S. KOREAN CANDIDATE GOES VIRTUAL FOR VOTES
Opposition presidential hopeful Yoon’s use of AI avatar a hit with youth
IN a crowded campaign office here, young, trendy staffers are using deepfake technology to try to achieve the near-impossible: make a middleaged, establishment presidential candidate cool.
Armed with hours of speciallyrecorded footage of opposition People Power Party candidate Yoon Suk-yeol, the team has created a digital avatar of the frontrunner — and set “AI Yoon” loose on the campaign trail ahead of a March 9 election.
From a deepfake video of Barack Obama insulting Donald Trump to failed New York mayoral candidate Andrew Yang campaigning in the metaverse, AI technology has been used in elections before.
But AI Yoon’s creators believe he is the world’s first official deepfake candidate — a concept gaining traction in South Korea, which has the world’s fastest average Internet speeds.
With neatly combed black hair and a smart suit, the avatar looks near identical to the real South Korean candidate, but uses salty language and meme-ready quips in a bid to engage younger voters who get their news online.
It’s been a huge hit. AI Yoon has attracted millions of views since making his debut Jan1.
Tens of thousands of people have asked questions, but it’s not the usual policy-related fare.
“President Moon Jae-in and (rival presidential candidate) Lee Jae-myung are drowning. Who do you save?” one user asks.
“I’d wish them both good luck,” the avatar snaps back.
At first glance, AI Yoon could pass for an actual candidate — an apt demonstration of how far artificially generated videos, known as deepfakes, have come in the last few years.
The real Yoon recorded more than 3,000 sentences — 20 hours of audio and video — to provide enough data for a local deepfake technology company to create the avatar.
“Words that are often spoken by Yoon are better reflected in AI Yoon,” said Baik Kyeong-hoon, the director of the AI Yoon team.
“We try to come up with humorous and satirical answers.”
The approach has paid off. AI Yoon’s pronouncements have made headlines in local media, and seven million people have visited the “Wiki Yoon” website to question the avatar.
When answering questions posed by users, AI Yoon mockingly refers to Moon and his rival Lee as “Moon Ding Dong” and “Lee Ding Dong”.
“I want to ask Moon Ding Dong this question: Who is our real enemy?” AI Yoon says, in a thinlyveiled swipe at what his critics say is the president’s conciliatory approach towards Pyongyang.
Moon has met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un four times since taking office — an approach candidate Yoon rejects as too soft.
The kind of script used by the campaign for AI Yoon draws on the language used in the online gaming world, Kim Myuhng-joo, professor of information security at Seoul Women’s University, told local media.
“AI Yoon reads off the scripts compiled by its creators, who do not mince words,” Kim said.