Balenciaga

Using AI & deepfake tools, a YouTube user reimagines JK Rowling's creations as a high-fashion ad. What does it mean for the media industry?

For AI in particular, only the developers involved have a deeper understanding (one hopes) of how it works. There is a quote attributed to Voltaire, that if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. But for now at least, the idea that a super intelligent entity with mysterious, even malicious goals, enslaves the human race or drives it to extinction is an overblown concern. The other issue, when it comes to our relationship with technology, emerges from the perception we hold of it. So get ready to see more content in the vein of ‘Harry Potter by Balenciaga’. Of course, there would be a licensing minefield to navigate. The meme itself has become the ultimate form of entertainment. Deepfake tools have already made it to movie and TV screens, most notably when it comes to de-aging old actors like Robert DeNiro in Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman. "The Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse," he is known to have said. To save costs and to create previously impossible or at least difficult to execute sequences, the wider entertainment and media industry would incrementally incorporate emerging technologies in existing work pipeline. As late as 1948, women’s education pioneer Mary Somerville still viewed it as a ‘flash in the pan’. “Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular," they asked.