Deep Arnold

One of the many unsettling manifestations of AI that this blog has touched on a few times is the deep fake, a believable AI generated video of a real person. This treatment of a chat show interview with actor Bill Hader from a few years ago is a brilliant, if creepy demonstration of how effective they can be. God help us when it’s no longer possible to trust what we see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears. What that means for election manipulation, fear-mongering and misinformation of all kinds is only just starting to dawn on us.

Another related use of this kind of AI, which is also controversial if slightly less terrifying, is in the world of film and entertainment. What happens when a film studio wants to make a film starring Salma Hayek but can’t be bothered to work with her, so just uses an AI to impersonate her – something Charlie Brooker explored in characteristically visceral style in an episode of Black Mirror.

It's a dilemma. But before we regulate the heck out of this and think too deeply about the downsides, can we have a little fun?

A recent Instagram post by voice artist Sam Hughes imagined a critical scene in The Lord of the Rings in which all the main roles are played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In my view the former governor of California’s Austrian drawl and trademark moaning noises add a theatrical, I would venture almost Brechtian, quality to the film that was missing from the Peter Jackson epic.

How I would love to see some of PastMaster’s adventures brought to the big screen with today’s biggest stars. We could finally see Tom Hardy play the lead role in Aria of Death, on his way to do Hitler in. Or Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson as our time travelling detective on his way to catch Jack the Ripper.

Well, we’ve got pictures from ChatGPT 4. Who knows, maybe version 5 will be able to create freaky AI videos for us to illustrate our adventures at the drop of a hat…