By Laura Kobylecky

Some people see them as a fun Internet novelty while others may see them as a sign that could lead to the total collapse of media trust. Ian Beacraft, CEO and Chief Futurist at Signal And Cipher (an agency that helps brands adapt to future tech) has a more optimistic perspective.

Synthetic media is a broad term for the production of media through artificial means. Beacraft introduces the concept with some popular Internet animations. The videos show celebrities and movie characters moving their mouths in sync to the words he is saying, creating the illusion that they, rather than Beacraft, are the ones speaking. These videos are rudimentary. The mouths have slightly blurred edges and a certain dissonance that flags them as fake. However, the result is close enough to convey the idea.

Synthetic media is a broad term for the production of media through artificial means
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Beacraft then brings up animated versions of himself speaking in different languages, followed by a moment where he is placed in that iconic Matrix scene and he takes the obligatory “red” pill. He further illustrates the concept with an image of Jennifer Lawrence accepting an award, but her face has been digitally replaced by Steve Buscemi. These are some examples of that synthetic media which is manipulated or made entirely by algorithms.

He addresses the more nefarious possibilities of this technology. This sort of digital replacement could be used to artificially create “revenge porn” or to alter statements made by political figures. He balances this with the more professional applications of synthetic technology. Paul Walker appeared in Furious 7, after his death, using a digital recreation. In Rogue One, a particularly young Princess Leia was brought back for a cameo.

There are three categories of deepfakes: voice cloning, puppetry, and face-swapping #SXSW 2021
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Beacraft explains three categories of deepfakes: voice cloning, puppetry and face-swapping. Voice cloning involves taking an “imprint” of someone’s voice and then using that in a variety of contexts, different from the original instances. A face-swap is the digital replacement of one face with another. Puppetry involves making someone appear to say words that they did not, by digitally altering the movement of the face to match the words. All of these are in some ways based on existing media and existing people.

Digital Beings

A step further is the idea of “digital beings” with an entirely synthetic basis that do note require a “real” human as a reference. Beacraft explains that realistically-human, synthetic beings might be appealing as digital assistants. They could also have a place in video games or in AR/VR applications.

One tool that might be useful in this is MetaHuman Creator, an upcoming application made by Unreal Engine, the creators of Fortnite. This application will be a cloud-streamed app that makes digital creation faster and simpler. Beacraft sees this as an example of how these digital beings might become more significant, accessible, and relevant to the public in the future.

Beacraft also sees that digital beings might become increasingly relevant as public figures. Right now avatars like the entirely synthetic, “Lil Miquela,” have proven that digital beings can capture the public’s imagination. Lil Miquela has three million Instagram followers and has proven to be a powerful influencer. The Geico Gecko and even the KFC spokesman, Colonel Sanders, are also examples of synthetic beings, according to Beacraft. They do not exist in the “real world” but they are admired as their own entities and influence public perceptions.

Making 3D Models

Accessibility is another big trend that might change the landscape of synthetic media. Photogrammetry is one currently used way of making 3D models. It involves taking many images and stitching them together in a 3D program. Beacraft explains that new techniques have made 3d avatars easier to create. He begins a demonstration of this by showing how a single photo can become a 3D model.

In the future, digital beings might become increasingly relevant as public figures #SXSW 2021
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He uses a neural network architecture called “PIFuHD.“ This is a cloud app that seems to require some level of coding skill to use and is available on GitHub. Beacraft uses a single image of himself to create a 3D model. Since the photo provides no reference for the back of his figure, the program guessed this part based on data it had been fed in its training phrase.

Beacraft puts the resulting model in a 3D modeling program to polish it up. He overlays photographs on the model to add the colors and details. The haircut is added via a texture program and reference images because apparently hair is a bit more difficult to work with. The resulting 3D human is somewhat realistic. The figure is obviously recognizable as Beacraft, but it has the usual slight “uncanny valley” strangeness and small inconsistencies that you may find in digital avatars.

Now that he has a 3D model, Beacraft uses a program called Mixamo to give it life. The program allows him to animate his model with a variety of movements. First, he makes the character walk; Next, he animates the character with a “moonwalk.” The figure’s awkward shambling makes it look a bit like a very smooth zombie. But it does work.

Open Metaverse

The advance of 3D modeling stretches beyond simple recreations of human figures. Beacraft explains that blockchain may play a key role in this future. In an “open metaverse,” digital creations might move more freely. NFT and blockchain could allow for the ownership and transportation of digital creation across platforms.

Synthetic media is not just about deepfakes and high value visual effects, but about the creation of new worlds #SXSW 2021
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For example, a person could make or buy a digital garment for their avatar and be able to sell it as an individual item, supported by blockchain technology. Thanks to the open metaverse, this item might not have to remain in a specific game or ecosystem. Any other environments that embraced this technology could also import such items.

Beacraft seems to believe in an optimistic future for synthetic media. He acknowledges that many people are concerned about artificial intelligence taking away jobs as they exist today, yet he believes that the ease of use for emerging AI design technologies will offset those losses by creating new opportunities for a wide variety of people and a range of expertise.

“These losses are preparing us for the worlds we’re going to be entering today and tomorrow. Synthetic media is not just about deepfakes and high value visual effects, but about the creation of new worlds,” Bearcraft concludes.

Tech Trends’ Digital Consultancy services offer support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality

Laura Kobylecky is a contributing writer to Tech Trends. She is particularly interested in new and emerging technology and culture. Connect with her on LinkedIn 

The post Synthetic Media: More than Just Deepfakes appeared first on Tech Trends.

By Laura Kobylecky

South by Southwest has pivoted to an online-only event this year. SXSW Online 2021, as it’s officially called, is occurring in a digital venue that includes the normal collection of sessions about a wide range of topics.

Speakers at #SXSW addressed the challenges of asteroid mining and space travel
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One of these sessions is “Space Gold Rush,” a discussion about the possibilities and methods for mining in space. The discussion was moderated by Loren Grush, Senior Science Reporter at The Verge, and included Joe Landon, VP, Advanced Programs Dev, Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin, Alexander MacDonald – Chief Economist and ISS National Lab Program Executive at NASA – and Daniel Suarez, author of Delta-v. The speakers discussed some of the challenges of asteroid mining and space travel, as well as NASA’s future plans for space exploration and the political ramifications of a future in space.

Mining in Space

Alexander MacDonald explained that space mining entered the public imagination in the 19^th century with works of fiction. One of the first stories to address the topic was “Edison’s Conquest of Mars, it was a sequel written to the War of the Worlds where the world strikes back at Mars.” In the book, the characters pass “a Martian asteroid mining camp.” Another of the “first landmark descriptions” occurred in the early 1900s when Russian space physicist and theorist, Constantine Stokowski, brought up the idea that all civilizations have to mine basic resources from somewhere in order to create the products of civilization. Therefore, if we want to travel farther into the reaches of space, we will also need to figure out how to make mining work in space.

Daniel Suarez brought up some of the basic challenges of mining in space, mentioning that there are companies “transitioning from fiction into fact,” by addressing the difficulty of getting “things into orbit more cheaply and more reliably.” These companies, which he declined to name in order to avoid picking “winners or losers,” were focusing on “reusable rockets” to address this issue.

There are companies transitioning from fiction into fact by addressing the difficulty of getting things into orbit more cheaply and more reliably #SXSW 2021
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Another problem is the difficulty of taking “earth-based technologies” and moving them to space:

“Try to imagine mining a pile of gravel that’s in free fall, in a radiated vacuum,” MacDonald said, drawing subtle nods of agreement from Suarez and Landon.

Landon added that his former company – Planetary Resources – had dealt with some of these difficulties. He explained that they were developing technologies to address these issues, focusing on ways to “find resources that are valuable in space and characterize them.” This would involve some of the difficulties that Suarez brought up, as well as the issue that “before you can build a mine you have to know where to build it.”

Landon explained that “autonomy and tele-robotics” instead of traditional mining, will be key for making this happen: Terrestrial mining companies have expressed interest in using this sort of technology back on Earth, which could potentially lead to another wave of automation in that sector.

Before you can build a mine you have to know where to build it - Space Mining at #SXSW 2021
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Suarez mentioned that the target for these mining operations might be “near-earth asteroids.” This is because at “particular points in their orbit” they are very close to Earth. A ship should could hypothetically “pull up next to them” because they don’t have a “deep gravity well.” This means that you wouldn’t have to deal with the greater gravitational force you might get from something like the Moon when landing.

Moderator Loren Grush then asked what specific instances might warrant the use of space mining.

Landon answered that “Right now, anything sent to space must be launched at “enormous cost” as we pay the “gravity tax” to send anything away from this planet. Mining in space would reduce the materials that need to be sent on these missions. He also brought up the idea of making fuel from materials found in space, like the water that may be found in places on the Moon.

MacDonald pointed out that these ideas, like making fuel from water, might have a cost-saving element but many might well turn out to be much more expensive. While technology such as reasonable rocketry may drive down the launch cost, some other innovations might be halted. If launching fuel into space gets cheaper, then people lose the reason for doing complicated things like looking for water among the Moondust and making it into fuel.

The potential environmental cost of launching thousands of rockets into the atmosphere remains an unknown #SXSW 2021
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Suarez also brought up the associated issue of climate change, mentioning that the hundreds and thousands of rockets that might be launched into the atmosphere could produce “interesting damage at high levels in the atmosphere and that the “economic and environmental cost of that remains an unknown.

Innovation and Motivation

Grush asked the group “what are some of the struggles that asteroid mining presents?” and what these struggles may have done to delay the growth of the “asteroid mining market.”

According to Landon, Planetary Resources may have been a bit “ahead of their time” in ways that limited their chance to fully pursue their innovative ideas. He explains that a company needs “something to sell and someone to buy it.” The business of mining would require “two leaps of faith.” One is to “extract something useful” and the other is “someone to buy it.”

He is “excited about NASA’s Artemis program.” NASA’s website describes Artemis as “the first step in the next era of human exploration.” They will work with “commercial and international partners” and “establish a sustainable presence on the Moon to prepare for missions to Mars”. Landon sees NASA and their program as a “lighthouse customer” who will help create a new market.

MacDonald further addresseD the connection between NASA and the commercial market: “one thing that we’ve noticed certainly is that there is a high degree of correlation between the type of space resources that companies look to pursue and where NASA has most recently been directed to go explore.” The other speakers smile and nod in agreement.

NASA’s initial involvement in asteroid mining and exploration would be to “begin the process of learning how to manipulate the raw materials there, extract them, and figure out how you would do it.” The commercial companies involved in that would be “types of technologies that would feed into that program.” This sort of collaboration reinforces the concept of NASA as the “lighthouse customer,” leading the way to new industries.

MacDonald further explained that more recently “NASA was redirected to focus on the Moon,” so they are “developing technologies for lunar resource extraction.” He reiterates the significance of NASA’s work:

“NASA remains to this day by far, in our way, the largest funder of all R&D and missions in this area. While rocketry is a helpful purview for private investment, things like space exploration and probes to other worlds are still, very much, predominantly a government affair.”

This perspective is furthered by the “thinking behind the asteroid mission,” according to MacDonald. That mission, OSIRIS-REx will travel to an asteroid and bring back a sample. The mission, he explains, is intended to lay the groundwork for future missions to come. At NASA “it’s the scientific exploration that precedes” other goals” and “our first encounter with these optics is usually from a perspective of just trying to learn what’s there and trying to answer fundamental questions.” After that, they may begin finding “what parts of this might be useful for future human activities.”

MacDonald is optimistic about the future of NASA and the Artemis program. There has been “consistent congressional direction for about 15 years that a Moon to Mars program was what the nation demanded.” In early February, Biden made a statement fully supporting the program. MacDonald mentioned, with a slightly wry tone, that it is “encouraging to those of us at NASA that have been working on it for quite some time.” The statement drew a smile and nod from Suarez.

One of the next steps in this process is NASA’s VIPER, a robotic rover designed to assess the water to touch the volatiles. The ‘V’ in viper stands for “volatiles” and water is the principal volatile that they are interested in. The rover will be getting a closer view of the South Pole of the Moon to look for water ice. Because this is a government mission, there will be map data and new information available to the public, and the hope is that it will take NASA a step closer to the possibility of establishing habitation on the Moon.

The gateway and lunar habitation will be a great test run for the Mars mission in the future #SXSW 2021
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NASA’s other “next step” is “the gateway… a habitation vehicle that will be in orbit around the Moon. This gateway will help with further exploration of space in more ways than one. It will serve to test the operational paradigms that we’re going to use on Mars. For the first Mars mission, “a split crew operation” will be required, with some on the surface of Mars and some in orbit around the planet. The gateway and lunar habitation will be a great test run for the Mars mission in the future.

Geopolitics in Space

The conversation shifted finally to the more political side of things. Ultimately, it remains to be seen how countries will work together in the future of space. MacDonald describes this as an “increasingly contentious issue,” while Suarez mentioned that “space law is becoming a burgeoning field,” comparing it to maritime law. There remains the question of how space mining claims would work, and Landon draws a parallel with fishing rights, explaining that “I can’t own the fish when it’s in the water but when I catch it it’s mine.”

MacDonald asks the question “are we going to have a Star Trek future or a Dune future…exploring and learning from the cosmos in partnership and cooperation and in peace or are we going to be seeing clashes between the great houses for ownership of the galaxy.” He sees a “return to the kind of geopolitics that we had in the 60s and 70s because we’re returning to that level of engagement by world leaders on that issue.” Major leaders of partner countries like Canada and Japan have spoken directly about their interest and commitment to the space program.

MacDonald adds that partnerships with Russia are absolutely critical and that the USA and Russia are “still engaging in conversations,” while Landon observed that “this is really one of the underappreciated benefits of space and space exploration; it creates an opportunity for diplomacy and for international cooperation that has lasted beyond lots of other venues.”  The U.S. collaboration with Russia on the ISS is one of the “strongest areas our two countries work together on,” he points out.

At the moment, humans have only just begun to explore space. Exciting things are on the horizon for exploration and perhaps monetization and mining. The value of space exploration extends beyond immediate profit and into the possibility for collaboration and peace between nations. Keep your eyes to the sky, new things are coming.

The value of space exploration extends beyond immediate profit and into the possibility for collaboration and peace between nations #SXSW 2021
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Tech Trends’ Digital Consultancy services offer support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality

Laura Kobylecky is a contributing writer to Tech Trends. She is particularly interested in new and emerging technology and culture. Connect with her on LinkedIn 

The post Space Gold Rush at #SXSW 2021 appeared first on Tech Trends.