gizmodo.com: Further demonstrating the power of artificial intelligence when it comes to photorealistically altering footage, researchers from Disney have revealed a new aging/de-aging tool that can make an actor look convincingly older or younger, without the need for weeks of complex and expensive visual effects work.
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I feel like the CGI technology to age and de age actors and alter appearances has been around for a while. I remember when Star Wars rogue 1 came out CGI was used to de age actors and bring actors back to the dead. I am really excited for this new technology Disney has come up with but also a bit scared. The security and creative implications of being able to realistically change someone's age with the click of a button is beyond be however this may cause issues. This technology would also put actors like Mckenna Grace out of a job as doubles for flashbacks would not be needed. You could just film a scene with an original actor and then run it through an AI Software and voila flashback. All and all I am excited to see what AI can do with this program in the near future.
Theo
I just watched the new trailer for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny which featured a much younger looking Harrison Ford. I love the idea of using this technology to age back or age up a character for flash forwards or flash backs within a movie. For Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny they de aged Harrison Ford for the entire movie instead of adjusting the movie or the plot for his age. I think the embracing age and the way aging looks is the better way to use this technology instead of creating unrealistic expectations about how 60 year old people look. Aging is already so looked down on and people look into looking younger from the moment their first wrinkle appears. This technology can damage and hone in that mentality even more. I cannot wait to see how this technology ends up being used and hope the people that have the ability to use it do good.
This is a very cool "other side" to the whole reanimation of dead actors thing, and a huge part of why we should keep that technique around and develop it further. The ability to so convincingly alter actors in a way that previously might have needed to be done with prosthetics and makeup before the advent of this technology is nothing short of incredible.
I'm curious to see where the ceiling of this tech is going to settle. I mean for a while when all of the face swap filters were growing in popularity there was a very real uncanny valley quality to them, but in such a short period of time it seems totally seemless and totally believable. It is as horrifying as it is incredible. I feel like the theme of all of the things that I have been commenting on this semester has been articles about AI and the things we can do to make images look more believable with them. If this trend continues I think we might hit at least /a/ ceiling if not /the/ ceiling sometime in the near future.
This is a super cool new AI tool that seems to be a lot more effective than many of the previous ways of aging or de-aging an actor. It seems that there are many different AIs and models for the procedure, but that none of them are as turnkey as this one is. They don't talk about distribution, but it seems that it is so user friendly that it will make this technology more accessible. I had no idea that the current plan for aging or de-aging was to go through and fix each individual frame, which is a super time intensive process. The other methods produce something automatically that’s a lot closer to the end goal, but many have weird byproducts like facial hair coming and going. The AI can handle photos and videos including fast camera moves and situations where the face is not looking directly at the camera.
This type of content always frightens me just a bit and also reminds me of the conversation surrounding deep fakes. My mind immediately goes to how this kind of technology can be abused for money rather than how it will benefit the industry. I am really afraid that they will use technology like this to make many famous actors and actresses appear more youthful on screen. We all know the damaging effects that photoshop in magazines and social media has done to our self-esteem, although it is still possible to rationalize that it’s just an edited photo. A video with that effect could truly warp our perception of what aging looks like. On the other hand, this could be a really cool tool for filming things like flashbacks without dealing with hours of makeup or casting another actor entirely. This is an interesting conversation to be had about where we as a society draw the line.
It is fascinating and scary in how technology can do to different and how it could be used in different productions across different genres. This technology is definitely a game changer as it reduces the stress in how performers should look like in different production after they are aged. This also bring the question of special effect makeup and how its role in the production as if this technology is being more widely used, would there be less special effect makeup artists as it replaces some of the portion of the market. It is really interesting to see what technology do in different places and how it could play a part in so many different areas. It also can get very controversy and debatable in the humane and ethical area and how they should be designed. In addition, the way which these machines should be trained is also a question to ask.
While it's cool that this technology exists, there are some deeply psychological ramifications that could result from misuse of this product. I can see Hollywood using this tool to touch up all of their aging actors in order to prolong careers or just to make them more "visually appealing". Our society is already so averse to aging and older people, that we don't need another tool to encourage nastiness regarding appearance. I also just think that it limits artistic creativity. If we use virtual technology to age or de-age an actor, what happens to all of the makeup artists who can achieve the same effect so beautifully? Yes, it saves time and money, but it also puts other people out of business. I'm so much less impressed with AI than I am with special effects makeup. I also just have never minded seeing different actors play the same character at various points in their life. In fact, I'm much more likely to buy into that conceptually than an actor that has clearly been de-aged. I find the technology more distracting to look at. There's just something that does no sit right with filters. The overall appears is just off enough that our minds find them disturbing. I just don't think the changes will ever be truly invisible to the audience; our lizard brains will always be activated even if we are unclear about why.
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