Sitting with my morning coffee I opened the Guardian newspaper app. One of the first things that appeared was a story about an AI simulation that involved a character known as Jarren. The article by Sarah Collard Indigenous affairs correspondent , raises important ethical issues.

Jarren appears as part of a platform titled “Bush legend: wildlife stories and facts”, created by Keagan Mason, a South African content creator resident in New Zealand. 

Keagan  has created both Facebook and Instagram platforms featuring Jarren. He appears in some but only Keagan is real, Jarren looks realistic but is completely fictional. Having said this, the features of Australian wildlife present certainly grab viewer’s attention.

My first contacts with Indigenous Australian’s date back to my childhood and have covered a broad range of people and contexts. I’ve known people from traditional communities that speak English as a second language, neighbours, colleagues and even an Indigenous Federal Minister. So, it was with some surprise when I listened to the Jarren avatar and discovered that the use of language, it’s cadence and the fact that sometimes it drifted into forms of English was not what I would associate with the type of Indigenous Australian being projected.

While wondering about the unusual linguistic features I let it go since the character certainly appeared realistic, yet there were two lingering doubts. First the way the character handled the ‘wild’ animals features in the videos. They were very hand tame. Also, the character looked so perfect and unblemished. This struck me as odd since a person so intimately involved with the bush and wildlife would not appear as though they had just walked out of the ‘green room’ and into the studio. I’ll come back to this.

The Guardian article explores the controversy surrounding this AI presentation, its principle criticisms involve appropriation of culture. As an example, it points out that the creator has used extractive practises, profiting from Aboriginal culture without involving or representing real indigenous people.

The article describes the creation in these terms:

““It’s AI blackface – people can just generate artworks, generate people, [but] they are not actually engaging with Indigenous people.”

The potential for harm is twofold: such accounts default to sharing the “palatable” or “comfortable” aspects of Indigenous cultural knowledge and experience, rather than the more complex reality; and it also has the potential to amplify racism.”

Identifying AI Deep fakes

There are some are some simple techniques for identifying AI characters. As I’ve already noted the voices while fluent often lack realistic cadence and breathing, they can miss the emotional weight of certain words so the voice can be flat or over enthusiastic in a way that doesn’t quite match the facial expressions.

Pronunciation is another aspect. In the case of the Jarren avatar I noticed some mispronunciation of place names. So, avatar can mispronounce slang or culturally specific names. There’s also the question of mouth movement and speech synchronisation. I did notice that sometimes the lips of the character didn’t quite match the language being used.

I’ve mentioned the flawless skin and no indication the character has faced the weathering effects of being in a real environment. Another feature is of course the absence of shadows or the presence of shadows that don’t actually match the environment on the character’s face that is.

I felt that Jarren was a bit of a caricature in fact so perfect and yet so flawed and when I discovered, ironically using AI for research, that he had no cultural image this merely confirmed my suspicions.

One simple way to check the authenticity of a character is to capture a screenshot of the character and then run it through ‘Google Lens’. This often reveals real life characters but will not necessarily reveal an AI character.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the character Jarren has no biological descent or affiliation with any aboriginal community or nation. His voice, movements and appearance are all digitally generated.