Mental Health and Self Care

 Fake Videos of Real People or Real Videos of Fake People? 

If you could choose anyone, dead or alive, to have a conversation with, who would it be? Would you choose a famous philosopher or your great grandmother? Supasorn Suwajanakorn has made this more than just a question. Throughout, Fake Videos of Real People -- and how to spot them, Suwajanakorn talks about the reality of being able to conversate virtually with anyone starting with just a few pictures. 

This TEDtalk breaks down the research of Supasorn Suwajanakorn, it is not too in depth but just enough to understand what he is trying to do. He has come up with a way to make fake videos of real people. This project started out because he wanted to reserve our last chance for learning about the Holocaust through its survivors. The project itself is quite complex but to simplify it he takes hundreds of pictures of anyone, dead or alive, and he creates their face. He figures out the wrinkles in their forehead to the creases in the corners of their eyes. He takes all those little unique details to make the video look as realistic as possible. In the end there is a video of someone, whomever they have chosen, and it looks real as if the person is right there speaking in front of you. 

Screen grab from the TEDtalk  Fake Videos of Real People

This project itself is relevant for everyone and honestly opens so many doors, good and bad. I think that is the point of this TEDtalk, to keep people in the know of what is going on around them. In this day in age it is so easy to manipulate people by providing false information, i.e., fake videos of real people.  This TEDtalk not only points that out but also proves how easy it is for us to believe something is real. At the beginning of the video he has a clip of Barack Obama saying something and he asks, “Which Barack is real?”

At just a glance I could not point any of them out but as he broke down the process of making these fake videos you could notice the robotics of the video.

Suwajanakorn had a point for this project and it was to preserve our last chance for learning about the Holocaust through the survivors. Honestly the idea of this project to learn things from the source themselves is amazing. It is obvious Suwajankorn believes in his work, and is passionate about it so he knows the consequences of creating something like this. With that being said he has become part of a corporation that does opposite of his research. This corporation is flagging the fake videos or pictures, helping us be aware even though once the damage is done there is no undoing it.  

This video proves that not all videos we see on the internet are full of truth. Shocker, I know but that being said this could be something amazing. The idea that we could learn about the stars in the sky straight from the people who discovered them or to hear our loved ones who may no longer be with us give us sage advice. There are downsides to this project especially with the technology in todays society but just as there are downsides there are advantages. The amount of good that could come from a project like this is simply amazing. So if you could choose anyone, dead or alive, who would you choose?