#64 Holographic Deep Fakes
There's a dark side to every new technology, whether that's AI, fission, a blade, or a flame. The age of the hologram will be no different. Case in point: holographic deep fakes.
Holographic displays at their best achieve the perfect illusion of life. Whether it's a volumetric video recording of a person or a CG character, the three-dimensional qualities of a holographic reproduction make it feel more real than their 2D counterparts.
Spoiler alert: this might not be all roses.
"Deep fakes are videos that have been constructed to make a person appear to say or do something that they never said or did. With artificial intelligence-based methods for creating deepfakes becoming increasingly sophisticated and accessible, deepfakes are raising a set of challenging policy, technology, and legal issues.
Deepfakes can be used in ways that are highly disturbing. Candidates in a political campaign can be targeted by manipulated videos in which they appear to say things that could harm their chances for election. Deepfakes are also being used to place people in pornographic videos that they in fact had no part in filming." -John Villasenor, Brookings Institute
Simply add "holographic" to this description for an instant Black Mirror episode.
This isn't as far away as you might think. When artist Jay Howse posted the above video of an unbelievably realistic person in his Looking Glass, all of us in the Looking Glass lab were blown away. In a single stroke, it seemed as if Jay had blown past the uncanny valley of holographic humans (ok, creepy vaguely dead-looking humans). It wasn't for a few days until some of us in the team started to realize the full implications of this step. Holographic simulations of real people, with or without their consent and perhaps altered to speak and move in ways the original recorded person never intended, were coming, decades earlier than expected.
It's not yet clear how we can blunt this. But part of the reason we work day and night on ushering in the age of the hologram is because we believe at the earliest stages of a new technology it actually is possible to nudge its course towards more positive outcomes. All those who want to steer away from dystopian futures with us are welcome to join the battle (Write me at smf@lookingglassfactory.com).
**this is part of our “100 Days of Holograms” series, where a few of us in the team at Looking Glass Factory post one new wonderful or weird (or both!) use for the Looking Glass holographic display being conjured around the world each day.
