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> You know what I want to do, I want to actually create sci-fi films with my favourite actors. But sadly, I don't have the money, time or network of highly paid actors to do so.

But the reason these people are your favourite actors is that they're...good at acting, right? The deepfake won't improve the performance of your budget actor (actually it'll probably make it much worse). So your movie will be like seeing your favourite actors putting in absurdly terrible performances. Are you sure you want this?

This applies to porn, too. If, for example, I was a widower who missed my wife dearly (to give a relatively benign example), deepfake porn of my late wife would be someone else pretending to be her, and it'd likely be obvious to me.

Maybe this tech is just naturally polarizing but this sounds really awful to me.

I think that an important distinction is I imagine most actual consumers of deepfake porn want to watch someone who they have neither had sex with nor seen in porn before. The fake would be easier to believe in that context.

This makes me sad on so many levels. Bravo.

The female version of this taken even further is pretty much literally a Black Mirror episode. Season 2 Episode 1

Are they though? It's hard to say someone is good at acting if they are put into roles where they basically play themselves. And moreover, what better way to act like someone else literally being someone else? Film studios are already keen to paste virtual masks on their actors.

In any case, somebody wants this.

It certainly does feel that Tom Cruise simply plays the exact same person in almost every movie he's in. But that just makes it worse, surely? Tom Cruise is amazing at being Tom Cruise; my low-budget actor who's going to have Tom Cruise's face plastered over him in post-production is probably going to be atrocious at being Tom Cruise. Maybe even creepily so; I'll spend the whole movie wondering what's wrong with him.

While that's all true, it doesn't necessarily inhibit a film. You wondering what's wrong with him could very well be the entire point of the role he's being played into. Body snatchers, shape-shifters, crazy people, etc. This was even a major plot device in Mission Impossible.

> Are they though?

Emphatically yes? There's a pretty big gulf between low-budget/amateur stuff and more professional acting.

> It's hard to say someone is good at acting if they are put into roles where they basically play themselves.

That's definitely true, but like, even if Keanu Reeves only plays one character, that character just happens to be someone who's fun to see in a particular sort of movie. You still can't achieve the same thing by getting a random person to be themselves, and face-swapping their performance with Keanu Reeves.

Yes, but... the difference between low-budget/amateur stuff is more than just acting. It's hard to know that it is even primarily acting. I just don't believe that successful actors are so necessarily due to their acting talents (not that there's anything wrong with that) and also that broadening the kinds of material their visage appears in doesn't necessarily detract from their reputation or the film quality in general. It might if they've only appeared in the greatest material and only if they are the very best acting talents.

What if you wanted to shoot a scene where someone is hobnobbing with the rich and famous? You might need dialog, but do you need authentic dialog? What if you want to shoot a scene where somebody is stealing Keanu Reeves' boat, and he is just acting like a normal dude in a weird situation? You don't need his acting talent for that. What if you're shooting an alternative history film and want to present situations that conform to historical accuracy, yet defer from people's memories? Etc.

> Or how about having permission

Yes. How about having permission first?

When people talk about the ethics of deepfakes, they are talking about consent. What else do you think they're talking about?

If you keep something private, don't publish it or claim it's real, etc, what's the difference between making a deepfake of something and having a fantasy in your head?

A security breach can result in the distribution of the deepfake?

I have publicly exposed my perverted dreams of unlikely celebrities. Some of them, doubtlessly embarrasing to the person involved. The difference here is going to come down to framing and trust in the way that data is presented.

If you publish your fantasies about a person, that says something about you and would be hard to mistake as originating from that person.

If your deepfake of that person leaks, that appears to be about them.

So we just need a disclaimer

“The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.”

And everything should be a-ok

Yes. Until someone maliciously removes your disclaimer. That wouldn't be your fault, but impact is the problem, not fault.

> permission from "Schwarzenegger as a service" (TM pending) to use his likeness as a deepfake in the film?

Just like regular intellectual property licensing, either they won't even talk to you or it'll cost far more than you can afford. If you do it without permission you'll get takedown notices or worse.

The fake porn problem really should not be underestimated in a society that still does incredibly vicious slut-shaming. Previously you could argue that one could avoid this by not taking any nude photos or allowing your partner to do so, but once these things start getting generated from just a face it's going to be practically impossible to control it and the demand for legal action will grow.

>Just maybe the democratization of film

I've been thinking about this for a while. The "despecialized" versions of the Star Wars films prove that audiences can dictate the nature of a creative work in lieu of (or in spite of) its creator(s). It became apparent that eventually fan-edits of films, and fan-remakes of films, might eventually supplant the official material in certain cases.

But beyond the concept of "superior" or more popular versions of flawed films, there would be branching iterations that eventually are so distinct from their source material that they'd essentially be different things all together. Which is exciting to me.

I think you are imagining something that may be the end result of AI merging with the Netflix model.

Today Netflix produces shows by analyzing audience preferences. It's focus groups 2.0. In the future they might start generating shows based on individual preferences. Photo realistic content staring all your favorite actors in a plot you'll love in a setting you'll love. You might even be in it. Why not? Why not have every movie woven into your life? You could take this line of thought in some pretty crazy directions!

Hmmmm... Want to star in the greatest movie you've ever seen? No problem, just hand over every last detail about yourself!

To paraphrase Henry Ford, wouldn't you end up in a situation where people ask for and get a horse carriage when they really would have wanted a car?

Personally the media that has had the greatest impact on me was also some of the most unexpected or unfamiliar.

One alternative is to criminalize fantasizing about other people. Isn’t it gross that a person can create the likeness of another person in their mind and perform all sorts of sexual depravity with that unreal image? Absolutely disgusting and we need to do something about it.

What I'm curious about is if the existing contracts actors sign with movie publishers that give them the rights to use the actors likeness in perpetuity mean they can use them via deepfakes and stop actually paying the actors. I imagine that deepfake technology was not imagined when people agreed to such contracts, and that it will have to be considered in the future. It would now be trivially easy for, say, Sony Pictures to make the next Mission Impossible film by hiring low-cost actors and digitally replacing their features with Tom Cruises without involving him financially at all.

This is wonderful for actors, it just made appearance a non-issue.