FACULTY TV SHOW FEATURES STUDENTS AND ALUMNI page 4
wednesday, 07.14.21
T H E
ALESTLE
CHEER AND DANCE TAKE WINS IN FIRST VIRTUAL COMPETITION page 7
The Student Voice Since 1960
vol. 74 no. 33
News in brief Deepfakes — Artificial Intelligence causes New COVID-19 stir on social media, international security testing guidance for fall
Students, faculty and staff will now be required by the university to get weekly COVID-19 screening tests unless they meet the school’s exemption requirements. According to an email sent to students Thursday afternoon, students, faculty and staff commuting to Alton, East St. Louis, Edwardsville campus and clinical settings will be submitted to weekly COVID-19 testing. Those who are exempt from the weekly screenings are either fully vaccinated two weeks from the date of their last vaccine, tested positive for COVID-19 within the last 90 days or are taking a fully online class schedule and aren’t coming to campus. To request an exemption, visit https://forms.office.com/r/6nt3nDPcUL. On the exemption form, students will need to submit vaccine information and any positive COVID-19 results from the past 90 days. The university is highly encouraging students to get vaccinated. To learn about the vaccine and find a location to get vaccinated, visit the Illinois Department of Public Health’s website. As time gets closer to the fall semester, SIUE will update the community on any further requirements and how to schedule tests. Direct any questions to COVID-19 Response Coordinator Michael Schultz at covidtesting@siue.edu.
DANA MCLENNAN copy editor
The SIUE School of Business and the Canadian telephone company TELUS Communications recently co-sponsored and hosted the International Telecommunications Society webinar “Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse with Nina Schick,” addressing synthetic media and its broad implications. Nina Schick, an author, speaker and adviser who specializes in how technology is transforming geopolitics and society said deepfakes are a piece of synthetic or fake media that’s been manipulated or entirely generated by artificial intelligence. “It can be an image, it could be a video, it can even be a piece of audio — and really, this amazing ability of artificial intelligence to create fake media is a cutting-edge develop-
ment which [has] only been possible for the last five years or so, thanks to the recent revolution in [deepfake] learning which is moving AI from the realm of science fiction into practical reality,” Schick said. A recent example would be the deepfake created by Belgian visual effects specialist Chris Ume of Tom Cruise working on his golf swing and shared on social media reported on by ABC news. While something as simple as pretending a celebrity is playing golf doesn’t seem harmful, it could be when you consider what this technology could do to reputations and national security, Schick said. “The potential for harm is tremendous,” Rep. Adam Schiff said in an interview with Morgan Radford on TODAY in 2019. “And what psychologists will tell you is if you see a video of someone saying something distasteful or racist or criminal or whatever, even if you’re later persuaded that wasn’t them, you can never completely lose the lingering negative impression of that person.” Stanford Levin, emeritus professor of economics and finance and consultant for TELUS Communications said that deepfake technology will likely have a big impact on society. “This is the same sort of thing that Facebook and other social media are struggling with. ‘How do you know that something that was put on-
line is correct? Or you’re getting data or you’re watching something … is it artificial? Or is it real?’” Levin said. “So, we’re going to have to come to terms with how to verify things.” Schick said the technology that used to take a long time to synt hesi ze or clone voices needs less training data to be created, is becoming more automated and can now be created in seconds, making it accessible to more than just AI researchers. “Already, five seconds of an audio recording of someone’s voice is enough for AI to learn to clone it. So hypothetically, that means if there is a five second recording of you somewhere like on your camera roll, on an Instagram story, on a LinkedIn post, on a YouTube video, on a WhatsApp voice recording, that can potentially be used to hijack your identity,” Schick said. “The AI’s ability to clone real people is of course not only limited to audio, amazingly it extends to fake video too, even if that person is already dead.” Schick used synthetic voice/ deepfake videos of long-dead artist Salvador Dalí that was created by the Dalí Museum
in Florida and a synthetic voice clone of comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan to explain processing fluency of humans. “If I primed you and told you that the Rogan voice and the Dalí video were fake, could you have believed that they were real? The answer is that many would have, because as humans we’re wired to want to believe something that looks and sounds right,” Schick said. “It’s actually a cognitive bias known as processing fluency. So, it should come as no surprise then that media manipulation has a very long and prolific history as a very powerful tool to shape the collective human perception.” Corporations are already using AI to develop training videos and business platforms, Schick said, creating a synthetic future and having some positive applications. “It also offers an opportunity for real social good. Some companies, for instance like VocaliD … are developing synthetic voices … for those who cannot speak due to debilitating diseases like cancer or stroke, or Parkinson’s,” Schick said. “So, I think you can see DEEPFAKES on page 3
Mass comm student earns honorable mention at Mid-America Emmys
EMILY STERZINGER opinion editor
Carlos Dulcamara, a senior mass communications major from Mascoutah, Illinois, earned an honorable mention in the Mid-America Emmys. His video, “Honey Bunches of Oats Commercial,” was entered in the Craft Editor category. The Mid-America Emmys is a regional chapter of the Emmys award show that covers specific areas of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana. Dulcamara’s entry was under the section for College Production Awards. Dulcamara produced the video for Mass Communications 330: Advanced Broadcast Writing, which was taught by Mark Poepsel, associate professor of mass communications. “He asked us to create a
follow the alestle
script for a commercial, but the thing is, he wanted us to produce the actual video as well,” Dulcamara said. “I don’t know where I thought of this, but I thought, ‘You know what? It would be cool to do a cereal commercial, like the ones you see on TV with all the cool effects on it.’ So I went ahead and recreated it my own way.” Poepsel said that as a student, Dulcamara is a joy to have in class. “He was always attentive during in person classes and willing to contribute in Zoom classes. He’s the kind of student who helps other students get better because he has a passion for mass communication and the art of producing mass media,” Poepsel said. The video is 30 seconds long and narrated by Dulcamara’s sister. It was filmed and edited at his home in Mascoutah.
@alestlelive
“I ended up recording all of that in my house. So I have a backdrop, and I have my camera and all the cereal and the bowls and the props and stuff like that — I did all of that,” Dulcamara said. Cory Byers, an instructor in the mass communications department, was the one who encouraged Dulcamara to submit his project to the Mid-America Emmys. “I thought it was really well done. It was part of his demo reel or something else, but I thought it was pretty high quality. I had judged the Emmys before; I judged them every year, and it looked like it was up to that level that he could compete. So that’s why I suggested that he should submit to it,” Byers said. At first, the honorable mention took Dulcamara by surprise.
@TheAlestle
“When I first saw the video of all the awards and I saw my name for a second, I thought I actually won so I freaked out,” Dulcamara said. “But then I saw ‘honorable mention’ and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s just an honorable mention,’ but that’s still pretty good.” Dulcamara has been involved in editing videos since 2017, and credits his time at SIUE with understanding production at a professional level. “I’ve transferred with many colleges, and so the SIUE program helped me realize the more professional side of video production. It gives me more hands-on production and understanding of how scripting works, or how it will be in the professional world. I feel like that the sense of professionalism kind of influenced me to proceed in my love for video production,”
@Online Editor Alestle
@thealestle
Dulcamara said. Poepsel said he wasn’t surprised Dulcamara had been acknowledged at the Mid-America Emmys. “Carlos makes us all look good. I do think that there’s some element of our mass communication education — our standards that we have are pretty high. It makes me really glad that I started adding a production element to a class that used to be much more focused on writing,” Poepsel said. “But professors always want to take credit for students’ work, and so we really shouldn’t do that. He just did an awesome job and the awesome work got recognized because it’s great work.” The video is available on Dulcamara’s Vimeo page, and more information on the Mid-America Emmys can be found on their website.
See you on the Internet!