The Rise of Synthetic Media & Digital Creators

3.5.
2021 The Rise of Synthetic Media & Digital Creators - Digital Native
Hilfe
Digital Native Anmelden

Subscribe
The Rise of Synthetic Media & Digital Creators

How AI-Generated Content Will Define the Future
Rex Woodbury
Apr 28
This is a weekly newsletter about how people and technology intersect. To receive this
newsletter in your inbox each week, subscribe here:
Geben Sie Ihre E-Mail-Adresse ein… Subscribe
The Rise of Synthetic Media & Digital

Creators
This is Miko. She’s a virtual streamer. And with nearly 700K followers, she’s one of the most
popular streamers on Twitch.
This site uses cookies. To find out more, read our privacy policy ✖ Close
https://digitalnative.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-synthetic-media-and-digital 1/18
3.5.2021 The Rise of Synthetic Media & Digital Creators - Digital Native
Miko is the creation of “The Technician”, a real-life developer who controls Miko with a
motion capture body suit. The suit alone costs upwards of $30,000.
Miko’s creator—who only ever refers to herself as The Technician—painstakingly develops

Miko using her mocap suit and the Unreal Engine. In a typical day, she wakes up at 2:00am
to dev, devs until 12:00pm, and then streams from 12:00pm to 6:00pm.
The Technician’s career embodies the recent surge of the creator economy. At the
beginning of the pandemic, The Technician was laid o from the animation studio she
worked at, just weeks a er moving to Los Angeles. Stuck with a $2,000-a-month lease, she
remembers: “I thought, you know what would be the good thing to do right now isn’t to try
to look for work. Let me put down 20 grand and try to make it on Twitch.”
The early days were slow-going. The Technician made $300 a month and was tens of
thousands of dollars in debt from purchasing expensive equipment. But The Technician got
creative: she allowed viewers to use bits, Twitch’s native currency, to interact directly with
Miko. Viewers could spend money to make Miko dance or even (temporarily) die. They
could use bits to tweak Miko’s appearance or change her surroundings. The dollars started
to pour in. Since December, Miko has grown from 2,000 followers to 700,000 followers, and
The Technician now employs a team of seven.
Miko embodies the rise of “VTubers” (Virtual YouTubers), a catchall term for online
creators who digitally obscure their faces and bodies. But more broadly, Miko embodies a
nascent, but fascinating space: synthetic media.
Synthetic Media & Deepfakes

Synthetic media is media content that’s generated or altered by arti cial intelligence.
Today, most people are familiar with synthetic media through deepfakes, a form of
synthetic media in which a person in a video or image is replaced with someone else.
The term deepfake—a portmanteau of “deep learning” and “fake”—comes from the handle
of a Reddit user who digitally swapped the faces of Scarlett Johansson and Gal Gadot onto
the bodies of X-rated actresses. The early uses of deepfakes, unsurprisingly, were in
pornography.
(Side note: when a new phenomenon comes to porn, that o en means it’ll soon go
mainstream. Porn has a long history of being the rst stop for innovation. Much of today’s
legislation around internet governance was a reaction to porn, with one Senator remarking
in 1995, “If nothing is done now, the pornographers may become the primary bene ciary of
the information revolution.” One recent survey ranks PornHub as the 3rd-most-in uential
company of the 21st Century, ahead of companies like Apple, Amazon, Microso , and
Net ix.)
Predictably, deepfakes moved beyond porn and today ~80% of deepfakes are non-
pornographic.
Source: Sentinel Deepfake Report

From 2019 to 2020, deepfake videos grew 6,820x (!), from 14,678 videos to 100 million videos.
They began to invade mainstream internet platforms. Tom Cruise, for example, isn’t on
TikTok. But you’d be forgiven for thinking he is: the account @deeptomcruise posts (very
convincing) deepfakes of Tom Cruise. You can watch examples here and here.
Tom Cruise deepfakes from the TikTok account @deeptomcruise
Today, deepfakes—and, by extension, synthetic media—have a negative public perception:

9 out of 10 Americans believe deepfakes could cause more harm than good. Their concerns
aren’t unfounded. Look no further than last fall’s deepfake of Joe Biden announcing that he
has cancer, or the 2019 deepfake of Nancy Pelosi appearing to slur her words due to
dementia. The Pelosi video racked up millions of views on Facebook a er the platform
refused to remove it. (Ironically, Facebook was also forced to keep up a deepfake video of
Mark Zuckerberg saying “whoever controls the data, controls the future” in a dictator-like
speech.) If deepfakes had been prevalent in 2016, it’s easy to imagine Donald Trump
claiming that the Access Hollywood tape is simply a deepfake. Deepfakes could exacerbate
“fake news” and permanently distort the line between ction and reality.
Like all technologies, synthetic media isn’t moral or immoral; it’s amoral, and the right
safeguards and regulations need to be put in place to ensure that the technology is used
responsibly. But synthetic media’s seedy underbelly shouldn’t take away from its potential
upside.
The Third Evolutionary Stage of Media

In its Synthetic Media Landscape report, Samsung Next argues that synthetic media is the
third evolutionary stage of media:
1. The Past: Old Media. Enabled mass distribution for a select few through TV, radio,
and print. Enabling Technology: Broadcasting
2. The Present: New Media. Enabled democratized distribution for everyone through
social media. Enabling Technology: The Internet
3. The Future: Synthetic Media. Will democratize media creation and creativity for
everyone. Enabling Technology: AI / Deep Learning
While more sinister use cases leap to mind, there are a variety of fascinating ways that
synthetic media can unlock creativity and improve lives:
High-Quality Content Production at Low Costs

Technology has consistently brought down the costs to produce quality content. What used
to be a million-dollar helicopter aerial shot can now be done with a GoPro and drone for
under $1,000. Apple’s editing so ware costs $299 and has been used to edit Oscar-winning
lms. Creation is becoming more and more accessible.
But that’s largely solo creation—a YouTuber or TikTok creator posting videos. Synthetic
media could let anyone produce content with an entire cast of actors. Imagine selecting
virtual actors, customizing them, and integrating them into your work.
Interactive Media
The arc of content over the last 25 years has been from passive viewership to active
participation. Films and TV gave way to YouTube and TikTok.
But imagine you and your friends literally participating in lms and TV. With synthetic
media, you could upload your friends’ faces and then all enjoy a thrilling adventure movie
starring your friend group. Instead of watching The Avengers, your friend group could be
The Avengers.
People will also adopt digital personas. Apps like Reface and Avatarify (below) let you swap
faces in videos, GIFs, and memes.
Avatarify also released a free Windows application that lets anyone synthetically generate a
3rd-party guest for their Zoom meeting—for example, you can surprise your colleagues by
joining the meeting as Elon Musk.
There are clearly ethical safeguards to put in place, but you can imagine a creator earning
income every time their likeness is used in a deepfake.
Synthetic Video and Voice Creation

Synthetic media lets creators make changes to video and audio content. In the past, you’d
need to go back and reshoot a scene or re-record a podcast. New tools let you synthetically
edit and create media.
Descript, for instance, is an audio creation tool that lets you make changes to your voice
track simply by editing a text script. It’s like magic: you type words into a Word-like
document and hear your own voice say them.
Synthesia lets companies create videos in multiple languages for purposes like corporate
training or CEO announcements. An English-speaking CEO can use AI to easily broadcast
to di erent o ces in Portuguese, Mandarin, Spanish, and so on.
Digital Characters
In 2019, KFC unveiled a digital Colonel Sanders. For some reason, they also made him a
total thirst trap. As a Mashable headline put it, “KFC's ‘Virtual In uencer Colonel’ is pretty
damn hot”.
Synthetic media allows brands to have lifelike digital mascots. Instead of an animated
Ronald McDonald, customers could interact with a virtual recreation.
Digital characters will also populate stores: imagine a virtual person taking your order at a
fast food drive-thru or answering your questions at the Apple Store. Arti cial intelligence
will automate rote tasks and jobs, o en taking the form of a digital human. This may seem
ominous and threatening. As I wrote in The Age of Automation, AI will ultimately be
immensely positive, but will need to be paired with workforce development and lifelong
learning.
Synthetic Advertising and Shopping

People who watch movies, TV, and video games in the future will see individualized,
synthetic product placements tailored to their tastes and needs. Samsung NEXT gives an
example:
Emily plays a game and sees a game character wearing a Nike sneaker. Her friend David
plays the same game and sees the same game character wearing an Adidas sneaker, as
David is more of an Adidas guy.
When shopping online, clothing brands will o er consumers the ability to see themselves
and their bodies in the clothing.
Anonymous Personas
In the HBO documentary Welcome to Chechnya, the lmmakers used deepfakes to let
survivors of LGBTQ+ persecution remain anonymous while recounting their stories.
Volunteers supplied their faces, which overlaid the survivors’ faces as they spoke.
A deepfake overlaid a volunteer’s face onto an anonymous survivor of

LGBTQ+ persecution in Chechnya for the HBO documentary Welcome to
Chechnya
Being a creator today is by nature public, meaning that people who are less publicly-
inclined don’t have access to the same avenues for creativity and self-expression. The
VTuber trend is one answer to this: most VTubers remain anonymous, and Miko is an
exception in sharing her real face.
Earlier this year, I wrote about the backlash to video: pandemic-fueled Zoom fatigue is
leading people to look for new ways to interact online. One e ect is the rise of avatar-based
social networks. ItsMe, for example, lets you meet new people through an avatar that maps
to your face.
ItsMe is an avatar-based social network in which your avatar makes to your

face; Source
Synthetic media will let people use AI-driven avatars and deepfakes to decouple their
private identities from their online expressions.
Digitally Rendering the Dead

This use case sounds dystopian, but bear with me. For 2016’s Rogue One, the lmmakers
wanted to include the character of Grand Mo Tarkin from the original 1977 Star Wars lm,
but the actor died in 1994. They solved the problem by digitally rendering the character.
The real Peter Cushing in 1977’s A New Hope (left) vs. the digital rendering
in 2016’s Rogue One (right); Source
Synthetic media makes it possible to recreate people’s faces and voices. It’s an eerie
thought—people “coming back” from the dead—but it can have powerful use cases. The
Illinois Holocaust Museum allows visitors to talk and interact with Holocaust survivors
using holographic technology. One edtech company is using deepfakes to better teach
students; in the CEO’s words:
“Our application of deepfake technology means pupils can have Stephen Hawking
teaching physics or Shakespeare explaining his writing—this will be as revolutionary for
education as the rst blackboard was.”
The app MyHeritage brings photos to life, letting people animate old photos of deceased
loved ones and ancestors. This has spurred a TikTok trend, including an emotional video of
an elderly man seeing his deceased wife “come back to life” using synthetic media:
Rex Woodbury
@rex_woodbury
This video is so moving and shows the power of synthetic media
April 27th 2021
4 Retweets 27 Likes
Scalable Digital Creators

The supermodel Linda Evangelista once said that she doesn’t get out of bed for less than
$10,000. But what if she could digitally license her image and make money while she
sleeps?
What’s fascinating about synthetic media is that it can dramatically scale a creator’s
likeness and, consequently, scale her earning power and creative output. The internet made
creators more scalable by unlocking instant, global distribution. But this has had the added
e ect of pressuring creators to always be producing content. Ninja, the most popular
streamer on Twitch, captures the problem:
Ninja
@Ninja
Wanna know the struggles of streaming over other jobs? I left for less
than 48 hours and lost 40,000 subscribers on twitch. I’ll be back today
(Wednesday) grinding again.
June 13th 2018
3,686 Retweets 65,240 Likes
The architecture of the modern creator economy sets creators up for exhaustion; it’s a
never-ending hamster wheel. With synthetic media, creators can scale their output in a
more sustainable and economically-rewarding way. It’s easy to imagine creators allowing
their likeness to be used in videos, podcasts, and livestreams—and getting paid for each
use.
While synthetic media can amplify real people’s creativity at greater scale, it can also
generate digitally-native creators. This was Trevor McFedries’ vision for Brud. McFedries
was moved by how media can be a vehicle for social change: he points to research showing
Will & Grace was largely responsible for public support of same-sex marriage. McFedries
wanted to capture that power at scale, building digital characters who can be in multiple
places at once and speak multiple languages.
Brud’s most famous product is Miquela, a digital creator with 3 million followers on both
Instagram and TikTok. Miquela can produce a theoretically in nite amount of content,
unburdened by the real-world constraints of non-digital creators.
Brud’s digital creator Miquela
Following in Miquela’s virtual footsteps, Shudu is another digital creator and is known as
the rst digital supermodel. Shudu’s image went viral and was reposted by Fenty Beauty
and Tyra Banks, who thought she was a real model.
Shudu’s artist, Cameron-James Wilson, is pushing even more boundaries for his next virtual
creation: he’s collaborating with his Instagram followers, who can in uence how the model
will look.
Final Thoughts
Synthetic media will have a dark side. All new technologies do. An entire separate piece
could be written on the ethical standards that need to be designed and implemented as
safeguards for synthetic media.
But synthetic media will also usher in a new wave of creativity and art. There’s a robust
ecosystem already forming:
Arti cial intelligence will lead to greater experimentation with media. Today’s creators will
produce at a greater scale—in terms of both quantity of content and quality of content—
and a new class of synthetic-native creators like Miko will emerge.
Last week, I wrote about how new technologies enable new forms of art and creativity.
Synthetic media is one of the most interesting and consequential new technologies, re ned
and improved and expanded every day. Like past technologies, synthetic media will
determine new forms of creating, and those new forms of creating will determine the next
generation of culture.
Sources & Additional Reading

Synthetic Media Landscape | Samsung NEXT
Deepfake 2020 Report | Sentinel
Who Is Code Miko? | Ginx
Code Miko Will See You Now | The Verge
The Coming Age of Synthetic Media | WARC
CodeMiko Is The Future Of Streaming, Unless Twitch Bans Her First | Kotaku
Technician and Streamer Code Miko Is Revolutionizing the Digital Space | Digital
Boom
Marie Dolle for being a thought partner and for Deepfakes: Two Sides of a Yin and
Yang
Zack Hargett for being a thought partner
Why It’s Time to Change the Conversation Around Synthetic Media | VentureBeat
Thanks for reading! Subscribe here to receive this newsletter in your inbox each week:
Geben Sie Ihre E-Mail-Adresse ein… Subscribe
← Previous
Ready for more?
Geben Sie Ihre E-Mail-Ad Subscribe
© 2021 Rex Woodbury. See privacy, terms and information collection notice
Publish on Substack

The Rise of Synthetic Media &amp; Digital Creators - Digital Native

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Rise of Synthetic Media &amp; Digital Creators - Digital Native

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

3.5.

Digital Native Anmelden

Geben Sie Ihre E-Mail-Adresse ein… Subscribe

The Rise of Synthetic Media & Digital

Miko’s creator—who only ever refers to herself as The Technician—painstakingly develops

Synthetic Media & Deepfakes

Source: Sentinel Deepfake Report

Tom Cruise deepfakes from the TikTok account @deeptomcruise

Today, deepfakes—and, by extension, synthetic media—have a negative public perception:

The Third Evolutionary Stage of Media

High-Quality Content Production at Low Costs

Synthetic Video and Voice Creation

Synthetic Advertising and Shopping

A deepfake overlaid a volunteer’s face onto an anonymous survivor of

ItsMe is an avatar-based social network in which your avatar makes to your

Digitally Rendering the Dead

This video is so moving and shows the power of synthetic media

April 27th 2021

Scalable Digital Creators

3,686 Retweets 65,240 Likes

Brud’s digital creator Miquela

Sources & Additional Reading

Deepfake 2020 Report | Sentinel

Who Is Code Miko? | Ginx

Code Miko Will See You Now | The Verge

The Coming Age of Synthetic Media | WARC

Zack Hargett for being a thought partner

Geben Sie Ihre E-Mail-Adresse ein… Subscribe

Ready for more?

Geben Sie Ihre E-Mail-Ad Subscribe

You might also like

The Rise of Synthetic Media & Digital Creators - Digital Native

The Rise of Synthetic Media & Digital Creators - Digital Native