Child Actor Looking Exactly Like Son Seok-gu In “A Killer’s Paradox”? Concerns Over Deepfake Actor Era

Netflix’s original series “A Killer Paradox”, starring Son Seok-gu and Choi Woo-shik, shocked many viewers as the child actor who played young Son Seok-gu showed a perfect appearance synchronization. Many thought it was the director’s casting ability, but they completely were taken aback when they found out that the production team used Deepfake to make the child actor look like Son Seok-gu.

In an interview with Xports News, director Lee Chang-hee disclosed, “The images of the child actors were all done by CGI”, adding “We cast a child actor of that age to act, then collected the data from Son Seok-gu’s past photo for face processing. There’s no child with such a face”, adding that the CF team even used image modeling because Son Seok-du doesn’t have many childhood photos. 

This Deepfake technology was also used in the recent MBC’s “Meet You 4” broadcast on February 11th. This is a VR documentary that allows people who experienced heartbreaking separations to recreate the scene using CG technology and meet their loved ones again.

JTBC’s “Welcome to Samdal-ri” also revived the appearance of the late singer Song Hae during the National Singing Contest in 1994 using Deepfake technology. The production team gathered all the videos for AI to learn and after a long process, they were able to show the late Song Hae on the stage in the drama.

The family of the late singer Song Hae deeply sympathized with the production team’s warm intention when doing that and they believed that it was an opportunity for people who still miss him to see him again. “Welcome to Samdal-ri” team reportedly talked with singer Song Hae’s family for nearly a year to explain the reason they planned the scene and their use of Deepfake and sent the test video to the family before broadcasting.

However, voices of concern arose pointing out that this technology might not always be used for good purposes. Many celebrities have suffered damage from Deepfake crimes and there are still no solutions to that.

While stars can use AI models to gain more profits, less popular actors with fewer roles are bound to lose jobs. In this regard, the Hollywood Actor Union, which was active from July to November 2023, also expressed their worries, leading to new rules on the use of AI have been established at the actors’ requests.

In an interview, the mother of child actor Kang Ji-seok, who played young Son Seok-gu in “A Killer Paradox”, confessed that she knew the application of Deepfake from the beginning. However, she shared, “I know synchronization is very important, but is it necessary to put it on my son’s face?”, adding “My son even said, ‘I don’t think that’s me’”.

Aside from Deepfake, AI recently affected the music industry greatly due to the spread of AI Cover Songs. Many people have raised the Copyright issues upon witnessing the mass production of AI music content. As such, attention is focused on what consequences Deepfake and AI may bring in the future and whether a solution will be discovered.

Source: Naver