MIT releases disturbingly-real scary good deepfake video of 'Nixon' announcing NASA Apollo 11 disaster
MIT releases deepfake video
of 'Nixon' announcing NASA Apollo 11 disaster
MIT and Modzilla want people
to better understand the disturbing power of deepfake videos in a new project
called In Event of Moon Disaster.
Bonnie Burton July
20, 2020 8:28 p.m. PT
Watch President Richard Nixon
deliver some very bad news about the Apollo 11 moon landing in this deepfake
video made by MIT.
Video…………
The Apollo
11 moon landing on July 20, 1969 was a landmark moment in space
history. But what if the astronauts died during their mission to the moon,
and President
Richard Nixon had to deliver tragic news on TV to the American viewing
public?
In this
disturbingly-real deepfake video,
President Nixon breaks the news that NASA failed and astronauts died
on the moon. Deepfakes are
video forgeries that make people appear to be doing or saying things they
aren't. Deepfake
software has made manipulated videos accessible and increasingly
harder to detect as fake.
"Fate has ordained that
the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest
in peace," Nixon says in the deepfake video referring to astronauts
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.
It took a half a year for
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) AI experts to create the very
convincing 7-minute
deepfake video that mixes actual
NASA footage with Nixon delivering a tragic speech as though Apollo 11
had not succeeded in its mission to the moon.
Artificial intelligence
"deep-learning" technology was used to make Nixon's voice and facial
movements convincing. The contingency speech (which can be found in National Archives) was read aloud by an actor.
MIT's Center for Advanced
Virtuality created its new project called In Event of Moon Disaster --
which launched on Monday -- to show people the dangerous influence deepfake
videos can have on an unsuspecting public.
This marks the first time the
Nixon Apollo 11 deepfake video is being presented to the public in its entirety
following a physical art installation at MIT in fall 2019.
MORE DEEPFAKES
"In Event of Moon
Disaster is an immersive art project inviting you into an alternative history,
asking us all to consider how new technologies can bend, redirect and obfuscate
the truth around us," the project's website said. "By creating this alternative
history the project explores the influence and pervasiveness of misinformation
and deepfake technologies in our contemporary society."
In Event of Moon Disaster
aims not only help people to better understand deepfakes, but also explain how
deepfakes are made and how they work; how to spot a deepfake; their potential use and misuse; and what is being done
to combat deepfakes and misinformation.
This project is supported by
a grant from Mozilla's Creative Media Awards, which build on Mozilla's mission to
realize more trustworthy AI in consumer technology.
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