title: HEAD GAMES: Technology With The Potential To Shape Reality
text: Randy Johnson 21st Century Wire  MIRROR MIRROR   Am I still just a movie concept?  Virtual  avatar  technology is in its infancy   as far as we know (Image: Actor Sam Worthington from the science fiction blockbuster film, Avatar).Is humanity s recent quantum leap with technology all fun and games, or a zombie-like march into the arms of a technocratic prison world?For generations we have seen global figures such as John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan speak on television and that s what we believed we have seen and heard.We have all heard, people say things such as  The President said it   it was on the news  or  she said it on TV, I saw it.  Ever since the invention of the medium of television, this has served as a sufficient casual reference to any event away from the local area.What if the words and image of a global figure, broadcast to millions on television, was not real?  What if your eyes and ears where literally deceiving you?Simply put, what if seeing isn t believing anymore?  What if the person on screen, on LIVE television, who is actually interacting with questions asked, was not the person being represented on screen?With technological advancements, as exemplified with the  still-in-development Face2Face system, the potential to present and act any person to an audience for multiple reasons, both good and bad, is here.  With respect to black budgets, exotic technology, and unknown classified advancements of similar computer systems and programs   technology beyond that of the Face2Face system could already be here and further advanced.What exactly is a Face2Face system?  TechCrunch.com describes it as taking,  A YouTube video of someone speaking like, say, George W. Bush.  Use a standard RGB [Red Green Blue] webcam to capture a video of someone else emoting and saying something entirely different.  Throw both videos into the Face2Face system and  you ve now got a relatively believable video of George W. Bush s face   now almost entirely synthesized   doing whatever the actor in the second video wanted the target s face to do. If the definition eludes you, then take a look at the Face2Face system in action.Watch below as life-like avatars of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin follow visual commands in real time via the Face2Face system. That s great.  What about the voice you might ask?It does not take a wild imagination to envision voice software programs linked up with visual avatars for something like the Face2Face system in real time.Celebrity  voice changer  technology or other  voice morphing  software is already available at the consumer level.  Many security systems, phones, and buildings grant access by authenticating a person s voice.  There is even a real danger for people to have their actual voice  hacked  as they leave samples of it everywhere throughout the day.If the Face2Face technology, in a development stage as seen above, as does voice changing and voice recognition technology exists, then it only follows that the audio and the visual technology are destined to sync up.Just think of the implications.You could potentially have John Wayne, Elvis, Michael Jordan, Osama bin Laden, Miley Cyrus, or Justin Beiber wishing you happy birthday on a video message and interacting with you   Live.  It isn t really them, but then again it is them, just in a virtual reality sort of way.  Could there eventually be monetary charges to use the likeness of famous people dead or alive with certain companies owning certain celebrity s long dead and families of recent celebrities getting a cut?Perhaps a world leader could be dead for weeks and still delivering speeches or issuing orders. Anyone can be misquoted intentionally and questioned, framed, or made to fall from grace in the court of public opinion.  If you could take over another nation s airwaves, their leader can be seen saying something they said on television   except for the fact it isn t them and they never said it. Wars have been started for less.In the summer of 2015, 21WIRE discussed the use of a 3D avatar in the political realm, as India s Prime Minister Narendra Mohdi delivered a holographic speech at some 900 different rallies over the course of his campaign: Some would argue politicians are actors or entertainers in their own right, but hologram use is not limited to entertainers. Narendra Mohdi has already used the technology during his successful campaign to become India s Prime Minister. What would the future of electioneering look like with this new high-tech gadgetry?It has long been known that US political strategists have shaped elections throughout the world.In 2015, Hollywood released a fictionalized political comedy-drama named after a documentary called Our Brand Is Crisis (2005), a picture which gave a behind-the-scenes account of how James Carville and the political consultancy Greenberg Carville Shrum (GCS) socially-engineered the 2002 Bolivian elections to help Gonzalo S nchez de Lozada win the heavily contested presidency. He eventually resigned due to the so-called  Gas Wars,  where it was announced that he would follow pro-US economic policies and export natural gas to the US and Mexico.The documentary displays much of the socially-engineered electioneering that has been ongoing by the West for decades   it makes you wonder what future Western-backed campaigns might look like when aided by new tech, such as Spain s recent holographic protests, that featured thousands marching in avatar form.  SOCK PUPPET PROTEST?    New forms of political control on the horizon. (Image Source: americansuburbx)Media platforms are used to manipulate.  The very images we see all sorts of screens and media platforms can be planned, created, and manipulated through the use of actors, sets, and computer graphics.So technology doesn t have an effect on the masses and is rolled out to society  without a blueprint  so to speak?  Just consider the now common scene below.  NOMOPHOBIA    Technology, consumerism, and human behavior together.  So close, yet so far away   (Image Source: mymimtimsum.blogspot.com)Mass media in particular, is often utilized to shape opinions, drive agendas, and to communicate messages to the masses.  This is nothing new and can be as mundane as with advertising and marketing.  Specialized fields such as consumer psychologists and behavioral scientists became part of marketing teams and campaigns.  Corporations within the United States, China, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan spent over 590 billion dollars on advertising in 2015.  In so many words, shaping masses in various aspects of behavior is literally seen as a science.Is mainstream  news reporting  above the fray and simply covering events?  Is shaping minds and creating trends limited to marketing and mass commercialism?  Probably not.  It is now becoming common knowledge that 6 umbrella corporations own about 90% of the media.  If you steer the minds, shape the laws, and build the consensus, you control the profits and get to select winners and losers.  The saying  The medium is the message seems as relevant as ever.Virtual Reality vs Old Fashioned Reality LAWNMOWER MAN  (left image)   In this 1992 science fiction film, drugs & virtual reality augment human intelligence. (Image Source: movpins)Virtual reality or deception is best brought in  through the front door  and accepted slowly via entertainment means.  Movies, televisions, computers, the internet, and smart phones are the norm and were presented to the masses as a means of entertainment, news, communication or learning, but have a dark side of conditioning, monitoring people, propaganda dissemination and changing or controlling human outlooks on reality.For those old enough to remember life before the year 2000, they might remember having human interaction that included interaction in close proximity to others.  Now, so-called social networking is something not done in person.  It s almost fashionable for someone to ignore their surroundings and introvert themselves into the world  of a device.Nothing beats connecting with other people more than losing oneself into the cyber reality of a smart phone   DIGITAL SLAVE    This is becoming a familiar sight.  When the conversation is this good, why go out?  (Image Source: Prezi.com)Fun and games, or a zombie-like walk into the arms of a technocratic world. The Face2Face system technology above is not unlike the virtual reality (VR) technology used to map a person s face and expressions to a VR avatar. Mark Zukerberg s Facebook has shown heavy interest in the technology, most notably with its 2 billion dollar purchase of Silicon Valley VR firm Oculus Rift.The global acquisitions of talent and start-up companies with expertise in virtual reality technology by Facebook has been notable and they have stated their intent to integrate social networking with virtual reality and avatars.Nothing beats getting people together and networking than a visual representation of themselves in a virtual reality scenario.Get with it!  Reality is so yesterday!   OCULUS RIFT   purchased by Facebook, can map and copy face movements in real time. It has vast potential for shaping reality via gaming and social networking.Ready or not, an ever-increasing technological world is on the way. Virtual reality devices are not likely to become common overnight. However, over time, especially for those who can remember, it will probably be like when there were no smart phones. Eventually humankind could reach a point where few remember what it was like without it.In addition to Face2Face types of technology, holographic and projection technology, as seen with  Face Hacking , could be intertwined with Face-2-Face and voice morphing technologies.Read 21st Century Wire s article Face Hacking: 3-D Projection Mapping in Real Time here.The potential can be as amazing as it is disconcerting.  In the meantime more and more people are warming up to the reality of a virtual reality.  Watch below. READ MORE A.I. TECHNOLOGY: 21st Century Wire A.I. Files