I can’t see any way this doesn’t end up being sued out of existence by one of the celebrities. Half of me hopes it is. If it hasn’t happened already, it’s only a matter of time before someone uses this for something seriously malicious. Can you imagine how much more havoc this girl[1] could have wreaked if she had access to a version of this? Let alone if some politician decides he wants to take down a rival or stage a coup. Bad things are going to come of this.
EDIT:
The only way I can see avoiding catastrophe with this is if it's legislated properly and someone develops some kind of deep fake detection technology that gets baked in to the majority of video playback software. Presumably that means Apple or Google need to be implementing and pushing for it to get the coverage required. I have no idea how this would work in practice or even how technically feasible it is. Perhaps a pop up goes off or a warning in the browser like when you're about to go to a site with dodgy certificates. Or a red dot starts flashing somewhere when it detects something.
All of this has its own set of problems though. At best, you end up with a chicken and egg scenario with hackers constantly trying to beat the system. At worst, you've got a centralised authority determining what is and isn't a true video which could end up being equally chilling if they decide that the truth is whatever they say it is.
If it is sued out of existence, where do you draw the line? Parody of celebrities have been done for a very long time, it just haven't been this realistic. But as long as you make it clear it's fake (like putting disclaimers before/after/during the show), shouldn't they be in the clear?
South Park have been doing celebrity parodies since episode 0 (The Spirit of Christmas), but it is very clear it's parody, so they are safe. But too realistic depictions might not be safe. Where does the line go in that case?
First thought is that the intent should be taken into consideration. Are you doing it in order to do something that is generally illegal, (like defamation of someones character, staging a coup and so on) or just for the sake of comedy/parody?
The problem is the realism aspect. Look at how often comedic intent is misinterpreted both on the internet and real life. You could end up causing real damage to a person's reputation through this, especially if the video clips are taken out of context which is something that frequently happens already.
Direct observation is the best tool we've got as humans for determining the truth. We augment with tools, but even reading the output of those tools is done with our eyes. We need to be able to trust what we're seeing.
Im not at all sure why (I've not seen the show or any clips) but it looks deeply deeply unfunny to me.
But I think also that in the future actually funny versions would occur. Maybe it's the obsession with novelty and celebrity which makes it so nauseous to me?
EDIT:
The only way I can see avoiding catastrophe with this is if it's legislated properly and someone develops some kind of deep fake detection technology that gets baked in to the majority of video playback software. Presumably that means Apple or Google need to be implementing and pushing for it to get the coverage required. I have no idea how this would work in practice or even how technically feasible it is. Perhaps a pop up goes off or a warning in the browser like when you're about to go to a site with dodgy certificates. Or a red dot starts flashing somewhere when it detects something.
All of this has its own set of problems though. At best, you end up with a chicken and egg scenario with hackers constantly trying to beat the system. At worst, you've got a centralised authority determining what is and isn't a true video which could end up being equally chilling if they decide that the truth is whatever they say it is.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/04/how-eleanor-...