WARNING: This article may cause irritation or agitation of the forehead due to hitting it or rubbing it with your palm.
We live in an age of AI. We’re rapidly getting to the point where it will be impossible to believe anything you see, even on video. We’ve been through this before with still images, when Photoshop became common in the 1990s. The world didn’t end then, and at least I hope that the rise in deepfake technology will not cause the world to end now. If we can all believe that things will be ok, it gives us the ability to lean back and laugh at some of the ways the technology is being used.
Like, for example, this YouTuber
YouTuber “There I Ruined It” has been using AI voice generation and the latest generation of audio editing software to create convincing, yet hilarious videos for a while now. Take for example this video of Jack Nicholson singing his famous speech from A Few Good Men: (obviously, there’s some mild language here.)
This YouTuber doesn’t stop there. They have created whole songs like this one:
This is a completely original construction that doesn’t seem to have any live human performances in it. I mean, the YouTuber themselves is performing the instruments in some way, and has orchestrated the thing, but it seems that the voice is 100% AI based on Luke Bryan’s voice. Whether or not you like country music or you think that it all sounds the same, there’s still something to chuckle at here. There’s a lot of other stuff there too, such as reimaginings of older songs in completely different styles.
Is this the end of civilization as we know it, or just something funny?
Parodies have been around, probably forever. We certainly have evidence of novelty songs going back 100 years. We have political cartoons that go back close to 200 years. I can’t speak for people in the mid-1800s but they probably laughed at this stuff instead of being worried about it. But, even with that I bet that some folks worried that political cartoons would be interpreted as facts. Our forefathers were a lot more naive when it came to media. That’s not surprising, considering how little of it there was back then.
Of course we have to be aware of this technology and how it can be used. You hear practically every week of some AI tech being used to change minds or misrepresent someone. I’ve seen some very convincing AI generation of bitter enemies baking cookies together. You probably have too. And, with this being an election year there’s a lot of fear. People are worried about AI being used to change the outcome of elections.
With all of that, it might seem like a good idea to pump the brakes on all this tech. It doesn’t matter if it’s just silly songs or real attempts at regime change. But, experts tell us that we’re past the point where that could work. The best thing to do is be aware of what AI fake technology can do. You should learn to be skeptical, and do more research.
But that’s a fairly serious topic and not one for this blog. It’s certainly not a “Fun Friday.” So, here’s something in the interest of ending this article on a happy note. I present to you one more video from “There I Ruined It” —
This one’s a straight mashup, and it’s hilarious. Nothing to worry about here.
