For anyone who thought the Chinese spy balloon was weird, wait till you see the next phase in subterfuge that China already is using to put its own stamp on news events. China is creating videos of news anchors who talk about American gun violence or put Beijing’s spin on meetings between global leaders. But the anchors themselves are fake — computer-generated avatars designed to look and talk like real humans.
Graphika, a research firm, first reported on China’s unprecedented use of computer-generated avatars to create online postings of propaganda that were then inserted into postings on Facebook and Twitter under the name “Wolf News.” Granted, it doesn’t take long to see that something isn’t quite right. The avatars’ eyelids blink, but their eyeballs don’t move. Their heads don’t nod or swivel like real humans. And the biggest warning sign is that the words don’t always match the mouth movements.
The anchors in the Chinese videos are part of stock avatar images offered by an artificial-intelligence company, Synthesia, that offers packages for individuals or companies to create their own training videos. All the user does is type out the words that the avatar is supposed to say. The user can even load in separate background video so that the avatar appears to be reporting, say, from a television newsroom or a war-torn city. The avatars can be made to say anything the user wants, including racist insults and blatant lies.
