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| Jordan Peele literally put words in Barack Obama's mouth using technology that would make today's fake news seem like kid's play |
His voice sounds a little weird. Like he's been drinking (Obama has absolutely no reputation as a drinker.)
The things he says are even more off kilter.
Here's part of the script:
"We're entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time - even if they would never say those things......So, for instance, they could have me say things like, I don't know, (Black Panther's) Kilmonger was right! Or Ben Carson is in the sunken place! Or how 'bout this, Simply, President Trump is a total and complete dipshit."
We all know Obama would never say things like publicly. But in the video, his lips are moving perfectly with the words being spoken. How could this be.
It turns out "Obama" is being voiced by filmmaker and actor Jordan Peele. (One of Peele's schticks is impersonations of Obama.)
As BuzzFeed reports, the PSA was a project developed by Peele and BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, who is Peele's brother in law.
The screen in the video splits, to show Peele delivering the PSA and Obama appearing to do it. It's amazing the technology makes it look like Obama is actually speaking. And scary, for sure.
The script continues: "This is a dangerous time. Moving forward, we need to be more vigilant with what we trust from the internet."
Buzzfeed describes this technology and ugly world future this way:
"A slew of slick, easy-to-use and eventually seamless technological tools for manipulating perception and falsifying reality, for which terms have already been coined - 'reality apathy,' 'automated laser phishing' and 'human puppets."
Buzzfeed goes on: "Such tools could be used to create pornographic videos with celebrities' faces superimposed or have world leaders appear to make outrageous and potentially dangerous statements. "
I have to admit: Donald Trump has a point. There's a lot of fake news out there. It's just that most of what he calls fake is true, and some of what he calls true is fake.
That's the crux of the problem: Who do we believe? And what do we do about people who absolutely believe things that aren't true, because fake news can be so convincing?
The point Peele is illustrating just points to how much worse things are going to get with technology. How are we going to trust what we see and hear? Even legitimate news sites will have trouble discerning what is real and what is fake.
Plus, let's face it. Most people believe things that fit their already set viewpoint. And many are willing to go over the top with their beliefs.
There's still a lot of people out there convinced that "Pizzagate" is real, that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of the basement of a Washington DC pizzaria, never mind that said pizza place doesn't even have a basement.
There's an amazing number of people out there who think the Earth is flat, that jet contrails are really "chemtrails" raining chemicals down on us to control our minds, that surviving students of the February mass shooting in Florida are just "crisis actors" trying to take all our rights away.
When this becomes widespread, when videos will literally put words in other peoples' mouths, this conspiracy theory, fake news believing group will become bigger and bigger.
And real world problems won't get solved because everyone will be chasing fake world problems.
Technology can be a force of good. But more and more often, it's being weaponized. Mostly for psych ops. That's not the future I want.
