‘Creepy’ AI reimagines South Park characters as real people

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South Park followers have been left divided over a “creepy” deepfake recreation of the present’s animated characters as real people set in an Eighties sitcom.

The Berlin-based artificial intelligence (AI) artist identified as “demonflyingfox” used deepfake know-how to depict what Eric Cartman, Kyle Broflovski, Stan Marsh, and Kenny McCormick would appear to be in the event that they have been performed by real actors on the units of a live-action sitcom, which is on its twenty seventh season.

The artist additionally recreated characters like Mr Mackey, delivering his notorious “drugs are bad” dialogue, as nicely as Stan’s father Randy Marsh, fourth-grader Timmy Burch, and Mr Garrison, in a YouTube video that has resurfaced on Reddit.

Deepfakes are images and movies which were digitally manipulated or altered utilizing AI or machine studying.

Reacting to the YouTube video, some customers advised the deepfake variations have been “creepy and weird” whereas others mentioned the recreations have been “on point”.

“’Yeah make them blink, that will make them less creepy, for sure,’” one person wrote sarcastically, referring to the unsettling approach during which the characters proceed blinking by way of the whole lot of the video.

A extra nuanced criticism of the video learn: “Randy, Stan, and Mr Slave are absolutely spot on. As much as I want to like Kenny, it botched too many details – he’s supposed to have blond hair and wear a parka, not a hoodie.”

“I’m still in awe,” a 3rd remark learn, whereas one other individual famous one thing in regards to the video feels “oddly unnerving”.

“Just the fact that these faces that look real, and move around but don’t really exist gives me this weird creepy feeling,” they added.

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The artist “demonflyingfox” additionally shared the pictures on Instagram, with one individual noting the deepfake characters “all look old and young at the same time”.

Last yr, an American firm created an AI device that might enable customers to create their very own episodes of the long-running cartoon present.

US tech firm Fable Simulation mentioned the device, AI Showrunner, solely requires a one or two-sentence immediate to generate a model new South Park episode – together with creating an authentic character primarily based on the person’s voice and look.

“Not just the dialogue. It animates, it does the voices, it does the editing,” British businessman and Fable’s chief govt Edward Saatchi instructed GamesBeat.

He added the device was purely for analysis and won’t be launched publicly, including “we don’t want to profit from it”.

The artist identified as “demonflyingfox” recurrently shares AI-generated artwork, together with reimagining Harry Potter characters as Balenciaga fashions, a French model of iconic Batman villain The Joker, and an all-female solid of Breaking Bad together with Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman’s (Aaron Paul) characters.