manipulated facial images – moving images most of them – synced to realistic audio and shared widely everywhere on social media: promise or peril? well if it is van gogh style art generated by a machine or elon musk looking like nicholas cage …

… or arnold turning stallone in “terminator” …

… it may be seen as just a  harmless prank, but when major news outlets or dare i say trusted politicians see media of themselves saying things that they never said – then so called “deep learning” tech has become just another weaponized tool to fight the info wars of our time…

sarah darer littman has written a ya novel and her “deepfake”[out in october] is situated among competitive high school students whose world is shaken by the appearance of a [spoiler alert: fake] video where a girl alleges a serious crime committed by her boyfriend.

chaos unfolds…

enjoy the conversation [and stay media literate!!!]:

 

and now after listening please read on for the truth dear listener:

• the original live stream:

• the post-show hangout conversation:

• sarah’s books get issued with study guides which is very cool: focuses teacher and reader in a school context. little did i know that this is an effort not usually paid for by the publisher ….

• sarah visited the virtual realm before but her embodiment looked quite different …. [also no audience in sansar!]

• my dad’s alma mater, the technical university of munich is part of the “face forensics” effort to combat deepfakes:

• the company synthesia made david beckham speak in different languages ….

• video reports can be automated with deep learning ai …. [in corporate media i’d stipulate they been automated for a few decades already …]

• what else is going on in our “fake” world of second life? well: some immersive art is coming soon in the weekly destination guide series:

• next week? larry niven, a living legend of scifi …..

• and to end on a somewhat depressing note [since we addressed this in the post-game in re sarah’s new book about youth radicalized online and moving offline to act on it]:

the drax files radio hour is a weekly production of draxtor … and media for all! 

the show is supported by fabeeo breen, ragvr, vinyl, masoom, delacruz industries, journey by debi baskerville, zero-one heavy industries corporation, aeros avatars, time portal, slartist, hextraordinary fine magical goods, bay city you know for kids, botanical, strawberry singh, abranimations, kahruvel design, {what next} and landscapes unlimited.

contact the show via avatar draxfiles or email drax@draxtor.com