. So then what we did was 0:20:14.596 --> 0:20:19.196 record the contingency speech of Nixon, and it meant that 0:20:19.236 --> 0:20:24.796 we got Lewis's actually performance, but in Nixon's voice. What 0:20:24.876 --> 0:20:27.996 about the video part, I mean, the video was much easier. 0:20:27.996 --> 0:20:30.036 We're talking a couple of days here and a tiny 0:20:30.076 --> 0:20:35.676 amount of data just with Lewis's iPhone. We filmed him 0:20:35.716 --> 0:20:39.436 reading the contingency speech once a couple of minutes of 0:20:39.516 --> 0:20:42.956 him just chatting to camera, and that was it fate 0:20:44.196 --> 0:20:47.316 that the men who went to the Moon to explore 0:20:48.636 --> 0:20:52.796 will stay on the moon. You know, we were told 0:20:52.796 --> 0:20:56.116 by Kenny Ai that everything would be the same in 0:20:56.156 --> 0:20:59.476 the video apart from just the area around the mouth. 0:20:59.916 --> 0:21:03.076 So every gesture of the hand, every blink, every time 0:21:03.076 --> 0:21:05.876 he moved his face, all of that would stay the same, 0:21:06.396 --> 0:21:11.036 but just the mouth basically would change. So we used 0:21:11.276 --> 0:21:15.196 Nixon's resignation speech. To have served in this office, it 0:21:15.356 --> 0:21:19.916 is to have felt a very personal sense of It 0:21:19.996 --> 0:21:22.876 was the speech of Nixon that looked to the most 0:21:22.916 --> 0:21:25.316 somber way. He seemed to have the most emotion in 0:21:25.356 --> 0:21:28.636 his face. So what actually went on in the computer? 0:21:29.516 --> 0:21:34.996 Artificial intelligence sometimes sounds inscrutable, but the basic ideas are 0:21:35.076 --> 0:21:38.316 quite simple. In this case, it uses a type of 0:21:38.356 --> 0:21:42.716 computer program called an auto encoder. It's trained to take 0:21:42.876 --> 0:21:48.476 complicated things, say spoken sentences or pictures, encode them in 0:21:48.516 --> 0:21:52.676 a much simpler form, and then decode them to recover 0:21:52.716 --> 0:21:56.356 the original as best it can. The encoder tries to 0:21:56.396 --> 0:22:00.036 reduce things to their essence, throwing away most of the 0:22:00.116 --> 0:22:03.036 information but keeping enough to do a good job of 0:22:03.076 --> 0:22:06.596 reconstructing it to make a deep fake. Here's the trick. 0:22:07.316 --> 0:22:11.116 Train a speech auto encode for Nixon to Nixon, and 0:22:11.236 --> 0:22:15.476 a speech auto encoder for actor to actor, but force 0:22:15.596 --> 0:22:20.956 them to use the same encoder. Then you can input 0:22:21.076 --> 0:22:26.036 actor and decoded as Nixon. If you have enough data. 0:22:26.236 --> 0:22:32.156 It's a piece of cake. Around their carefully created video, 0:22:32.516 --> 0:22:36.916 the Moon Disaster team created an entire art installation a 0:22:36.996 --> 0:22:40.916 nineteen sixties living room with a fake vintage newspaper sharing 0:22:40.916 --> 0:22:45.756 the fake tragic news while a fake Nixon speak solemnly 0:22:46.036 --> 0:22:49.916 on a vintage black and white television. Some people, when 0:22:49.996 --> 0:22:52.996 they were watching the installation, they watched a number of times. 0:22:53.036 --> 0:22:54.996 You'd see them, they'd watch it once, then they would 0:22:54.996 --> 0:22:57.916 watch it again, staring at the lips to see if 0:22:57.956 --> 0:23:01.356 they could see any lack of synchronicity. We had some 0:23:01.396 --> 0:23:05.316 people who thought that perhaps Nixon had actually recorded this 0:23:05.556 --> 0:23:09.076 speech as a contingency speech for it to go onto television. 0:23:09.516 --> 0:23:12.916 Lots of folks who were listening, viewing, and even press 0:23:12.996 --> 0:23:15.636 folks just immediately said, oh, the voice is real or whatever, 0:23:15.636 --> 0:23:19.076 you know, said these things that weren't accurate because they 0:23:19.156 --> 0:23:21.596 just felt like there wasn't even a question. I suppose 0:23:22.076 --> 0:23:24.036 that is what we wanted to achieve. But at the 0:23:24.076 --> 0:23:26.676 same time, it's it was a little bit eye opening 0:23:26.676 --> 0:23:29.436 and like a little scary, you know that that could happen. 0:23:33.076 --> 0:23:39.876 Chapter three, Everybody dance. What do you see as just 0:23:39.956 --> 0:23:45.636 the wonderful upsides of having technologies like this? Yeah, I 0:23:45.676 --> 0:23:49.916 mean ai A art is becoming a whole field in itself, 0:23:50.396 --> 0:23:54.996 so creatively there is enormous potential. One of the potential 0:23:55.156 --> 0:23:58.396 positive educational uses of deep fake technology would be to 0:23:58.516 --> 0:24:02.796 bring historical figures back to life to make learning more durable. 0:24:02.876 --> 0:24:05.916 I think one could do that with bringing Abraham Lincoln 0:24:05.916 --> 0:24:08.636 back to life and having him deliver speeches. Film companies 0:24:08.636 --> 0:24:11.676 and radios cited about re enactments. We're already beginning to 0:24:11.716 --> 0:24:15.796 see this in films like Star Wars, when we're bringing 0:24:15.836 --> 0:24:18.556 people like Carrie Fisher back to life. I mean that 0:24:18.716 --> 0:24:22.156 is at the moment not being done through deep fake technologies. 0:24:22.156 --> 0:24:25.716 This is using fairy traditional techniques of CGI at the moment. 0:24:25.916 --> 0:24:28.596 So we still have to see our first deep fake 0:24:28.836 --> 0:24:32.396 big cinema screen release, but this is just to come. 0:24:32.516 --> 0:24:35.516 Like the technology is getting better and better. Not only 0:24:35.556 --> 0:24:38.596 will we be able to potentially bring back actors and 0:24:38.636 --> 0:24:42.236 actresses who are no longer alive and have them star movies, 0:24:42.276 --> 0:24:45.036 but an actor could make a model of their own 0:24:45.116 --> 0:24:47.956 voice and then sell the use of that voice to 0:24:47.996 --> 0:24:52.236 anybody to do a voiceover of whatever is wanted, and 0:24:52.276 --> 0:24:54.716 so they could have twenty of these going on at 0:24:54.716 --> 0:24:57.156 the same time, and the sort of restriction of their 0:24:57.196 --> 0:25:00.716 physical presence is no longer there. And that might mean 0:25:00.756 --> 0:25:03.756 that you know, Brad Pitt is in everything, or it 0:25:03.876 --> 0:25:07.116 might just mean that lower budget films can afford to 0:25:07.156 --> 0:25:10.036 have some of the higher cost talent. That point, you know, 0:25:10.076 --> 0:25:13.356 the top twenty actors could just do everything. Yes, there's 0:25:13.396 --> 0:25:15.796 no doubt that there will be winners and losers from 0:25:16.076 --> 0:25:19.596 these technologies, but the potential of synthetic media goes way 0:25:19.636 --> 0:25:23.876 beyond the arts. There are possible medical and therapeutic applications. 0:25:24.236 --> 0:25:27.596 There are companies that are working very hard to allow 0:25:27.676 --> 0:25:30.196 people who have either lost their voice or who never 0:25:30.236 --> 0:25:32.716 had a voice to be able to speak in a 0:25:32.996 --> 0:25:35.836 way that is either how they used to speak or 0:25:36.556 --> 0:25:39.556 in a way that isn't a canned voice that everybody has. 0:25:39.956 --> 0:25:43.796 Alexei ePROs and his students discovered potential uses of synthetic 0:25:43.836 --> 0:25:48.996 media and medicine quite unintentionally while working on their Everybody 0:25:49.116 --> 0:25:53.276 Danced Now project that could turn anyone into a ballerina. 0:25:53.476 --> 0:25:57.836 We were kind of surprised for all the positive feedback. 0:25:57.876 --> 0:26:01.556 We god, we've got emails from people who were quadruplegic 0:26:01.636 --> 0:26:03.916 and they asked us if we could make them dance, 0:26:03.996 --> 0:26:08.116 and it was very unexpected. So now we are trying 0:26:08.156 --> 0:26:10.316 to get the soft where to be in a state 0:26:10.316 --> 0:26:13.996 where people can use that because yeah, it's somehow it 0:26:14.036 --> 0:26:20.756 did hit a nerve with folks. Chapter four Unicorns in 0:26:20.796 --> 0:26:26.116 the Andes. The past few years have seen amazing advances 0:26:26.196 --> 0:26:30.196 in the creation of synthetic media through artificial intelligence. The 0:26:30.236 --> 0:26:33.836 technology now goes far beyond fitting one face over another 0:26:33.876 --> 0:26:37.276 face in a video. A recent breakthrough has made it 0:26:37.276 --> 0:26:43.196 possible to create entirely new and very convincing content out 0:26:43.236 --> 0:26:49.356 of thin air. The breakthrough, called generative adversarial networks or GAMS, 0:26:49.956 --> 0:26:53.796 came from a machine learning researcher at Google named Ian Goodfellow. 0:26:54.596 --> 0:26:58.916 Like auto encoders, the basic idea is simple but brilliant. 0:26:59.836 --> 0:27:03.596 Suppose you want to create amazingly realistic photos of people 0:27:03.636 --> 0:27:07.356 who don't exist. While you build a GAM consisting of 0:27:07.476 --> 0:27:12.276 two computer programs, a photo generator that learns to generate 0:27:12.316 --> 0:27:17.436 fake photos and a photo discriminator that learns to discriminate 0:27:17.516 --> 0:27:22.596 or identify fake photos from a vast collection of real photos. 0:27:23.276 --> 0:27:26.996 You then let the two programs compete, continually tweaking their 0:27:26.996 --> 0:27:30.636 code to outsmart each other. By the time they're done, 0:27:31.036 --> 0:27:35.556 the GAN can generate amazingly convincing fakes. You can see 0:27:35.596 --> 0:27:38.596 for yourself if you go to the website this person 0:27:38.716 --> 0:27:43.476 does not exist dot com. Every time you refresh the page, 0:27:43.836 --> 0:27:47.716 you're shown a new uncanny image of a person who, 0:27:48.076 --> 0:27:51.836 as the website says, does not and never did exist. 0:27:52.636 --> 0:28:00.796 Francescan I actually tried out the website. This young Asian woman. 0:28:00.956 --> 0:28:04.436 She's got great complexion, envious of that, neat black hair, 0:28:04.516 --> 0:28:08.276 with a fringe pink lipstick and a slightly dreamy look 0:28:08.396 --> 0:28:14.116 as she's kind of gazing off to her left. Oh, 0:28:14.156 --> 0:28:16.316 here's a woman who looks like she could be a 0:28:16.356 --> 0:28:20.836 neighbor of mine in Cambridge, probably about sixty five. She's 0:28:20.836 --> 0:28:26.276 got nice wire framed glasses, layered hair. Her earrings don't 0:28:26.316 --> 0:28:30.196 actually match, but that could just be her distinctive style. 0:28:30.996 --> 0:28:35.636