15 years ago I created a "pre-deep fakes" automated actor replacement visual effects production pipeline. My ambition was to create "Personalized Advertising" where ordinary people would appear in video advertising for desirable products like film trailers, and various other products and services that typically have a celebrity spokesperson - the basic idea was the celebrity spokesperson would be "with you" in the advert explaining how great the product was while you are depicted nodding and enjoying it.
The system worked, and still would work if I un-mothballed it. I even globally patented the system, with an ungodly expense doing so: https://patents.justia.com/patent/7460731
However, nobody believed what I was pitching 15 years ago was possible. After I'd demonstrate a scaled down implementation, I'd get interest and an investment pool would start to form. Then one of the investors would realize the tech could be used for porn, and then no matter how I explained the economics of failure such an application would cause, their stupid dicks would take over and I could not get them to realize "porn with anyone inserted" is a lawsuit engine and not a sell-able product.
While pursuing this, I became extremely jaded about what people think occurs in a film production, and the time and expense necessary to add visual effects to any media. The majority of angels and VC I pitched were flabbergasted at what current media and VFX productions are like, and their current level of expense and sophistication. My proposing a fully automated incarnation struck them as complete fantasy. Yet I had a working implementation. Slowly I'd convince them of the possibility... and then they'd get fixated on porn, ignoring the fact that there is no way to make money producing deep fake porn.
I eventually went bankrupt and left media production entirely. After creating my fully automated VFX pipeline, working in VFX without my automation tools drove me nuts. I work in facial recognition now.
The system worked, and still would work if I un-mothballed it. I even globally patented the system, with an ungodly expense doing so: https://patents.justia.com/patent/7460731
However, nobody believed what I was pitching 15 years ago was possible. After I'd demonstrate a scaled down implementation, I'd get interest and an investment pool would start to form. Then one of the investors would realize the tech could be used for porn, and then no matter how I explained the economics of failure such an application would cause, their stupid dicks would take over and I could not get them to realize "porn with anyone inserted" is a lawsuit engine and not a sell-able product.
While pursuing this, I became extremely jaded about what people think occurs in a film production, and the time and expense necessary to add visual effects to any media. The majority of angels and VC I pitched were flabbergasted at what current media and VFX productions are like, and their current level of expense and sophistication. My proposing a fully automated incarnation struck them as complete fantasy. Yet I had a working implementation. Slowly I'd convince them of the possibility... and then they'd get fixated on porn, ignoring the fact that there is no way to make money producing deep fake porn.
I eventually went bankrupt and left media production entirely. After creating my fully automated VFX pipeline, working in VFX without my automation tools drove me nuts. I work in facial recognition now.