Keanu Reeves shares dislike of deepfake technology in film editing
The Matrix star Keanu Reeves has shared his distaste of deep fakes, the latest technological craze that sees a famous face replicated or manipulated. The actor expressed his dislike of the technology during an interview for the release of John Wick: Chapter 4.
During a sit down with Wired, Reeves discussed his thoughts on deep fake use in film editing. “Yeah, digitally. I don’t mind if someone takes a blink out during an edit,” the actor said. “But early on, in the early 2000s, or it might have been the ’90s, I had a performance changed. They added a tear to my face, and I was just like, ‘Huh?!’ It was like, I don’t even have to be here.”
Reeves then referenced an actor’s control over their work being taken away by the technology. “What’s frustrating about that is you lose your agency,” he continued. “When you give a performance in a film, you know you’re going to be edited, but you’re participating in that.”
“If you go into deepfake land, it has none of your points of view. That’s scary. It’s going to be interesting to see how humans deal with these technologies,” Reeves added. “They’re having such cultural, sociological impacts, and the species is being studied. There’s so much ‘data’ on behaviors now.”
Such technology has seen numerous groundbreaking barriers in film crossed, such as de-ageing as seen in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, the 2019 drama starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino. Deepfake has also seen more controversial and morally questionable uses outside of film and on social media, such as public figures being replicated in adult material or any material without their consent.
“People are growing up with these tools: We’re listening to music already that’s made by AI in the style of Nirvana, there’s NFT digital art,” Reeves said. “It’s cool, like, Look what the cute machines can make! But there’s a corporatocracy behind it that’s looking to control those things. Culturally, socially, we’re gonna be confronted by the value of real, or the non-value. And then what’s going to be pushed on us? What’s going to be presented to us?”
He added: “It’s this sensorium. It’s spectacle. And it’s a system of control and manipulation. We’re on our knees looking at cave walls and seeing the projections, and we’re not having the chance to look behind us.”
John Wick Chapter 4 will be released in theatres on March 24th.
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