South Park’s creators are back with some of the highest quality deepfakes ever

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If you’ve seen the viral video “Sassy Justice,” you might be wondering how the heck the producers were able to get famous people to satirize themselves. Well, they’re not really there. No, really. They’re deepfakes, created by AI, and voiced by none other than Peter Serafinowicz, reading lines thought up by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, of South Park fame.

Yeah, makes a little bit more sense now, doesn’t it? The dynamic duo says they, “wanted to make fun of it [deepfakes] because it makes it less scary.” The footage was intended for a full feature film, but that got shelved as the coronavirus pandemic ramped up and production ground to a halt.

It’s kinda cool they were able to salvage some of that investment, although we’re pretty sure the people who were deepfaked in the clip won’t be amused.

I mean, look at the “cast.” Our current President, Donald Trump. His daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner. Mark Zuckerberg being slightly less wooden-than-usual as the owner of a shady dialysis center instead of the social media mogul we’re used to. While you watch it, note how smoothly the facial expressions are, which we must remind you, were all created by AI.

The South Park creators liken deepfakes to “this new form of animation for people like us,” because it gives them full control over every aspect of every shot, just like when they were using cardboard cut-outs to create South Park. Serafinowicz treats it as “a high-tech form of makeup or costume,” where he can almost literally become the person he’s doing an impression of.

Whether you worry about deepfakes influencing financial markets or elections, or if you just find them a useful tool for comedy, deepfakes are here to stay. Maybe don’t trust everything you see on the internet, okay?

What do you think? Does deepfake technology make you worried about the future? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• Telegram is no longer a safe place for women as deepfake AI is being used to create deepfake nudes
• Microsoft just released a much-needed tool that sniffs out deepfakes ahead of the election
• Forget video deepfakes, audio-only deepfakes are now a very real threat
• Zao is a Chinese app that puts your face into famous movies and it’s blowing up like crazy

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.