AI Was Used To Make Barack Obama Deliver This Announcement

When Google launched the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL back in October 2017, the company talked a lot about Artificial Intelligence. Google said that the integration of AI and machine learning within a smartphone is the future and it might as well be right. Artificial Intelligence has grown leaps and bounds over the past few years and is now readily available in most smartphones in the form of a digital assistant like Siri or Alexa. Jordan Peele, the famous Oscar-winning comedian and filmmaker decided to do give us a glimpse of what advancements in AI can produce in the near future.

In a video of Barrack Obama talking about everything from Black Panther to Donal Trump, Jordan Peele delivers a telling PSA about the future of fake news. The “fake video” was made by Peele’s production company using two tools, Adobe After Effects and the AI face-swapping tool FakeApp. Considering the technology used in this video is still in nascent stage, the authenticity of it is really hard to judge.

Since the dawn of social media, we have been plagued with fake news. There have been multiple reports of bots spreading a certain fake news or agenda across the internet by making it go viral. While a photoshopped image or fake tweet can still be recognised by people with a keen eye or an open mind, a carefully doctored video using AI can be harder to spot. Adobe, the creator of Photoshop, is already working on an audio editing software called VoCo. It is like Photoshop, but for words, wherein users can generate new words using a speaker’s recorded voice. This can be a groundbreaking addition to the already prominent fake news industry.

The process of making fake videos, which was a complicated job in the past, can soon become a hobby of a teenager with a computer. All of that will be possible because of the advancements in AI. As is with any form of technology, AI, if used maliciously, can create a lot of trouble especially when doctored videos can go viral in the blink of an eye.

As Peele says in the end, we need to be more vigilante and trust news outlets when it comes to important topics. Fake news is easy to spread, but, it won’t be of any use if we are careful enough to not believe and share everything we read on the internet. While scientists work on tools to spot fake AI videos, let’s make sure that we question every provocative video on the internet and find a credible source before we hit the share button.