There are some things you will never see me do like posting selfies or tiktok-style lip sync videos on social networks. However I am about to do that right here but with a futurist AI twist.

I had an iPhone X for the last three years but decided last year that the iPhone 12 Pro was a worthwhile upgrade simply for the cameras alone. The addition of the LiDAR sensor was one of the more appealing features of the new camera array. It meant things like autofocus would work better and faster, especially in extreme low light. It was also integral to Apple’s push towards AR. What I didn't anticipate, however, was that developers could utilize the LiDAR as a standalone 3D scanner.

After stumbling upon a couple 3D scanner apps that used the LiDAR sensor, I started experimenting with scanning spaces and objects. Eventually I decided to turn the scanner on myself using the 3d Scanner App. My trek into the uncanny valley had begun.

The selfies were hideously malformed and in essence, a little creepy. It speaks to how hard it is to get a good scan when you can't look at the screen as well as the infancy of the technology itself at this handheld size. But I thought to myself, "why stop here?"

A week earlier I had been intrigued by a tweet I had seen where someone took an AI generated face and uploaded it to Wombo.ai which then uses AI to generate a lip sync video. So naturally I wondered what would happen if I uploaded an image of these maimed 3D selfies.

Needless to say, these videos are as disturbing as much as they are humorous. What I probably enjoy most is seeing my mangled self lip sync with energy and passion. Especially when I know that I would never shoot such a video of myself. In the future we, as a computer-based society, will likely continue to utilize our exponentially increasing computational wealth to fake or subsist our internet personas with things that exist entirely as a fever-dream of an AI and it's developers.

I for one cannot wait to do the things I will never do.