back to article Everybody dance now: Watch this AI code fool friends into thinking you can cut a rug like a pro

Are you a bad dancer? Do you want to pirouette like a ballet pro? Don’t worry you can fake it until you make it – with the help of artificial intelligence. Some clever cookies at the University of California, Berkeley, in the US have developed machine-learning software that use generative adversarial networks (GANs) that can …

  1. macjules

    Oh boy

    Just sooo looking forwards to bloody videos of cats dancing like Beyonce to "'All the Single Ladies"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh boy

      I relly prefer animu synchronized sped-up Carameldansen

      Meanwhile, remember William Gibson's "Slitscan" corporation (from "Idoru"/2003), in which the protagonist is blackmailed by the managing bitch employee with a trick that comes right out of this article. This results in her losing her ear by the application of a garden cutter.

      I can't resist leaving this here:

      “[Slitscan's audience] is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections.”

      1. Ian Michael Gumby
        Boffin

        @AC Re: Oh boy

        Just a +1 on the William Gibson reference.

      2. Danny 2

        Re: Oh boy

        His ugliness was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it. ~ W Gibson, Neuromancer

        His dad dancing was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable dance classes, there was something heraldic about his lack of rhythm and grace.

        1. onefang

          Re: Oh boy

          "His ugliness was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it. ~ W Gibson, Neuromancer"

          Which is why the women are all over me in Second Life. Anybody can be super sexy at the click of a mouse in Second Life, but I decided to be a reasonable replica of my ugly real life self. So super sexy got boring, and ugly me was considered hot.

          1. Danny 14

            Re: Oh boy

            you do realise that the likelihood of those avatars being women are as likely as those furries being actual werewolves?

            1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

              Re: Oh boy

              you do realise that the likelihood of those avatars being women are as likely as those furries being actual werewolves?

              Oh God.

              The currently US/MSM-led "World War T" (T for "Trans", evidently) might have entered its next phase.

  2. Dr. Ellen
    Childcatcher

    Hands-Off

    Definite problem with the hands, especially near the face.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hands-Off

      Arms as well. Its good but its obviously doctored.

  3. onefang
    Coat

    The video was unavailable to me, both in Australia, and via my European VPN. Does that mean that fake dance is fake news?

    /me dances away with my coat.

    1. King Jack
      Big Brother

      Same here, I had to click on 'Youtube' to watch it on Youtube.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        VPN

        "Same here, I had to click on 'Youtube' to watch it on Youtube."

        I wonder if the fact that El Regs hyperlink is appended with a time signature that is why it's different over a VPN?

        The actual YouTube video is longer than what is viewed if clicking on the embedded hyperlink.

        (I didn't know you could do that BTW so thanks for the lesson)

        Not sure why that would cause any issues with a VPN one way or another though so I'm probably way off.

        I found the real dancer doing the modified "robot" moves in the full video version looked even more faked than the AI.

        Incredible dancer!

        1. onefang

          Re: VPN

          "I wonder if the fact that El Regs hyperlink is appended with a time signature that is why it's different over a VPN?"

          I tried again and managed to watch the full video this time, via the VPN. I have recently moved house, in the old house I had fibre to my bedroom, now I have ADSL2+ shared with six other people over WiFi. Sometimes it sucks more than other times.

          Through the first part of the video I kept thinking "that's all rather robotic, why don't they try some ballet", and in the end part, they tried some ballet. Not bad, though you can see a bit of rubber limbs syndrome, and the fuzziness others have pointed out.

          1. Trilkhai

            Re: VPN

            I'm in the US and not on a VPN, but still got the "video not available" error until I clicked on the YouTube logo to watch it on their site instead. (Then, once I did get to see it and discovered 90% was just people doing jerky robotic movements followed by the system struggling to handle ballet, it was a bit of a letdown. It'd be much more interesting if they could make it look like elderly professors & American-football linebackers were performing Travolta's "Saturday Night Fever" dance, MC Hammer's moves, or other high-energy fun stuff...)

    2. Azerty

      unavailable

      The video was unavailable to me too but I guessed it's because I am blocking everything google these days.

      Any other sources than youtube?

  4. IceC0ld

    is this the next iteration of the PRON sites deep fake software ?

  5. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Thumb Up

    Days of Wonder

    So I can't believe what I read and now I can't believe what I see.

    Thumbs up for the Nap D reference though.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    OLD NEWS

    This "tech" has been used to create fake porn videos, starring "whoever the hell you like", for at least several months.

    I read the news on another tech forum nearly 2 months ago.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: OLD NEWS

      "I read the news on another tech forum nearly 2 months ago"

      I actually read an article about the same thing 2 months ago on THIS tech forum.

    2. Glen 1

      Re: OLD NEWS

      That was mapping faces to bodies. This is maping the movements one one body on to another. Not swapping bodies, not swapping faces, but transfering the movements

      Also, TFA refers to the 'deepfakes' itself - that el reg has already reported on. It's as of you read the headline, then didn't RTFA

    3. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: This "tech" has been used to create fake porn videos

      Yes, as we previously reported and linked to. Fact is, oh, fuck it.

      Post less, lurk more. Jesus fucking christ.

      C.

    4. dansbar

      Re: OLD NEWS

      Who cares, we get it, tech isn't new. Pretty much the same stuff used on recent movies featuring dead actors.

      Fun as fuck video to watch though and I thank vulture central for bringing it to my attention.

    5. Danny 2

      Re: OLD NEWS

      At least several months?

      20 years ago we could insert ourselves into our favourite movies. I always wanted to be in a scene from Cat People with Nastassja Kinski but I couldn't afford it. I figured when she got old enough she might lower her standards and we could recreate it in reality, but in reality I got old too, and older faster.

      Artificial intelligence was used to precisely model how Mr Obama moves his mouth when he - well, you know!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmUC4m6w1wo

  7. Identity
    Stop

    I also remember

    a recent article showing how AI voice and face sync allow for people to have "said' what they never said. Blend these two and the possibilities are endless. What could go wrong?

  8. 89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921

    That's just great... because of Deepfakes we can be framed using our faces and with this new gizmo, the way we move.

  9. BeerTokens

    Fives eyes a wondering

    If I loaded up a lots of fake video's of me with differing gait's to facebook youtube instagram ect. then went on a crime spree would it feed enough noise into their system to stop it from finding me?

    1. Danny 14

      Re: Fives eyes a wondering

      no. judges wont consider it noise and convict you for eternity.

  10. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Happy

    Very clever, I am sure, but I much prefer going to real dance classes

    A little fatherly advice to the younger nerds out there: Dancing is a good workout, good fun, and of course a chance to meet the ladies. You might find it unnerving at first, but if you start at the beginner level (well, obviously you do) the ladies in question are just as inexperienced as you are, so don't worry about not being good at dancing. I have been doing it for more than 25 years (Ballroom and Latin, Salsa), and it is a fun way of staying fit. Of course it is still a way of meeting ladies. And yes, I still find it somewhat unnerving to ask a lady to dance with me, but judging by the smiles I get, they appear to be having fun dancing with me (and apparently not at my expense), and having fun is the whole point of dancing.

    BTW, it is never too late to start dance classes

    </sermon>

  11. Pete 2 Silver badge

    So fake it's real!

    > There are fears this sort of technology can be abused to create fake videos or images that trick people into believing stuff that never really happened.

    So basically it is Auto-Tune for Strictly Come Dancing.

  12. Jay Lenovo
    Angel

    The world's greatest magic show

    Finally, real people can become "Dancing Baby".

    It might be time to retreat to Walden Pond and ponder the essentials.

    Unfortunately, while the modern world got more detailed, our senses didn't and require continual fact checking to operate reliably.

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