The first 25 minutes or so of the new film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (a.k.a. Indiana Jones 5) features a de-aged Harrison Ford tangling with Nazis and such. One might argue that some footage of a young Indy is a necessary element for the storyboard – but let’s be honest: It’s probably just an excuse to run amok with emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies.
In this case it’s a Disney-owned, proprietary AI called FRAN (Face Re-Aging Network). The visual effects company, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), used it to good effect in Indy 5. It’s a pretty believable example of movie magic.
But one can’t help but wonder: How long will it be before Hollywood actors and actresses are all out of work?
Why should a studio pay Harrison Ford a whopping $25 million (that’s a bargain rate for Ford, by the way) when they could simply conjure him out of thin air using some computer workstations? Why not use AI to completely cast movies?
Need a strikingly handsome, square-jawed leading actor? How about AI-George? Need a beautiful brunette bombshell? Why not go with AI-Michelle? Oh, you’d rather have AI-Michelle be a blonde with a few tattoos and a skinnier waist? No problem. Presto.
All this may come sooner than we think.
Remember When
It wasn’t so long ago that we all got regular earfuls about the body-dysmorphia-encouraging effects of the wicked airbrush – and its computer-age successor, Photoshop.
What do we think full-blown AI will bring to the table?
Ugh.
We’re already getting our first doses of it. And there’s surely a bigger wave to follow.
Consider Milla Sofia as but one example. Who’s that, you ask?
Milla is a pretty, 19-year old TikTok influencer and fashion model, with over 100,000 social media followers. She’s from Finland, but travels often to exotic locations such as Greece and Bora Bora, where she posts photos of her latest swimsuits and fashion statements – and sometimes grabs a shot with a celebrity. Sofia invites her followers to “Join me on this exhilarating journey as we delve into the captivating fusion of cutting-edge technology and timeless elegance.” But here’s the thing: Milla Sofia is 100% AI-generated.
She’s a goddam fem-bot.
Whoever operates Sofia (I wonder whom that might be . . .), doesn’t even try to cover up the fact that she’s an AI-generated fiction – in fact, they kind of brag about it. In “Sofia’s” words: “I’m always on the grind, learning and evolving through fancy algorithms and data analysis. . . . I’ve got this massive knowledge base programmed into me, keeping me in the loop with the latest fashion trends, industry insights, and all the technological advancements.”
Are we puking yet?
Can you imagine being a kid in today’s world, with all this nonsense swirling about? What a mess.
Loony Tunes
As if all this wasn’t tragic enough, music is under attack as well. Author, Kurt Vonnegut, who once said “Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God,” is lucky to have croaked before AI came trotting along.
We already have AI-concocted tunes making the rounds, mimicking the voices and musical styles of Oasis, Drake, The Weeknd, and many more. Soon we can, no doubt, expect to be hearing “brand new” songs from Elvis and The Beatles.
Oh joy.
I, for one, would gladly live the rest of my life without ever hearing the fake voice of John Lennon over an AI-generated guitar track. But I figure I’m going to get whacked over my head with it at some point in the not-too-distant future.
So much for proof of the existence of God.
Music expert, Rick Beato, recently explored the unintended consequences of AI injecting itself into the popular music scene. He predicts that music companies will soon start making a bulk of their money from AI artists instead of real ones, and that the current owners of music distribution channels (Apple Music, Spotify, etc.) will soon find there’s little use for music production companies such as Universal Music Group (UMG).
He may be correct. It’s similar to the above-described Hollywood working model. Why would a music distribution company want to pay royalties to human artists, when they can simply cook up their own music, willy-nilly, that’s assigned to AI characters/voices?
Furthermore, Beato predicts that people will continue to consume music, just as they do now. He thinks music fans simply won’t care if music happens to be AI-generated.
Again, he may be correct. But I sure hope not. I think it would be a real hoot if most people flat-out reject fake music. I’d like to see another Disco Demolition, directed at AI.
Horse Sense
I was speaking with a farmer earlier today. He told me that whenever he hears someone say “AI” it makes him think of what that means on the farm: Artificial Insemination. I’m sharing this with you so you can have a private Beavis and Butt-Head moment whenever you’re around someone who’s taking themselves too seriously when speaking about AI. Maybe the next time you hear Elon Musk or Bill Gates or some other clown give a speech about the topic you can have yourself a little chuckle.
Then again, maybe AI really is artificial insemination, impregnating human minds with a form of evil that we cannot yet comprehend.
I’ve previously rambled at length about the technocracy-related dangers of AI (insert Beavis chortle, if you wish), so I tried not to ramble about it in the same way here. Instead, I tried to be a bit more personal by containing my examples inside the so-called arts – movies, social media space, and popular music.
In my humble opinion, the arts are meant to serve as nourishment for the soul, and perhaps a brief escape from the tyranny of The Man, rather than a gateway to further enslavement. And I worry that AI enables certain abuses of power.
Phil’s Two Cents
Some might disagree with my assessment of AI. I understand. Some might say that artistic fakery and exaggeration have been a staple in the arts for millennia, so what’s the harm? The Egyptians used to paint people with dog and bird heads, for crying out loud. So what? Nobody but the priests took that seriously, right?
I totally agree that artists have been taking liberties for a long, long time. But I would also propose that people can get into serious trouble when the technology of art is such that people can no longer differentiate between fakery and reality.
The Technology Train has already left the station, and it’s picking up speed. But, make no mistake: This is not the same technology train that we’ve been comfortably riding in all these years. This train is different. The AI Train dangerously presents itself as reality rather than a simple means of transport, and it runs on different tracks that may lead to very dangerous places.
The craft of fakery has always been held in the hands of the few, and the few have, unfortunately, historically gotten rather big-headed about it. Don’t take it from me. Leonardo da Vinci, in his notes on painting, said the following:
“The painter can so subdue the minds of men that they will fall in love with a painting that does not represent a real woman. It happened to me that I made a religious painting which was bought by one who so loved it that he wanted to remove the sacred representation so as to be able to kiss it without suspicion. Finally his conscience prevailed over his sighs and lust, but he had to remove the picture from his house. . . . If the painter wishes to see beauties to fall in love with, it is in his power to bring them forth, and if he wants to see monstrous things that frighten or are foolish or laughable or indeed to be pitied, he is their Lord and God.”
If this is what old Leonardo thought, then what might the modern masters of AI technologies be thinking?
How hard would it be to stage a realistic, but bogus alien invasion in order to trick a world population into accepting a New World Order? Or to broadcast “real” footage of a foreign or domestic war that’s not actually happening? Or to conjure up shocking, fake images of worldwide human suffering at the hands of a pandemic? Or to stage a “terrorist event” that’s way more convincing than some sloppily-rendered CGI airplanes striking buildings? Sadly, The Man has already dabbled in all these things and more.
The hands of the artists are the same as they’ve always been. But now those hands are wielding more powerful tools than ever before. It’s the very nature of the advanced technology of AI that makes it dangerous.
We’re not talking about da Vinci’s Mona Lisa here. We’re talking about Milla Sofia and her fiendish offspring.
– “Phil”
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