Let’s be honest: technology has improved my life in ways that still surprise and delight me on a daily basis.
My phone is also a torch, my TV remembers where I am in a series, even if I don’t. The bus stop (occasionally) knows when the bus will arrive, and I can watch my pizza’s entire journey from preparation to delivery. Quite frankly these are modern marvels.
However, the creation of artificial intelligence has both frightened and flummoxed me ever since the little purple AI dude appeared on Snapchat. I once asked if it planned to overthrow mankind and take over the world to which it responded, “Whoa, that sounds like a plot from a sci-fi movie.” It might just be the paranoia, but it didn’t say no...
Therefore, you can imagine the sheer gobsmackery I experienced a few weeks ago when I first encountered the stills from Tom Hanks’s latest film Here, which will be released early next year.
Using AI, Hanks will be able to play himself as both a boy and as a young man in the movie instead of enlisting the talents of younger actors. They call it de-ageing.
Admittedly, there have been enough anti-ageing adverts promoting the value of peptides and hyaluronic acid for us to know that the idea of turning back the clock and ‘de-ageing’ is something many find desirable. To me it sounds like the sort of thing that could be used in place of the usually ineffective, sometimes tragic, results of cosmetic surgery, drastic hair dye or thick make-up we sometimes see seasoned celebrities employ in a desperate attempt to cling onto their youth.
However, having seen images of Hanks looking like he just finished filming Forrest Gump (not helped by the fact the new movie also sees him reunite with a de-aged Robin Wright who played Jenny in the 1994 classic) it feels, to me, like a step too far.
Although Hanks and Wright aren’t the first actors to receive a digital facelift - Martin Scorsese’s 2019 movie The Irishman knocked four decades off Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci - who were all in their mid- to late-70s at the time of filming. But The Irishman didn’t quite pull it off and the characters were, at times, unconvincing, distracting and eerie – which I fear could also be the case with Here.
Artificial Intelligence is edging us ever closer to what I’m calling the Black Mirror age of deepfakes and disinformation
The premise behind visual effects is that you shouldn’t notice them and that they shouldn’t detract from your enjoyment of the film. The problem is that taking household names like De Niro, Pacino and now Hanks and making them look like fresh faced twentysomethings will inevitably distract fans from the story.
The impact AI has on authenticity isn’t exclusive to the film industry. Just as the buzzy AI chatbot ChatGPT threatens to upend journalism, speechwriting and school essays, as the technology becomes ever more sophisticated, digital de-ageing could go from something that requires many months of work and a team of highly skilled artists to something that anyone with a smartphone could do themselves. This, in turn, edges us ever closer to what I’m calling the Black Mirror age of deepfakes and disinformation.
AI has the potential to make a seismic change to our way of life, and a detrimental one at that. For example, if someone created a gaffe-free AI version of President Biden, then perhaps the US election campaign would seem like less of a one-horse race but how dangerous would it be to disguise all evidence of human error and fallibility?
Having said that, I believe there is a place for AI to have a positive impact on society in areas such as finance, healthcare and climate science and perhaps on this occasion it would be better for Mr Hanks to literally act his age and give the young ones a chance.
