The Deepfakes thread

[DarthDementous 1,059]

12 hours ago, The Big Man said:

 

The answer is in your question. The luddite VFX houses are terrified of becoming obsolete, so it's in their best interests to stymie the adoption of this tech.

I’m sorry, VFX houses being ‘luddites’?

 

That’s one of the most ludicrous things I’ve ever heard, companies like ILM and Weta have consistently been on the very forefront of new technology, even inventing some of it for themselves.

 

If, and this is a very big if, deepfake technology isn’t being used, because digital humans is such a multi layered process, then it’s because it’s not compatible with their workflow or their goals

 

Deepfakes are far from perfect, especially in long term application. There’s noticeable artefacting, particularly when the face is being covered, and an overall ‘flat’ look, with one of the more egregious things being the inability to properly recreate a mouth (the teeth usually end up mirrored).

 

When you’re using machine learning there’s a lot less authorship because you’re leaving it up to the machine to figure it out while you adjust the neural network with limited parameters, and feeding in different inputs and outputs. Digital artists, especially those under tight constraints, are not fond of leaving a large part of their product up to a black box system, which is another reason the deepfake process may be incompatible with the development constraints.

 

TLDR There’s lots of potential reasons for why we aren’t seeing widespread adoption right now, and people are overselling the technology due to a lack of technical understanding

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

The younger Jeff Bridges waxy CGI always looked bad

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Of course people are embracing the one that looks better. But oh no, us ignorant plebs need to be educated that the official versions are actually better.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

13 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

Of course people are embracing the one that looks better. But oh no, us ignorant plebs need to be educated that the official versions are actually better.

‘Looks better’ is about as vague as you could possibly get, entirely depends on the goals and context of the project

 

The plebs (your words, not mine) need to actually understand what they’re talking about before they start making wide baseless assumptions about why VFX companies aren’t adopting this ‘clearly superior’ technology

 

If someone can actually provide a fair and direct comparison between deepfakes being used and full CGI reconstruction, then by all means say one is better than the other - but even then, actually try and give the benefit of the doubt to the people at the top of their game and their industry

 

Even if one technique gives better results, if it can’t be integrated into the large scale production process then it’s useless

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

The results I've seen from Deep Fake still look better than those hideous full CGI reconstructions that the VFX houses are gung-ho about protecting. Fuck if I'm ever gonna do a full nerdy breakdown detailing why it looks better, it just does. And many other people would agree. That's Hollyweird's problem if they can't get their shit together.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

10 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

The results I've seen from Deep Fake still look better than those hideous full CGI reconstructions that the VFX houses are gung-ho about protecting. Fuck if I'm ever gonna do a full nerdy breakdown detailing why it looks better, it just does. And many other people would agree. That's Hollyweird's problem if they can't get their shit together.

How are those fair comparisons? It’s not about being nerdy it’s about not being an idiot. You really are a shining example of the Dunning Krueger effect, jfc

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

It's as if you feel threatened by the tech somehow... 🤔

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Darth Demented

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Diane Kruger does have an effect on me.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

12 minutes ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

Darth Demented

Definitely haven’t heard that one before.

 

16 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

It's as if you feel threatened by the tech somehow... 🤔

Why would I be threatened? I’m not in the film industry. Sorry to break that convenient narrative you tried to wrap up a complex issue in.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

You seem to be getting irrationally upset over some phoney computer graphics effects

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

The livelihoods of hundreds, maybe thousands of computer VFX animators are at stake!

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I simply don't understand this luddite attitude

[DarthDementous 1,059]

I’m rationally annoyed at the inexplicable widespread ignorance towards this particular topic

 

If you had particular knowledge of something, or at the very least valued trying to understand something before jumping to conclusions - would you not be annoyed at persistently seeing people not bothering to understand it and giving such well thought out reasoning as ‘it just is’?

 

Its the repetitiveness that gets to me, like people can only focus on the result and not the process

 

I think it’s an interesting topic and more than worth discussion, but I just ask for more than grabbing a random deepfake someone did and a random CGI human (especially if it’s before the development of deepfakes) and declaring one looks better and that VFX companies should be using that tech instead

 

To this day I still haven’t seen an equivalent comparison, and I would love to be provided with one because I want to compare the tech in an isolated way to better identify pros and cons

 

It is deeply ironic that you call this a Luddite attitude considering your entire position is formed from what defines that attitude, a refusal to understand technology.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Nobody in the real world cares about processes. They care about results. And so far, with little effort, Deep Fake has outclassed Hollyweird's cartoon human faces that I'm sure they laboured over for ages, but again, nobody cares how much work you put into something. Deep Fake is obviously smarter tech.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

It's not the people in the 'real world' that decide what tech to use lmfao

If you're making an argument for the companies to adopt the technology you can't appeal to the general public because they're not the ones that will be using the technology. It's like handing someone a vacuum cleaner and saying 'this will barely work for you and will be incredibly difficult to use and more inefficient than most vacuum brands - but, everyone who sees how clean your house is will think it's amazing!'

At no point did I make the argument that you should use a piece of tech over another because it requires 'more effort'. That's the exact opposite of what I'm arguing

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

19 minutes ago, DarthDementous said:

At no point did I make the argument that you should use a piece of tech over another because it requires 'more effort'. That's the exact opposite of what I'm arguing

 

Well be more clear next time! Your above posts have the air of neophobic panic that a grassroots tech developed by nobodies on the internet gets a more enthusiastic response than the outdated Hollyweird methods.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

10 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

 

Well be more clear next time! Your above posts have the air of neophobic panic that a grassroots tech developed by nobodies on the internet gets a more enthusiastic response than the outdated Hollyweird methods.

That's not my fault when from the start you're going into this with the assumption that the only reason a VFX company doesn't want to use this technology is because they're luddites. Naturally, any criticism towards the deepfake technology as a result gets put into that box, even if it doesn't fit

The less effort something takes the better, the thing that concerns me is the lack of control that comes as a result. That's always one of the trade-offs with machine learning, let the computer figure it out but have no idea how it actually did it - black box.

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Well im sure deepfake tech can be improved by SFX companies to mend its rough edges, to make it Silver screen compatible.

 

But using money and resources to detailedly replicate a CGI face seems today like a waste, when they could be used to generate or improve the quality of scenery or vehicles or things like that.

[Quintus 5,399]

29 minutes ago, Luke Skywalker said:

Well im sure deepfake tech can be improved by SFX companies to mend its rough edges, to make it Silver screen compatible.

 

But using money and resources to detailedly replicate a CGI face seems today like a waste, when they could be used to generate or improve the quality of scenery or vehicles or things like that.

 

A voice of common sense. 

[DarthDementous 1,059]

1 hour ago, Luke Skywalker said:

Well im sure deepfake tech can be improved by SFX companies to mend its rough edges, to make it Silver screen compatible.

 

But using money and resources to detailedly replicate a CGI face seems today like a waste, when they could be used to generate or improve the quality of scenery or vehicles or things like that.

That would be a question of directing and the script rather than the technology - but I’ll quickly comment on integrating both. Yes, on paper that sounds possible, in fact I’m pretty sure ILM at least is doing it (a certain cameo recently gave that impression), but again it would entirely depend on the pipeline. Say for example if you started with a lookalike, deep-faked them, you would be left with the issue of artefacting and mouth reconstruction. Whether that can be done in a reasonable manner without requiring a full facial reconstruction is the question, I can easily see why that couldn’t work but don’t know for sure

 

I would agree that due to a lack of limitations or overconfidence in the technology, there are lots of CGI recreations have been thoroughly inappropriate and or a massive resources sink where time and effort should’ve been invested elsewhere.
 

Actually scratch that, there’s not a single instance I can think of where I thought it was necessary. I’d rather people be forced to come up with something new as opposed to rather literally dredging up the past.

[Quintus 5,399]

I mean, I've made no secret of my wish that Indy 5 just use Ford's younger self and deepfake that data onto his old (but still quite capable) geezer performance. 

 

But if they instead announced they intended to use ILM to digitally de-age him with traditional CG technics, I'd write that film off now. 

 

That's where my faith is with CG heads on real bodies. 

[Bayesian 1,363]

We also shouldn’t forget that the VFX-house vs. YT-nobody comparisons aren’t always fair ones. For ex., Tron Legacy came out a decade ago; anybody deepfaking Jeff bridges with current tech is using an unfair advantage. We might also consider that the YT nobody doing an improved deepfake over a contemporary VFX product may have had the luxury of not being on a timetable and could have tweaked the ML algorithm over and over until the final product was better than the original. 
 

It’s all moot, either way. Deepfake tech is a terrible idea and it needs to be destroyed.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

1 minute ago, Bayesian said:

 It’s all moot, either way. Deepfake tech is a terrible idea and it needs to be destroyed.

 

Luddite neophobe!

[Bayesian 1,363]

5 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

 

Luddite neophobe!

On this one, abso-frickin-lutely. We mustn’t defend or promote this awful technology, whose goal or endgame is to make it impossible for us to believe anything we see. 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

18 minutes ago, Bayesian said:

On this one, abso-frickin-lutely. We mustn’t defend or promote this awful technology, whose goal or endgame is to make it impossible for us to believe anything we see. 

 

Suspension of disbelief!

 

And your passionate opposition to the tech is very much an admission that it's really that good.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

I imagine Darth Dementia with his Twitterian ranting to be some corporate shill for ILM and Weta who resembles Giovani Ribisi.

[Quintus 5,399]

3 hours ago, The Big Man said:

 

 

And your passionate opposition to the tech is very much an admission that it's really that good.

 

It is actually. But Bayesian clearly doesn't even want this dialogue to exist in the first place, as if to deny deepfake tech is a thing now might somehow make it go away. 

[Bayesian 1,363]

2 hours ago, Quintus said:

 

It is actually. But Bayesian clearly doesn't even want this dialogue to exist in the first place, as if to deny deepfake tech is a thing now might somehow make it go away. 

Yeah, I know it’s likely not going away, unfortunately. I guess I’m just hoping there might be at least a few other folks here who agree about the problem. (I got a couple likes earlier today; that’s a promising sign!)

[Quintus 5,399]

That makes three of you at least, good luck! 

[DarthDementous 1,059]

8 hours ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

I imagine Darth Dementia with his Twitterian ranting to be some corporate shill for ILM and Weta who resembles Giovani Ribisi.

Ironically that post right there is exactly the kind of nonsense I’d expect to see on Twitter

 

Short, vapid, infantile.

8 hours ago, The Big Man said:

 

Suspension of disbelief!

 

And your passionate opposition to the tech is very much an admission that it's really that good.

That he’s concerned about the future end goal more than anything indicates that it’s an admission it could be really good, not that it currently is

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

25 minutes ago, DarthDementous said:

Ironically that post right there is exactly the kind of nonsense I’d expect to see on Twitter

 

Short, vapid, infantile.

 

Ohhh touched a nerve!

[DarthDementous 1,059]

Still waiting for either of you to contribute something meaningful to this topic beyond petty snipes

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Ya gotta lighten up!

[DarthDementous 1,059]

To put my money where my mouth is, I came across this interesting article on the subject: https://deepfakenow.com/hollywood-deepfake-movies/

 

Some of the points are...dubious, such as when they make the claim that the deep fake process would take longer to render than full CGI on render farms which just doesn’t add up at all - but it raises some valid points too

 

I should also point out, that much of the same ethical concerns and fear towards faking technology were made during the advent of Adobe Photoshop, and now it has become normalised in society. Whether you consider that good or not is another question, but it’s something to think about in terms of future integration

Also, in classic human style, 99% of deepfake videos from Sep 2019 to March 2020 are...pornographic, so the ‘fake news’ pandemic at least for now is extremely small comparatively

 

Last thing I’ll close out on is a quote from someone with 27 years as a VFX specialist. He brings up a point I didn’t consider before, which is the ability to respond to directorial feedback:

Quote

Deep Fakes at this point in time are highly uncontrollable, so they don’t work in production situations where you have to respond to notes. Deepfakes that you see online don’t hold up at production level resolution. And deepfakes are only as good as the material that you can feed the AI algorithms.

 

The deepfakes for Tron Legacy, The Irishman, Rogue One, etc are not a proof of concept because the people who did them 1) were not using the raw 4K footage, and 2) they are doing a deepfake solve on something that tons of artists had already put in months of work into to get it to 90–95% of the way there, and 3) they didn’t have to respond to director’s feedback. Scorsese didn’t want a 25 year old version of Travis Bickle, he wanted a 25-year old version of Frank Sheeran, and 4) they were posting the results onto YouTube in a compressed format.

 

The VFX studios have been looking into this method for a while and have deemed it not production ready… yet. Some dude in his basement hasn’t somehow stumbled across a magic bullet that the computer science guys at ILM, Weta, Digital Domain, etc, haven’t tried yet.

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

All I'm seeing in that quote are excuses.

 

And how does he know deepfake was developed in a basement?

[DarthDementous 1,059]

13 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

All I'm seeing in that quote are excuses.

 

And how does he know deepfake was developed in a basement?

Because it was, the first deepfake tech as we know it was used to create a porn video (go figure) where Gal Gadot was deep-faked onto a pornstar, uploaded by a user on Reddit named u/Deepfake (this is also where the name was coined). This was before any public-facing software was available, it was made using machine learning libraries like tensor-flow, and it wasn't until later that it was put into a more user-friendly package by other users and open-source collaboration. Having used tensorflow myself, it requires a lot of specialised programming knowledge and understanding of neural networks, it's pretty much just pure code with keras serving as a somewhat user-friendly API to streamline the process. These libraries themselves are relatively new as well, and designed to integrate with GPUs that support computing complex and time-intensive calculations on the GPU (which, if parallelised, is much faster than on the CPU). I could be wrong, but I believe the reason we're only just now seeing a surge in machine learning technology is because of our newfound ability to process data quicker than ever on our computers. Another reason it's really starting to take off now is because large tech companies like Google have developed an interest in it, and whenever that happens we tend to see quite exponential advancement thanks to all the resources and experience behind the endeavours.

As of now there's quite a few solutions that don't require any prior training or specialisation to use, but in the very beginning it was all very bespoke

You claim they're just excuses, but are you able to respond to literally any of the points of criticism he brought up?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

No, I meant how does he know it was made in an actual basement? Could have been someone's main living room for all we know.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

It doesn't matter whether or not it was developed in a basement. It looks really good to many of us who also think that there are few examples of good looking computerized humans in movies. Why this seems to offend Darth Defendous is anyone's guess. He can call us "infantile", but the majority of the entertainment this technology is being utilized for is in fact infantile. Star Wars, Tron, Marvel etc.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

 

1 hour ago, Gruesome Son of a Bitch said:

It doesn't matter whether or not it was developed in a basement. It looks really good to many of us who also think that there are few examples of good looking computerized humans in movies. Why this seems to offend Darth Defendous is anyone's guess. He can call us "infantile", but the majority of the entertainment this technology is being utilized for is in fact infantile. Star Wars, Tron, Marvel etc.

I'm calling you infantile for your pathetic name-calling in absence of any point. Lord knows how long it took for you to come up with that real zinger.

We need to start being real clear here. I'm talking about the adoption of deepfake technology by VFX companies, you're talking about what the consumer thinks looks better. These are completely separate things.
 

2 hours ago, The Big Man said:

No, I meant how does he know it was made in an actual basement? Could have been someone's main living room for all we know.

Ah yes, facetiousness certainly doesn't get old, especially when it's all the person does.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Maybe we can DeepFake you as a nicer person!

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Maybe we can Deepfake him as someone who isn't a pretentious twit who posts paragraphs blathering on and on like a nut. 

[DarthDementous 1,059]

Look, I apologise. This is going nowhere because I just keep responding with insults. I should lighten up, it’s really not a topic worth getting worked up over. It’s interesting but fuck man what is the point of talking when everyone is pissed off? No one would want to listen to anyone anyway

 

I should’ve taken a step back before responding to let my head clear so I could’ve returned with tact and humility rather than snark and evangelism

 

At any rate, I would like to know your guy’s thoughts on whether right now with where the technology is at, it would be viable for VFX companies to adopt deep fake technology?

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

They can use and fix it with a computer.

[Thor 7,493]

I certainly have great respect for the big VFX companies and what they've accomplished, especially in terms of creating detailed environments. I even interviewed WETA technology boss Sebastian Sylwan about these things 8 years ago. You can read it here (scroll past the Norwegian intro to get to the English interview):

 

https://montages.no/2012/05/intervju-med-sebastian-sylwan-fra-weta-digital/

 

Of course, this was way before deep fake, and a lot has happened in 8 years. But going just by pure observation, there's no question that these amateur deep fake efforts are superior to the big companies. So the question is WHY they don't adopt it. I have no answers to this, I'm just curious about it. Someone earlier mentioned that it has to do with "buying" an actor's likeness. Is that true? Surely, big film companies could afford it if they wanted? Or is it an ethical thing? I've tried to follow the discussion in this thread, but not quite sure I've seen any answers to these questions.

[DarthDementous 1,059]

3 hours ago, Thor said:

I certainly have great respect for the big VFX companies and what they've accomplished, especially in terms of creating detailed environments. I even interviewed WETA technology boss Sebastian Sylwan about these things 8 years ago. You can read it here (scroll past the Norwegian intro to get to the English interview):

 

https://montages.no/2012/05/intervju-med-sebastian-sylwan-fra-weta-digital/

 

Of course, this was way before deep fake, and a lot has happened in 8 years. But going just by pure observation, there's no question that these amateur deep fake efforts are superior to the big companies. So the question is WHY they don't adopt it. I have no answers to this, I'm just curious about it. Someone earlier mentioned that it has to do with "buying" an actor's likeness. Is that true? Surely, big film companies could afford it if they wanted? Or is it an ethical thing? I've tried to follow the discussion in this thread, but not quite sure I've seen any answers to these questions.

In my limited research and personal experience I’ve come to the conclusion that the reasons are more technical than ethical. It would be great if you could interview a VFX expert again to get a modern take on all this though!

 

I believe that VFX companies have been looking at the tech but they’re not ready to integrate it because it’s not production ready. It’s able to work in freelance YouTube videos but on a large scale production it lacks the key characteristics of flexibility, quality in every frame as per the standards of a large production, and integration with current CGI human pipelines.
 

I’m happy to elaborate on either of these if you wish 

 

 

[Quintus 5,399]

58 minutes ago, DarthDementous said:

it lacks quality in every frame as per the standards of a large production

 

 

So how come then QC gave a pass to a shit looking Peter Cushing, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker in various Star Wars media? 

 

While we're at it, where was this painstakingly meticulous ethic when the terrible dinosaur stampede got sent out in Jacko's King Kong? 

 

Come on man, stop chattin' shite here. It's unnecessary. 

[Bofur01 245]

Well, these guys think Mando Luke is a deep fake.

 

Tbf, I do see it, it looks nothing like Tarkin or Leia., the smoothness at the edges of the face and the way he never really turns his head do point that way.

 

 

 

[Oomoog the Ecstatic 314]

Honestly, the new Lucas is the best thing that's hit the internet since 1948. His contagious laughter and random opinions on things is priceless 

 

Especially around other celebs, his character stands out beautifully.