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Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

242 points by andreyk 5y ago

jjcm 5y ago
I don’t see this as any different than getting an actor to play the part. This happens all of the time in docos for a more immersive experience. JFK voice comes to mind quite a bit as an example. Is it unethical to get an actor to play his voice?
- mywittyname 5y ago
  The major difference I see is that the viewer is aware that they are watching an actor. Or at least, they should be aware. It has always been standard practice to note when something being shown is a reenactment of an event, and not the actual one. Even if they used a voice actor to mimic Bourdain, they should have informed the audience that an actor was reading the script.
  - nemo44x 5y ago
    > It has always been standard practice to note when something being shown is a reenactment of an event, and not the actual one. Aren't the lines being read by robo-Bourdain actual things he write and/or said? I feel like there's a difference there even if it is a bit weird to not credit robo-Bourdain in those instances.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      Voice has a lot more information than text. With a deepfake, all the information (despite his general sound and rhythm) is completely made up.
yohannparis 5y ago
As a viewer of the documentary, I will love that effect instead of a bland voice-over. But a note should be added on the screen that the voice is AI-generated. Like when they say a war video is a reenactment.
- jamestimmins 5y ago
  Agreed, this whole issue could be solved with a message before the film runs about how the voiceover is created, and then a "recreation" label during that scene.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Disclaimers help. And it's not like they were making up words. But I still feel it was probably a poor creative choice.
    - KONAir 5y ago
      I suppose a spoken line at the begining along the lines of it is not that person, but a generated voice, would be the best solution.
  - godelski 5y ago
    I don't think so. There are still other ethical considerations. Bourdain likely would not have liked this, as others in the thread point out. So it is weird to honor someone with a documentary but not honor their wishes
    - 37r7dyysy 5y ago
      What makes those considerations significant enough to be worth the effort of evaluating though? It's too late to stop the tech from existing, there's no individuals actually being harmed, and even if you find a framework for arguing harm that's compelling the end-game is just going to be updated contracts which demand rights to use the performer's likeness for these sorts of purposes. The dialogue just seems like a lot of opining for the sake of itself with a fashionable hint of 21st century doom-cult luddism. I guess maybe the unions might have a reason to worry but I don't have a lot of sympathy for unions representing millionaires.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        I think that is a fair question to ask but I don't agree with your conclusions. You are essentially asking why bother investigating and forming opinions and value judgements on the the use of new technology. Humans use opinions and values to decide how they want to interact with the outside world. Even if the technology exists and no living are harmed, people can find it distasteful. people can decide not to support what they find distasteful. They can decide to voice support actors unions if the issue ever comes up. They can tell their friends and family how they would like their likeness used as these technologies become more prevalent.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
I actually think getting deep fake stuff to the public is the way to go. Basically anyone can create a deep fake. It is far better to get the public used to the idea of deep fakes so they can develop some immunity to it.
- duxup 5y ago
  I'm not sure that when you go down that rabbit hole folks will believe much at all... I don't want to go down the rabbit hole here but everyone hears about 'fake news', they know what it is, they just label things they don't like 'fake news'. I'm not sure that's helping. Either way we are going to find out.
  - nemo44x 5y ago
    It will get really fun when one side has the "experts" on their side and can have them vouch for the authenticity of something.
    - nsxwolf 5y ago
      We are there already with "fact checks". When someone sees a "fact check" pop up on something they post on Facebook, they just say "See? I knew I was right"
- tejtm 5y ago
  I expect it will go as well as our collective immunity to advertising and other propaganda.
- inlikealamb 5y ago
  We've had Photoshop for 3 decades and airbrushing for even longer and it's had far-reaching impacts across society... no one is really immune to it because it isn't obvious and it has arguably poisoned realistic ideals around body image. IMO we need to mandate disclosures around deepfakes. It's impossible on a peer-to-peer level, but commercially it should be clearly disclosed.
nsomaru 5y ago
A deepfake audio + video with mask of the mayor of ethekwini was used to encourage people to continue looting during recent riots in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It’s scary.
- jsonne 5y ago
  Do you have a source? That's wild if true.
  - nsomaru 5y ago
    see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27864055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27864055
- ipsum2 5y ago
  Googling "Deep fake ethekwini" brings up... this comment.
  - borski 5y ago
    To be fair, that doesn’t make it untrue. It just means a source is required - the parent may be a primary source, heh, but that has to be established. (I agree with you, I just have been corrected in the past with actual on-ground knowledge that hadn’t been reported yet - don’t know if that’s the case here :))
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    Looks like we have the first recorded instance of a metafake here.
  - georgeglue1 5y ago
    This is all I could find... https://www.facebook.com/eThekwiniM/posts/4359537737429640 https://www.facebook.com/eThekwiniM/posts/4359537737429640 I don't know what the referenced video is, or if it is a deepfake though.
  - nsomaru 5y ago
somehnacct3757 5y ago
They probably knew some people wouldn't like it, which is exactly why they used it, because look at all the free publicity they're getting now.
- alexilliamson 5y ago
  This statement perfectly describes the last decade in America.
- satori99 5y ago
  I think this is likely the reason it was done too. The snide remarks from the documentary maker; “We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later.” make it seem like he is trying to get a fire burning around this.
- manquer 5y ago
  Nevertheless it is an important debate to have don't you think ?
  - somehnacct3757 5y ago
    In an academic setting, and with enough precedent, yes. To discuss it now would only benefit the commercial interests who purposely baked this outrage manna in their advertising oven.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
Out of all the celebrities, Bourdain would have viscerally despised this. He hated fake phoney people, or food. He hated when his production crew would stovepipe his bits. He hated a scene in Greese (I believe) where crew went out and bought squid, and threw them into the water to made the shoot better. I really liked Bourdain. He was one of the few celebrities that didn't seem to change with fame, or money. I watched him for years, and knew he was unhappy, but never thought suicide unhappy.
- jacobkg 5y ago
  Agree 100%. Also just watched this episode last night, it was Sicily (Season 2)
  - basisword 5y ago
    Important to point out it wasn’t the crew faking the scene. The guy that took him fishing had a friend throwing squid in, unashamedly. They showed the guy on camera. There was no attempt at trickery from the people producing the show.
- two2two 5y ago
  After reading his books, I would agree and was hoping someone had posted this. If anyone would vehemently oppose such manipulation, it would be Anthony Bourdain. Is there a disclaimer before this scene is shown? I'll choose not to watch such a documentary created by those with skewed ethics.
  - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
    There does not seem to be any disclaimer regarding the manipulation, and the OP article questions whether the director would even have mentioned it had it not come up tangentially in the course of this interview.
- ceocoder 5y ago
  Just quick context on the squid bit: it wasn’t Tony’s crew (zero point zero productions), it was the combination of local fixers/boat folks who wanted to make it look like they caught fish.
OhWellLol 5y ago
Wait until you learn about using deep fakes to trigger Blackmail Inflation https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xlmhhh9HYqc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xlmhhh9HYqc
bellBivDinesh 5y ago
Putting words in dead peoples mouths is unpopular. Shocking.
mcculley 5y ago
This is an interesting problem. I thought and wrote a little about this a few years ago: https://enki.org/2017/03/02/historical-narrators/ https://enki.org/2017/03/02/historical-narrators/
robotomir 5y ago
After electronic distribution and Amazon's ability to redact the books on your Kindle, this is the next important thing to notice.
jacquesm 5y ago
I'm sure Kenny G. will have some way of making bank on this technology. https://www.jazzguitar.com/features/kennyg.html https://www.jazzguitar.com/features/kennyg.html
httpz 5y ago
There are ethical concerns but I think we'll just learn to live with it. Forging signatures are easy and have been around forever but signatures are still used for very important purposes (even electronically now!). It may take a while for the legal system to catch up and using voice recordings as evidence may be tricker than before. But on a more exciting front, I think synthetic voice can be made like fonts. Celebrities and voice actors will be able to sell their synthetic voice like how fonts are sold today. You'll be able to change the voice of your Alexa, Siri to a voice you downloaded from a marketplace. Netflix may even let you select the narrator's voice for your favorite documentary. Hundreds of years later, people may be watching a documentary in Morgan Freeman's voice while having no idea that he was actually a famous actor in the past.
- BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  Signatures used for very important purposes are only decoration. They must be used in conjunction with something else (a notary, an independent exchange that confirms that the signature is actually binding, etc.). The electronic signature is completely different: there is no visible artefact anymore, but a process that seals a document and (under appropriate legislation), certifies that the signer is who he is. A visual object is sometimes added for aesthetic purposes.
  - httpz 5y ago
    What you listed are just ways we've learned to live with the forgeable nature of signatures. Now voice recordings (and even videos) will have a similar fate in the future.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
iandanforth 5y ago
This recently got worse, they claimed to have the OK from his widow. Turns out not so much ... https://twitter.com/OttaviaBourdain/status/1415889455005716485 https://twitter.com/OttaviaBourdain/status/14158894550057164...
- minsc__and__boo 5y ago
  They really need a way for someone to trademark their voice.
  - InvertedRhodium 5y ago
    That seems like an impossible thing to do - how would you define "your voice" and how much would it have to be changed to no longer be considered "your voice"? What would happen between two people that sound similar, or even identical, to our imperfect human senses?
    - the-pigeon 5y ago
      Court precedence. Like pretty much everything else judges would have to define the lines over decades through court cases. I'm not sure if it should go that way. I don't like the idea that someone like Disney could hire a voice actor once and then steal their voice forever. And it feels like we are headed down that path. On the flip-side if you could trademark your voice, someone like Disney could buy up a bunch of trademarks and use them to sue somewhat similar voices. Kinda feels like a lose lose scenario.
      - minsc__and__boo 5y ago
        >someone like Disney could buy up a bunch of trademarks and use them to sue somewhat similar voices. Kinda feels like a lose lose scenario. That's only if you're using trademarked voices to begin with though, right? The reason I think trademark needs to exists is because with voice, like an image or wording, comes a value or expectation of value that can be invested into it. Like Bourdain's voice.
AlbertCory 5y ago
I think Neville went by a common motto: "All publicity is good publicity." Because he didn't need to do it. Using a voice actor would have been completely standard and they would get a credit at the end, which I'm sure they'd appreciate. And Bourdain definitely would not have liked it.
causality0 5y ago
I don't get why this is controversial. Documentaries constantly have someone reading a written document while imitating the voice of the author, and none of them come out and say "This is not the actual voice of Abraham Lincoln". Why is having a computer imitate someone's voice different from having a person do it?
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Because Lincoln has been dead for 172 years, and lived before audio recording, so no one who could fog a mirror would think that it was his voice. Bourdain didn't die that long ago, and made many recordings. It certainly is confusing.
  - manquer 5y ago
    Is the issue, imitation without consent or that viewers are not informed correctly? I thought that given is ex-wife had not said okay and given Bourdain's past actions he may not have agreed with something like this using this technique was a poor choice, not necessarily that viewers are shown generated instead of recorded content
- usefulcat 5y ago
  It's pretty obvious why you will never hear any recordings of Lincoln's voice. In comparison, it most certainly could be Bourdain's voice here so it's not at all obvious that it isn't.
Grimm1 5y ago
I think with correct context and or the correct say so this would be fine. But: I didn't really follow Mr.Bourdain at all, but given the clarity from other people who did, and believe he would have hated this; then it's not the act of making a voice clone that's unethical it's doing it outside of the wishes, or what would be the perceived wishes of that person. In other words this is unethical because had they gone to ask permission from the estate/whoever could make that call now that Mr.Bourdain is no longer with us they would have likely gotten a no. It makes it particularly egregious that if these people were so interested in making this clone of his voice that they likely would have followed him closely enough to know he wouldn't have agreed to this if he were alive. I guess you can boil my position down to without permission, explicit or implied, it's unethical and not only that, legally I'd put it under impersonation.
GeorgeTirebiter 5y ago
If they had used a voice actor to recite the Bourdain letter --- would that be the same sacrilege as using an AI?
- grenoire 5y ago
  Sacrilegious bit is that it's not disclosed. It's made to be deceptive.
  - postalrat 5y ago
    Deceptive like using the name of a famous dog? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tirebiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tirebiter
- jowsie 5y ago
  I think it would feel less weird/unsettling, but I'd still want a disclaimer at least, like any other recreation/reenactment.
code_duck 5y ago
My brother and I had a running joke that Tom Araya from Slayer died in the mid 90s, based on his ashen appearance in the Divine Intervention sleeve. Our “theory” was all of his vocals after then were bits of previous recordings reassembled into new songs. It sounded technically possible with manual editing back then, but it has already gone so far as to automatable. In this case, for a documentary, I see how that’s a defensible used case. They could hire an actor to read the email, imitating Bourdain’s voice as closely as possible, to the same effect. Other uses certainly could be problematic. Discussing them and working out legal and cultural rules is very relevant right now. We’ve already had posthumous celebrity event appearances over the past couple of years. Famous actors could be in movies with needing to be involved very much - mainly an IP license. I have no doubt record companies would love to create new music with all the artists of the 60s-80s, dead or alive.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I mean it's be nice for remastered songs at least.
enriquto 5y ago
what is the difference to drawing him on a fictional painting? or edit a photo? People who complain about that sound a bit like those mythical tribes that are afraid of photographs because they may rob their soul. EDIT: i'm not sure that this is wrong, only confused
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  A painting is quite clearly a work of fiction. We already DO have this same controversy about edited photo and video so there is no difference: most of the people who think this is wrong would also agree that creating a fake photo/video would be wrong.
xwdv 5y ago
Personally I think this is interesting, ethics be damned. It is obvious the direction we are going with these kind of technologies. We will be able to create entirely new content using the personalities of deceased people out of whole cloth. Some day we may be reduced to nothing more than a pile of ashes and a USB stick with our personality reincarnated into it. That's far better than simply being a pile of ashes, and may be the closest we get to some kind of immortality, a way to keep our ego wandering the digital world long after we've died and gone to wherever you choose to believe. Combined with advanced AR technology, all it may take is putting on some glasses to see the ghosts of your ancestors wandering the real world and interacting with it. Well, maybe not our ancestors. We will be the ancestors, and our descendants will be the ones watching us, tending to our digital souls.
tqi 5y ago
Is this different than getting a voice actor?
tptacek 5y ago
I get why this is newsworthy, but I don't get why it's an ethical problem. How is it any different from hiring a really good Bourdain impersonator to read the email? Lots of celebrities have pitch-perfect impersonators; is this a thing we worried about when it wasn't AI doing the impersonation?
- amptorn 5y ago
  You just described a second, older/easier way of violating the same ethical norm of not lying about someone having said something they didn't.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    Has it always been considered an ethical violation to have an impersonator read something a celebrity wrote? This can't be the first time that's happened.
    - amptorn 5y ago
      I've no doubt that it's happened before... Maybe what's really changed here is that we no longer need to convince the human impersonator that this is an acceptable thing to do, because we can just have a machine do it.
    - 21echoes 5y ago
      a documentary presenting an impersonator as the real person has always been unethical, yes. this one is newsworthy because it was done in a new way.
- _jal 5y ago
  I think the question is about a "documentary" using synthesized voices presented as if they are recordings. You'd have the same issue with impersonation by a human; it is presenting one thing as something it is not. Getting away from the specifics of this case, cheap impersonation of arbitrary individuals getting easier raises lots of questions... all those TV spy shows "voice print cloning" stuff becoming more real will make a lot of things involving non-face-to-face trust more interesting.
wayanon 5y ago
It’s crass, unnecessary and disrespectful of AB’s memory.
deviledeggs 5y ago
A lot of people don't realize, all high quality voice models are clones. The network is trained to mimic your voice as close as possible. Alexa, Cortana, and Siri are all real people. That's someone's voice, synthetically preserved. Listen for yourself. Siri: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z2bTymnb1uE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z2bTymnb1uE Alexa: https://www.wral.com/is-this-alexa/19676920/ https://www.wral.com/is-this-alexa/19676920/ Cortana and Siri https://vocalboothtogo.com/meet-voices-behind-cortana-siri/ https://vocalboothtogo.com/meet-voices-behind-cortana-siri/ Creepy but it feels like the future. To be able to copy a unique part of someone we consider so important. Its just strange
TedShiller 5y ago
I’ve seen almost all his shows, so I’d say I’m quite familiar with his voice. The snippets in question do not sound like him at all.
1024core 5y ago
I don't see a problem. It's art. Enough with the faux outrage of "Tony would have hated it"; well, Tony ain't here.
- Talanes 5y ago
  How does "It's art" exempt it from outrage? Sometimes that's even the point of art.
aaron695 5y ago
Interesting we are talking about this now and not when the commercial production "Sassy Justice" came out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WfZuNceFDM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WfZuNceFDM Arguably Sassy Justice is worse, Donald Trump is alive, and I don't think Sassy Justice was an attack, but it wan't flattering either. Sassy Justice was not audio, somewhat clear satire but no warnings. It reminds me when Boko Haram kidnapped the 200 Chibok schoolgirls, they killed and kidnapped 1000's of school boys first. You don't have to like Trump or care about boys but it can come back to bite you. I just hope synthetic media in docos is pointing out to people doco's aren't the truth tellers people think they are. They are entertainment not purveyors of truth.
colechristensen 5y ago
We're running up towards "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." and it is appropriate. It isn't wrong to replace a human with a machine, I'm not going after calculators, spreadsheets, or farm machinery. What is to come though is a moral imperative that making machines mimic people is deeply wrong. Our worldviews, values, and judgements are based on interacting with other humans and to have that set of long-tuned intelligence modeling of minds around us subverted by a computer model will bring out strong objections and eventually violence. The science fiction writers had it wrong, the first conflict with machines isn't going to happen with an advanced artificial intelligence, it is going to be against naive misbehavior and trickery much like this, especially when the artifice comes into the real world (first iteration: self-driving cars). Semi-religious anti-machine fanatics will be the first wave with terrorist style attacks on machines ... that is if the sane moderates don't do enough to rein in the coming of the artificials first. Wait for a smoking gun event like a car driving itself into a gathering of schoolchildren to get things started.
- NeoVeles 5y ago
  "Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." - Frank Herbert (Dune)
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    This here. Machines can only become the enemy when they gain sentience, form a civilization, and declare independence. Until then, it's not the machines that are the problem. It's the people behind the machines, people making business decisions about operations and deployment of the machines.
- postalrat 5y ago
  We've always used technology to mimic humans. And all along the way there has been people saying we are going to far.
- pjc50 5y ago
  > Wait for a smoking gun event like a car driving itself into a gathering of schoolchildren to get things started. The actual gun industry has somehow managed to avoid being sunk by this problem by keeping the blame on humans despite a school shooting every few months in the US. Cars will be explicitly advertised that you can turn the automation on, go to sleep, and arrive at the destination, but if the automation hits anything the sleeping human will remain liable. The misleading advert will not.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Very unfortunate. They could easily have done something which I think would have been more touching like have his friends, family, or lovers read the text, instead. I haven't seen the documentary (not sure I will now), but I feel like that would have been more emotive.
alfiedotwtf 5y ago
Weren't these type of legalities worked out from when they copied Cripin Glover's face for the actor who played Marty Senior in Back to the Future 2 i.e the “right of publicity”?
cun7_bourdain 5y ago
Good. Of all the people who deserve to be disrespected in death, Anthony Bourdain is at the top of the list. I hope the filmmakers use the profits to dig up his corpse and literally shit on his dead body. Fucking cunt of a human being, glad he offed himself too. He deserved to die for the fucking shithead bully he was. Anyone with half a brain could see he was a shithead little bully, yet so many dumb cunts are acting like he was such a major inspiration, venerating someone who was clearly a mean son of a bitch. Fuck him, and if you liked him, fuck you. Go think about why you liked some asshole who constantly tried to bully other people.
23B1 5y ago
Ahh yes, but we're talking about it now aren't we?
bigwheeler 5y ago
I don’t see the big deal. When watching, let’s say, a Ken Burns documentary about The National Parks, they’ll have a guy who sounds as much like John Muir as possible, reading letters he wrote. They don’t add a single footnote or disclaimer anywhere in the film that it’s not John Muir speaking. You’re just supposed to know it’s someone impersonating what they think he sounded like. If it was AI instead of a voiceover actor, that would be the same thing to me, within the context of a documentary, where you’re trying to express that the guy that is communicating is the guy who’s voice you’re supposed to be listening to.
- marricks 5y ago
  Well anyone in that Ken Burns doc wouldn’t have immediate family or friends listening to it, and not to mention it’d obviously not be an original voice recording.
TheChaplain 5y ago
One voice I would love to have historically preserved is the iconic Morgan Freeman. His narration of the documentary March of the Penguins really hit the mark for me.
- invalidusernam3 5y ago
  James Earl Jones and David Attenborough too
aero-glide2 5y ago
So does anyone have a link to the video?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

242 points by andreyk 5y ago

jjcm 5y ago

I don’t see this as any different than getting an actor to play the part. This happens all of the time in docos for a more immersive experience. JFK voice comes to mind quite a bit as an example. Is it unethical to get an actor to play his voice?

mywittyname 5y ago
The major difference I see is that the viewer is aware that they are watching an actor. Or at least, they should be aware. It has always been standard practice to note when something being shown is a reenactment of an event, and not the actual one. Even if they used a voice actor to mimic Bourdain, they should have informed the audience that an actor was reading the script.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  > It has always been standard practice to note when something being shown is a reenactment of an event, and not the actual one. Aren't the lines being read by robo-Bourdain actual things he write and/or said? I feel like there's a difference there even if it is a bit weird to not credit robo-Bourdain in those instances.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    Voice has a lot more information than text. With a deepfake, all the information (despite his general sound and rhythm) is completely made up.

yohannparis 5y ago

As a viewer of the documentary, I will love that effect instead of a bland voice-over. But a note should be added on the screen that the voice is AI-generated. Like when they say a war video is a reenactment.

jamestimmins 5y ago
Agreed, this whole issue could be solved with a message before the film runs about how the voiceover is created, and then a "recreation" label during that scene.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Disclaimers help. And it's not like they were making up words. But I still feel it was probably a poor creative choice.
  - KONAir 5y ago
    I suppose a spoken line at the begining along the lines of it is not that person, but a generated voice, would be the best solution.
- godelski 5y ago
  I don't think so. There are still other ethical considerations. Bourdain likely would not have liked this, as others in the thread point out. So it is weird to honor someone with a documentary but not honor their wishes
  - 37r7dyysy 5y ago
    What makes those considerations significant enough to be worth the effort of evaluating though? It's too late to stop the tech from existing, there's no individuals actually being harmed, and even if you find a framework for arguing harm that's compelling the end-game is just going to be updated contracts which demand rights to use the performer's likeness for these sorts of purposes. The dialogue just seems like a lot of opining for the sake of itself with a fashionable hint of 21st century doom-cult luddism. I guess maybe the unions might have a reason to worry but I don't have a lot of sympathy for unions representing millionaires.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      I think that is a fair question to ask but I don't agree with your conclusions. You are essentially asking why bother investigating and forming opinions and value judgements on the the use of new technology. Humans use opinions and values to decide how they want to interact with the outside world. Even if the technology exists and no living are harmed, people can find it distasteful. people can decide not to support what they find distasteful. They can decide to voice support actors unions if the issue ever comes up. They can tell their friends and family how they would like their likeness used as these technologies become more prevalent.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

I actually think getting deep fake stuff to the public is the way to go. Basically anyone can create a deep fake. It is far better to get the public used to the idea of deep fakes so they can develop some immunity to it.

duxup 5y ago
I'm not sure that when you go down that rabbit hole folks will believe much at all... I don't want to go down the rabbit hole here but everyone hears about 'fake news', they know what it is, they just label things they don't like 'fake news'. I'm not sure that's helping. Either way we are going to find out.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  It will get really fun when one side has the "experts" on their side and can have them vouch for the authenticity of something.
  - nsxwolf 5y ago
    We are there already with "fact checks". When someone sees a "fact check" pop up on something they post on Facebook, they just say "See? I knew I was right"
tejtm 5y ago
I expect it will go as well as our collective immunity to advertising and other propaganda.
inlikealamb 5y ago
We've had Photoshop for 3 decades and airbrushing for even longer and it's had far-reaching impacts across society... no one is really immune to it because it isn't obvious and it has arguably poisoned realistic ideals around body image. IMO we need to mandate disclosures around deepfakes. It's impossible on a peer-to-peer level, but commercially it should be clearly disclosed.

nsomaru 5y ago

A deepfake audio + video with mask of the mayor of ethekwini was used to encourage people to continue looting during recent riots in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It’s scary.

jsonne 5y ago
Do you have a source? That's wild if true.
- nsomaru 5y ago
  see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27864055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27864055
ipsum2 5y ago
Googling "Deep fake ethekwini" brings up... this comment.
- borski 5y ago
  To be fair, that doesn’t make it untrue. It just means a source is required - the parent may be a primary source, heh, but that has to be established. (I agree with you, I just have been corrected in the past with actual on-ground knowledge that hadn’t been reported yet - don’t know if that’s the case here :))
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Looks like we have the first recorded instance of a metafake here.
- georgeglue1 5y ago
  This is all I could find... https://www.facebook.com/eThekwiniM/posts/4359537737429640 https://www.facebook.com/eThekwiniM/posts/4359537737429640 I don't know what the referenced video is, or if it is a deepfake though.
- nsomaru 5y ago

somehnacct3757 5y ago

They probably knew some people wouldn't like it, which is exactly why they used it, because look at all the free publicity they're getting now.

alexilliamson 5y ago
This statement perfectly describes the last decade in America.
satori99 5y ago
I think this is likely the reason it was done too. The snide remarks from the documentary maker; “We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later.” make it seem like he is trying to get a fire burning around this.
manquer 5y ago
Nevertheless it is an important debate to have don't you think ?
- somehnacct3757 5y ago
  In an academic setting, and with enough precedent, yes. To discuss it now would only benefit the commercial interests who purposely baked this outrage manna in their advertising oven.

hellbannedguy 5y ago

Out of all the celebrities, Bourdain would have viscerally despised this. He hated fake phoney people, or food. He hated when his production crew would stovepipe his bits. He hated a scene in Greese (I believe) where crew went out and bought squid, and threw them into the water to made the shoot better. I really liked Bourdain. He was one of the few celebrities that didn't seem to change with fame, or money. I watched him for years, and knew he was unhappy, but never thought suicide unhappy.

jacobkg 5y ago
Agree 100%. Also just watched this episode last night, it was Sicily (Season 2)
- basisword 5y ago
  Important to point out it wasn’t the crew faking the scene. The guy that took him fishing had a friend throwing squid in, unashamedly. They showed the guy on camera. There was no attempt at trickery from the people producing the show.
two2two 5y ago
After reading his books, I would agree and was hoping someone had posted this. If anyone would vehemently oppose such manipulation, it would be Anthony Bourdain. Is there a disclaimer before this scene is shown? I'll choose not to watch such a documentary created by those with skewed ethics.
- AutumnCurtain 5y ago
  There does not seem to be any disclaimer regarding the manipulation, and the OP article questions whether the director would even have mentioned it had it not come up tangentially in the course of this interview.
ceocoder 5y ago
Just quick context on the squid bit: it wasn’t Tony’s crew (zero point zero productions), it was the combination of local fixers/boat folks who wanted to make it look like they caught fish.

OhWellLol 5y ago

Wait until you learn about using deep fakes to trigger Blackmail Inflation https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xlmhhh9HYqc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xlmhhh9HYqc

bellBivDinesh 5y ago

Putting words in dead peoples mouths is unpopular. Shocking.

mcculley 5y ago

This is an interesting problem. I thought and wrote a little about this a few years ago: https://enki.org/2017/03/02/historical-narrators/ https://enki.org/2017/03/02/historical-narrators/

robotomir 5y ago

After electronic distribution and Amazon's ability to redact the books on your Kindle, this is the next important thing to notice.

jacquesm 5y ago

I'm sure Kenny G. will have some way of making bank on this technology. https://www.jazzguitar.com/features/kennyg.html https://www.jazzguitar.com/features/kennyg.html

httpz 5y ago

There are ethical concerns but I think we'll just learn to live with it. Forging signatures are easy and have been around forever but signatures are still used for very important purposes (even electronically now!). It may take a while for the legal system to catch up and using voice recordings as evidence may be tricker than before. But on a more exciting front, I think synthetic voice can be made like fonts. Celebrities and voice actors will be able to sell their synthetic voice like how fonts are sold today. You'll be able to change the voice of your Alexa, Siri to a voice you downloaded from a marketplace. Netflix may even let you select the narrator's voice for your favorite documentary. Hundreds of years later, people may be watching a documentary in Morgan Freeman's voice while having no idea that he was actually a famous actor in the past.

BrandoElFollito 5y ago
Signatures used for very important purposes are only decoration. They must be used in conjunction with something else (a notary, an independent exchange that confirms that the signature is actually binding, etc.). The electronic signature is completely different: there is no visible artefact anymore, but a process that seals a document and (under appropriate legislation), certifies that the signer is who he is. A visual object is sometimes added for aesthetic purposes.
- httpz 5y ago
  What you listed are just ways we've learned to live with the forgeable nature of signatures. Now voice recordings (and even videos) will have a similar fate in the future.

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iandanforth 5y ago

This recently got worse, they claimed to have the OK from his widow. Turns out not so much ... https://twitter.com/OttaviaBourdain/status/1415889455005716485 https://twitter.com/OttaviaBourdain/status/14158894550057164...

minsc__and__boo 5y ago
They really need a way for someone to trademark their voice.
- InvertedRhodium 5y ago
  That seems like an impossible thing to do - how would you define "your voice" and how much would it have to be changed to no longer be considered "your voice"? What would happen between two people that sound similar, or even identical, to our imperfect human senses?
  - the-pigeon 5y ago
    Court precedence. Like pretty much everything else judges would have to define the lines over decades through court cases. I'm not sure if it should go that way. I don't like the idea that someone like Disney could hire a voice actor once and then steal their voice forever. And it feels like we are headed down that path. On the flip-side if you could trademark your voice, someone like Disney could buy up a bunch of trademarks and use them to sue somewhat similar voices. Kinda feels like a lose lose scenario.
    - minsc__and__boo 5y ago
      >someone like Disney could buy up a bunch of trademarks and use them to sue somewhat similar voices. Kinda feels like a lose lose scenario. That's only if you're using trademarked voices to begin with though, right? The reason I think trademark needs to exists is because with voice, like an image or wording, comes a value or expectation of value that can be invested into it. Like Bourdain's voice.

AlbertCory 5y ago

I think Neville went by a common motto: "All publicity is good publicity." Because he didn't need to do it. Using a voice actor would have been completely standard and they would get a credit at the end, which I'm sure they'd appreciate. And Bourdain definitely would not have liked it.

causality0 5y ago

I don't get why this is controversial. Documentaries constantly have someone reading a written document while imitating the voice of the author, and none of them come out and say "This is not the actual voice of Abraham Lincoln". Why is having a computer imitate someone's voice different from having a person do it?

reaperducer 5y ago
Because Lincoln has been dead for 172 years, and lived before audio recording, so no one who could fog a mirror would think that it was his voice. Bourdain didn't die that long ago, and made many recordings. It certainly is confusing.
- manquer 5y ago
  Is the issue, imitation without consent or that viewers are not informed correctly? I thought that given is ex-wife had not said okay and given Bourdain's past actions he may not have agreed with something like this using this technique was a poor choice, not necessarily that viewers are shown generated instead of recorded content
usefulcat 5y ago
It's pretty obvious why you will never hear any recordings of Lincoln's voice. In comparison, it most certainly could be Bourdain's voice here so it's not at all obvious that it isn't.

Grimm1 5y ago

I think with correct context and or the correct say so this would be fine. But: I didn't really follow Mr.Bourdain at all, but given the clarity from other people who did, and believe he would have hated this; then it's not the act of making a voice clone that's unethical it's doing it outside of the wishes, or what would be the perceived wishes of that person. In other words this is unethical because had they gone to ask permission from the estate/whoever could make that call now that Mr.Bourdain is no longer with us they would have likely gotten a no. It makes it particularly egregious that if these people were so interested in making this clone of his voice that they likely would have followed him closely enough to know he wouldn't have agreed to this if he were alive. I guess you can boil my position down to without permission, explicit or implied, it's unethical and not only that, legally I'd put it under impersonation.

GeorgeTirebiter 5y ago

If they had used a voice actor to recite the Bourdain letter --- would that be the same sacrilege as using an AI?

grenoire 5y ago
Sacrilegious bit is that it's not disclosed. It's made to be deceptive.
- postalrat 5y ago
  Deceptive like using the name of a famous dog? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tirebiter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tirebiter
jowsie 5y ago
I think it would feel less weird/unsettling, but I'd still want a disclaimer at least, like any other recreation/reenactment.

code_duck 5y ago

My brother and I had a running joke that Tom Araya from Slayer died in the mid 90s, based on his ashen appearance in the Divine Intervention sleeve. Our “theory” was all of his vocals after then were bits of previous recordings reassembled into new songs. It sounded technically possible with manual editing back then, but it has already gone so far as to automatable. In this case, for a documentary, I see how that’s a defensible used case. They could hire an actor to read the email, imitating Bourdain’s voice as closely as possible, to the same effect. Other uses certainly could be problematic. Discussing them and working out legal and cultural rules is very relevant right now. We’ve already had posthumous celebrity event appearances over the past couple of years. Famous actors could be in movies with needing to be involved very much - mainly an IP license. I have no doubt record companies would love to create new music with all the artists of the 60s-80s, dead or alive.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I mean it's be nice for remastered songs at least.

enriquto 5y ago

what is the difference to drawing him on a fictional painting? or edit a photo? People who complain about that sound a bit like those mythical tribes that are afraid of photographs because they may rob their soul. EDIT: i'm not sure that this is wrong, only confused

Ensorceled 5y ago
A painting is quite clearly a work of fiction. We already DO have this same controversy about edited photo and video so there is no difference: most of the people who think this is wrong would also agree that creating a fake photo/video would be wrong.

xwdv 5y ago

Personally I think this is interesting, ethics be damned. It is obvious the direction we are going with these kind of technologies. We will be able to create entirely new content using the personalities of deceased people out of whole cloth. Some day we may be reduced to nothing more than a pile of ashes and a USB stick with our personality reincarnated into it. That's far better than simply being a pile of ashes, and may be the closest we get to some kind of immortality, a way to keep our ego wandering the digital world long after we've died and gone to wherever you choose to believe. Combined with advanced AR technology, all it may take is putting on some glasses to see the ghosts of your ancestors wandering the real world and interacting with it. Well, maybe not our ancestors. We will be the ancestors, and our descendants will be the ones watching us, tending to our digital souls.

tqi 5y ago

Is this different than getting a voice actor?

tptacek 5y ago

I get why this is newsworthy, but I don't get why it's an ethical problem. How is it any different from hiring a really good Bourdain impersonator to read the email? Lots of celebrities have pitch-perfect impersonators; is this a thing we worried about when it wasn't AI doing the impersonation?

amptorn 5y ago
You just described a second, older/easier way of violating the same ethical norm of not lying about someone having said something they didn't.
- tptacek 5y ago
  Has it always been considered an ethical violation to have an impersonator read something a celebrity wrote? This can't be the first time that's happened.
  - amptorn 5y ago
    I've no doubt that it's happened before... Maybe what's really changed here is that we no longer need to convince the human impersonator that this is an acceptable thing to do, because we can just have a machine do it.
  - 21echoes 5y ago
    a documentary presenting an impersonator as the real person has always been unethical, yes. this one is newsworthy because it was done in a new way.
_jal 5y ago
I think the question is about a "documentary" using synthesized voices presented as if they are recordings. You'd have the same issue with impersonation by a human; it is presenting one thing as something it is not. Getting away from the specifics of this case, cheap impersonation of arbitrary individuals getting easier raises lots of questions... all those TV spy shows "voice print cloning" stuff becoming more real will make a lot of things involving non-face-to-face trust more interesting.

wayanon 5y ago

It’s crass, unnecessary and disrespectful of AB’s memory.

deviledeggs 5y ago

A lot of people don't realize, all high quality voice models are clones. The network is trained to mimic your voice as close as possible. Alexa, Cortana, and Siri are all real people. That's someone's voice, synthetically preserved. Listen for yourself. Siri: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z2bTymnb1uE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z2bTymnb1uE Alexa: https://www.wral.com/is-this-alexa/19676920/ https://www.wral.com/is-this-alexa/19676920/ Cortana and Siri https://vocalboothtogo.com/meet-voices-behind-cortana-siri/ https://vocalboothtogo.com/meet-voices-behind-cortana-siri/ Creepy but it feels like the future. To be able to copy a unique part of someone we consider so important. Its just strange

TedShiller 5y ago

I’ve seen almost all his shows, so I’d say I’m quite familiar with his voice. The snippets in question do not sound like him at all.

1024core 5y ago

I don't see a problem. It's art. Enough with the faux outrage of "Tony would have hated it"; well, Tony ain't here.

Talanes 5y ago
How does "It's art" exempt it from outrage? Sometimes that's even the point of art.

aaron695 5y ago

Interesting we are talking about this now and not when the commercial production "Sassy Justice" came out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WfZuNceFDM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WfZuNceFDM Arguably Sassy Justice is worse, Donald Trump is alive, and I don't think Sassy Justice was an attack, but it wan't flattering either. Sassy Justice was not audio, somewhat clear satire but no warnings. It reminds me when Boko Haram kidnapped the 200 Chibok schoolgirls, they killed and kidnapped 1000's of school boys first. You don't have to like Trump or care about boys but it can come back to bite you. I just hope synthetic media in docos is pointing out to people doco's aren't the truth tellers people think they are. They are entertainment not purveyors of truth.

colechristensen 5y ago

We're running up towards "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." and it is appropriate. It isn't wrong to replace a human with a machine, I'm not going after calculators, spreadsheets, or farm machinery. What is to come though is a moral imperative that making machines mimic people is deeply wrong. Our worldviews, values, and judgements are based on interacting with other humans and to have that set of long-tuned intelligence modeling of minds around us subverted by a computer model will bring out strong objections and eventually violence. The science fiction writers had it wrong, the first conflict with machines isn't going to happen with an advanced artificial intelligence, it is going to be against naive misbehavior and trickery much like this, especially when the artifice comes into the real world (first iteration: self-driving cars). Semi-religious anti-machine fanatics will be the first wave with terrorist style attacks on machines ... that is if the sane moderates don't do enough to rein in the coming of the artificials first. Wait for a smoking gun event like a car driving itself into a gathering of schoolchildren to get things started.

NeoVeles 5y ago
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." - Frank Herbert (Dune)
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  This here. Machines can only become the enemy when they gain sentience, form a civilization, and declare independence. Until then, it's not the machines that are the problem. It's the people behind the machines, people making business decisions about operations and deployment of the machines.
postalrat 5y ago
We've always used technology to mimic humans. And all along the way there has been people saying we are going to far.
pjc50 5y ago
> Wait for a smoking gun event like a car driving itself into a gathering of schoolchildren to get things started. The actual gun industry has somehow managed to avoid being sunk by this problem by keeping the blame on humans despite a school shooting every few months in the US. Cars will be explicitly advertised that you can turn the automation on, go to sleep, and arrive at the destination, but if the automation hits anything the sleeping human will remain liable. The misleading advert will not.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

Very unfortunate. They could easily have done something which I think would have been more touching like have his friends, family, or lovers read the text, instead. I haven't seen the documentary (not sure I will now), but I feel like that would have been more emotive.

alfiedotwtf 5y ago

Weren't these type of legalities worked out from when they copied Cripin Glover's face for the actor who played Marty Senior in Back to the Future 2 i.e the “right of publicity”?

cun7_bourdain 5y ago

Good. Of all the people who deserve to be disrespected in death, Anthony Bourdain is at the top of the list. I hope the filmmakers use the profits to dig up his corpse and literally shit on his dead body. Fucking cunt of a human being, glad he offed himself too. He deserved to die for the fucking shithead bully he was. Anyone with half a brain could see he was a shithead little bully, yet so many dumb cunts are acting like he was such a major inspiration, venerating someone who was clearly a mean son of a bitch. Fuck him, and if you liked him, fuck you. Go think about why you liked some asshole who constantly tried to bully other people.

23B1 5y ago

Ahh yes, but we're talking about it now aren't we?

bigwheeler 5y ago

I don’t see the big deal. When watching, let’s say, a Ken Burns documentary about The National Parks, they’ll have a guy who sounds as much like John Muir as possible, reading letters he wrote. They don’t add a single footnote or disclaimer anywhere in the film that it’s not John Muir speaking. You’re just supposed to know it’s someone impersonating what they think he sounded like. If it was AI instead of a voiceover actor, that would be the same thing to me, within the context of a documentary, where you’re trying to express that the guy that is communicating is the guy who’s voice you’re supposed to be listening to.

marricks 5y ago
Well anyone in that Ken Burns doc wouldn’t have immediate family or friends listening to it, and not to mention it’d obviously not be an original voice recording.

TheChaplain 5y ago

One voice I would love to have historically preserved is the iconic Morgan Freeman. His narration of the documentary March of the Penguins really hit the mark for me.

invalidusernam3 5y ago
James Earl Jones and David Attenborough too

aero-glide2 5y ago

So does anyone have a link to the video?

deleted 5y ago

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