South Park Creators Have New Political Satire Series With AI-Generated Deepfakes (theregister.com) 89
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Trey Parker and Matt Stone, best known for their cartoon South Park, have created a new comedy deepfake series called Sassy Justice. The star of the show, Fred Sassy, is a local news reporter from Cheyenne, Wyoming, with the face of US President Donald Trump. Other notable characters include, erm, "Dialysis King" Mark Zuckerberg. Politicians like former vice president Al Gore and White House family members Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner also appear. Kushner is portrayed as a man child.
If that sounds completely bonkers, that's because it is. They're all actually deepfakes generated using machine learning algorithms. Their faces have all been superimposed onto the bodies of actors. Not only is it pretty funny, the quality of the technology is shockingly good. The transitions and subtle facial expressions are smooth, apart from Zuckerberg who appears as robotic as ever, making it all the more realistic really. You can watch the first episode here.
If that sounds completely bonkers, that's because it is. They're all actually deepfakes generated using machine learning algorithms. Their faces have all been superimposed onto the bodies of actors. Not only is it pretty funny, the quality of the technology is shockingly good. The transitions and subtle facial expressions are smooth, apart from Zuckerberg who appears as robotic as ever, making it all the more realistic really. You can watch the first episode here.
Creepy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Creepy (Score:4)
Trying watching it. I don't know if it is funny, but it is absolutely certainly creepy.
The interview with Jared Kushner where he looks to be about 8 years old and bag-of-hammers dumb seems spot-on. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or...are they not "funny"?
Re:Creepy (Score:4, Insightful)
Why don't they throw in some Obama, and Clinton...you know...just to get some balance.
Maybe because they're focusing on people who are actually relevant and hold power? In case you hadn't noticed, neither anyone named Clinton nor anyone named Obama has any power at the federal level. I'd expect McConnell to come up in this series before any Obama or Clinton, for the same reason.
And if you actually watched the linked video on Youtube, you would have seen a very direct attack on Al Gore.
Re: (Score:2)
Because no one named Clinton has done anything other than be Sec. State and lose at running for president in 20 years. Oh, and also be a backbench Senator. Like, no one brings up the Clintons except some far-right people who want to keep nursing their hate boners.
Obama was president, but that was 4 years ago. Unless they work on staying relevant, old politicians just stop existing in America. Obama just isn't doing anything interesting post-presidency to make fun of. Heck, other than Jimmy Carter build
Re: (Score:2)
He doesn't need to do anything. I'm fine with presidents retiring after their terms are done. He's just out of the public eye and is no longer a good target for comedians.
Re: (Score:2)
You forgot President Bill Clinton already?
You know..the one that had Al Gore as his Vice President for 8 years?
Re: (Score:3)
Jesus, you even quote the time period of "20 years" and you still can't put two and two together? I will never understand the rage you people feel towards the Clintons. They are both very run of the mill neoliberals. There's no sunlight between them and Reagan era Republicans. They are the same type of creatures.
Re:Creepy (Score:5, Informative)
Why don't they throw in some Obama, and Clinton...you know...just to get some balance.
Or...are they not "funny"?
There was Al Gore. You think they are partisan for making fun of buffoons? From wikipedia:
Politically, Stone describes himself as libertarian.[80] In 2001, Stone summed up his views with the comment, "I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals."[81]
In 2004, Parker summed up his views with the comment:
What we're sick of—and it's getting even worse—is: you either like Michael Moore or you wanna fuckin' go overseas and shoot Iraqis. There can't be a middle ground. Basically, if you think Michael Moore's full of shit, then you are a super-Christian right-wing whatever. And we're both just pretty middle-ground guys. We find just as many things to rip on on the left as we do on the right. People on the far left and the far right are the same exact person to us.[96]
Re: (Score:1)
Did... Did you just argue for affirmative action in comedy?
Hans... Are we the baddies?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Indeed. The number of ways this tech can be abused seems endless the more one thinks about it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll give it a try as long as they stay away from scat and fart jokes. Life is too short to spend on unfunny stuff like that.
Re: (Score:1)
If you are too voter to get any but that most bottom layer of their jokes, and none of the top ones that, with said contrast, make it so funny, I feel sorry for you.
It's like Dunning-Kruger coming full circle: Any sufficiently smart humor looks dumb again.
Wow... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently they couldn't find any footage for training where his eyebrows actually moved.
decent (Score:2)
Yeah man, zuckerberg really looks like him.. trump i think really needs the correct hair at the beginning.
michael caine too was perfect, because it had the whole picture with voice as well. Like they keep stepping up their fakes game with each skit. Then when they get the trump on again, its like damn....
Re: (Score:1)
Exactly What We Need (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly the sort of thing modern society needs as a response to the feasibility of deepfakes. Parker and Stone are doing us all a tremendous civic service.
When popular media like this streams high-quality fakes, ones that are very clearly fakes, it has the agreeable side effect of keeping the general public aware of the possibility. That's going to greatly reduce the potential impact of maliciously designed fakes.
Re: (Score:2)
Now it's probably still possible to get it.
But as a certain youtuber says "two papers down the line"...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is exactly why the biggest threat are people who call for making it illegal.
You know: So only criminals get to use it, and normal people stay blind to it. What could possibly go wrong...
Re: (Score:2)
This is exactly the sort of thing modern society needs as a response to the feasibility of deepfakes. Parker and Stone are doing us all a tremendous civic service.
When popular media like this streams high-quality fakes, ones that are very clearly fakes, it has the agreeable side effect of keeping the general public aware of the possibility. That's going to greatly reduce the potential impact of maliciously designed fakes.
You speak very confidently of this. I wonder how you might feel when facing our Legal system (which replaced our Justice system) full of 19th-Century educated litiators charging 21st Century rates as you defend yourself against a deepfake. What, $5K in defense costs, and that's before you hire a "deepfake expert" to provide the concrete legal evidence that the surveillance tape capturing you committing a crime, is indeed manipulated? Or would it be closer to $10K? Average people struggle to cover a $400
Re: (Score:2)
This is exactly the sort of thing modern society needs... it has the agreeable side effect of keeping the general public aware of the possibility.
... I wonder how you might feel when facing our Legal system (which replaced our Justice system) full of 19th-Century educated litiators charging 21st Century rates as you defend yourself against a deepfake. ...
I agree that's a real problem, but it's orthogonal to Parker and Stone's work, which (assuming they are not creating DF tools of their own) doesn't make attempts to frame people any easier.
Re: (Score:2)
...until we stop believing our own ears, eyes, nose, taste buds and everything else except that what tells us things we want to hear. Because all kinds of evidence can be tampered with or be straight out fakes. I agree with you, but I don't like where this is going...
Obligatory xkcd to lighten up the mood a bit:
https://xkcd.com/331/ [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Even better, they mixed in higher quality fakes with low quality ones. The Mark Zuckerberg fake was so terrible it was creepy and immediately recognizable as fake. But the Michael Caine one had great voice and mannerism imitations and lighting/angles good enough to make the fakeness quite subtle.
The genie is out of the bottle and is never going back in. Better to show exactly what it's capable of than try to deny its existence.
Re: (Score:1)
No Obama deepfakes? (Score:1, Insightful)
Or would that be racist?
Re: No Obama deepfakes? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Or they're just saving him for later. Parker and Stone won't spare anyone or anything from ridicule.
Re: (Score:2)
Well there was that rodeo clown that got a life time ban from his... 'sport' for wearing an Obama mask. He had done it for every other president when they were in office. But he did it with Obama and he had to go. And there is also those sociopaths that think you're wearing 'digital black face' if you use a black person in a meme without being black yourself. Although in the later case the makers of South Park might get by with that if they use a black member of staff to work on it.
The point is that yo
Re: (Score:2)
Painful (Score:2)
That just to painful to keep watching. Think I may it possibly 4 minutes into it. Guess I'm not the target audience but South Park, Rick and Morty, and Futurama are all my thing, so clearly I like dumb comedy.
Re: (Score:2)
At least skip forward to the Jared Kushner bit at 11:20. Hilarious.
Holocaust denial - so not funny (Score:2)
Especially given the fact his paternal grandparents, Reichel and Joseph Kushner, were Holocaust survivors who came to the U.S. in 1949 from Navahrudak, now in Belarus.
I actually thought it was funny right up until that point. Then it became painful to watch.
Re:Painful (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Painful (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
No, you like pseudo-smart comedy. R&M being a textbook example. Letting dumb people feel smug as of they were smart. Like the iDevices of shows.
You don't get the higher layers of Matt & Trey's comedy so you only see the silly lower ones.
Like somebody the other side of four walls going "This song is only 'boom boom boom'!".
As a big South Park fan, I didn't like it (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"The "deep faking" may be a decent display of current technology, but in the end a conventional double prepped by a makeup artist would be as "convincing" or even more convincing."
You're aware that this is /. and not the 'MakeUp Artist Magazine'
Re: (Score:2)
So you're arguing that they should do away with the key concept of the show, the one thing that sets it apart from other shows. Makes sense.
Re: (Score:1)
No, he's arguing that the core concept isn't great, making, yes, the show pointless.
I don't full agree, but he's got a partial point.
As in: If it wants to survive, it needa to be more than e novelty. This will get old very damn fast, and then it's nothing special apart from that anymore.
I think the novelty is worth this instalment, and people clearly demand more.
But if you actually give them more, all you can do, is disappoint.
Re: (Score:2)
...The "deep faking" may be a decent display of current technology, but in the end a conventional double prepped by a makeup artist would be as "convincing" or even more convincing.
OK, get real for a moment. Carry plays a damn good Biden, but even Mr. Rubberface can't pull off what deepfakes can. And this isn't going to be just a "decent" display of technology even a year from now, given how far this has already come in a VERY short amount of time. Won't be long before a 12-year old creates fake footage putting people in criminal acts on a fucking iPad in an hour, because boredom.
No? We've put plenty of people in jail with little more than a grainy shitty surveillance tape. Real
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't find this as funny as the Pandemic Special either, and in terms of technology I think you're onto something.
To me the reason the deepfakes aren't always convincing is that the rest of the person outside of the face usually doesn't look right. The technology does a good job of overlaying the eyes and mouth but subtle differences of the hair, head, neck or body shape/language destroy the effect immediately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
This isn't exactly that case but the first time i watched this
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The "deep faking" may be a decent display of current technology, but in the end a conventional double prepped by a makeup artist would be as "convincing" or even more convincing.
No it wouldn't. You got some of that vagina poop in your eyes?
I'm not a fan (Score:2)
A bit late (Score:1)
Either this show is quite late to the game, or it won't be allowed to air in the US after Trump goes Chavez on the media in his 2nd term.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
God you’re an idiot.
1. Trump will stand down if he loses, which he won’t.
2. The only ones calling for a coup are you and the rest of the hysterical leftists.
3. The analogy is PINOCHET you stupid twit. Trump would be like PINOCHET. Unless your Chavez analogy is a Freudian slip on your part.
Re:A bit late (Score:4, Informative)
1. Trump will fight this election tooth and nail through the courts and every semi-legitimate option available to him, and when he's out of those, there's maybe a 50/50 chance he'll stand down vs. calling on the army his son called for and making a clearly illegitimate power grab. He will certainly lose the popular vote and will more likely lose the electoral college too. After years of him refusing to promise a peaceful transfer of power, sowing doubts about the election, and militia-building, the motives of anyone who asserts that he will stand down should be suspect.
2. You must be referring to the recent spraypaintings, which are clearly a false flag aimed at discouraging a right-winger's strawman idea of a leftist from voting.
3. Pinochet can work too, but I prefer to compare Trump's authoritarianism to Chavez's, because the right hates Chavez so much, and because the parallels are clear and recent.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Thank you for this great example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
My students will love it.
Re: (Score:3)
Bet you a Dollar Trump declares victory this evening, before the result is known.
Re: (Score:2)
In most states the deadline to receive ballots is today, Nov.3
If he gets enough electoral college votes to win despite not having the official tally from the few states that extend past that deadline, then yes, the outcome can be determined.
But the point of your message was to imply that Trump who didn't leverage the Covid pandemic to claw more power to himself was going to unilaterally declare himself the winner despite the official tally. This can at best be described as FUD from a foreign troll.
Re:A bit late (Score:5, Insightful)
God youâ(TM)re an idiot.
1. Trump will stand down if he loses, which he wonâ(TM)t.
2. The only ones calling for a coup are you and the rest of the hysterical leftists.
3. The analogy is PINOCHET you stupid twit. Trump would be like PINOCHET. Unless your Chavez analogy is a Freudian slip on your part.
Trump has been casting doubts on the election at every opportunity. Spoon-feeding his followers that the only way "they" are going to loose is by election rigging. Disparaging mail-in voting as prone to fraud at every opportunity (even though he himself has used it plenty in the past - guess it was OK back then). Whether you're Republican or Democrat, if you've been following the news you should know that Donald Trump is doing his best to cloud this election in Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, hurting the democratic process and the unity of the country.
So no, it's not the "hysterical leftists" who are calling for coups, but the Trump administration who seems to be prepping their followers for a revolt in case he is not reelected.
Any sane person who respects the US constitution, the democratic system and the freedoms and liberties that go with it should be outraged at how the current president is doing all in his power to sow distrust in the democratic process.
Re: (Score:2)
Any sane person should be wary of Democrats in charge of the democratic process, saying "trust us". They cheat in their primaries, cheat at debates, then hire lawyers to say you never had a right not to be cheated.
Then they get handed a situation where states are using mail in ballots for the first time, separating living bodies from the polls and replacing them with only a piece of paper with a signature. There's ballot harvesters on tape laying out their entire process for how they can be the deciding fac
Re: (Score:2)
Oh and before you trigger happy leftist mods mark me troll, have this little gem:
"It's a very easy thing for Republicans to say they're bussing people in," Foval says in the video. [realclearpolitics.com] "Well you know what? We've been bussing people in to deal with you fuckin' assholes for fifty years and we're not going to stop now. We're just going to find a different way to do it."
Re: (Score:2)
The video you're referring to alleging Democratic voter fraud by busing people around is from "Project Veritas".
You might want to read up on them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.sourcewatch.org/in... [sourcewatch.org]
https://www.aft.org/sites/defa... [aft.org]
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty", are words that have never been more true than now.
Agreed.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes I'm fully aware of the efforts made to discredit Project Veritas. This happens irregardless of the actual content they release that is produced by their uncover journalism, as if they inserted the words coming out of the mouths of the subjects of their investigations.
But unless they have mastered the art of deep fakes themselves, I see no reason to dismiss them outright. Rather, the portions where the context is fully apparent and clear should be considered in order to come to your own conclusions.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes I'm fully aware of the efforts made to discredit Project Veritas
Well my friend, this is your problem right there.
Some right-wing commentator like Rush Limbaugh says that climate change is a hoax, and you choose to believe him, despite the vast amount of evidence easily found on the Internet, by the likes of NASA, AAAS, EPA and the International climate scientists all over the world. And still, you choose to believe Rush, even though he's not even an expert on the subject.
Donald Trump says Corona Virus is not anything serious, that it will go away on its own. That the wo
Re: (Score:2)
So if I choose to evaluate source material that Project Veritas presents, undercover recordings of candid conversations with various pundits, then that means I'm automatically in complete lockstep with everything Trump says and all right wing-talking points. That's one way to poison the well, I suppose.
You see, my leg is still wet from the last time leftists and Dems have pissed on it and told me it's raining, so forgive me if that appeal of authority to sources that may be allied with the very kind of targ
What could possibly go wrong?!?! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm not your guy, pal!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But I thought you loved me!!
*runs away, crying*
Re: (Score:2)
Always has been and always will be.
Respect my authoratie, bitch.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Only if you owned a brain,.dear ... voter.
Re: (Score:2)
Only if you owned a brain,.dear ... voter.
Not all voters are smart, this is true.
The same cannot be said for social media, in case you were still wondering where the problem of mass stupidity truly lies. Addiction, can be blinding.
Nice to see Julie Andrews back! (Score:2)
bordering on illegal (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It does seem to be a form of libel, if the intent is for the viewer to believe that it is actual speech by the subject. Libel and slander of course is not protected by the first amendment right to free speech for good reason.
Re: bordering on illegal (Score:2)
Interesting results. (Score:2)
I'm not sure if its the deepfake source material or the actual actions but the deepfake of Trump looks absolutely on point including a wide range of facial expressions. By comparison the deepfake of Zuckerberg fails to express in a way that matches the movement or voice of the underlying character.
I wonder if it was a lack of material from Zuckerberg to train the deepfake or an inherent problem with deepfakes giving the "TV salesman" expressions. Though given the scene with Trump coughing it looks like the
Like always - PASS (Score:1)
damn, that's impressive (Score:2)