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Daina Bouquin: I want you to
picture a room in Chicago in

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nineteen ninety-two.

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Not a glamorous room, just a
space.

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It's hot under a few makeshift
lights.

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There's a plain backdrop
hanging on a wall, and a single

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bulky video camera sitting heavy
on a tripod.

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In the middle of this boring
room full of lights, there is a

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guy in Spandex shorts.

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His name is Daniel Pisina.

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He is a martial artist, and he
is throwing a punch.

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He throws it again and again.

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There are a few other people
rotating through this hot room

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over the course of a few days.

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There's Daniel's brother
Carlos.

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There's a fitness and aerobics
instructor named Elizabeth

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Malachi.

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She's wearing a green workout
leotard.

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These people have day jobs.

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They teach classes.

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They are people who know the
exact weight of their own limbs

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and who know how their bodies
move through the air and across

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a mat.

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Behind the camera are a couple
of guys named Ed Boone and John

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Tobias.

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They make video games and they
are tired of the pixelated

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little characters.

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Up until this point, the people
inside the arcade machines were

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cartoons.

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Little clusters of colored
squares waddling across the

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screen.

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They are charming, but they are
flat.

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Ed and John wanted something
else.

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They wanted the sweat.

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They wanted the heavy,
undeniable reality of a heel

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hitting a jaw.

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So they asked Daniel to put on
a yellow ninja hood.

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They asked him to throw a
grappling hook.

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They asked him to fall down, to
pantomime what it might look

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like if his spine were to
suddenly be ripped from his

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back.

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And he does.

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He falls on the mat.

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He throws an uppercut at
nothing.

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They get it all on tape.

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And then begins the quiet,
tedious magic of the 1990s.

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Back at the computer, someone
sits down with the video

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footage, and frame by frame,
pixel by pixel, they cut Daniel

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out of the background.

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They erase the room.

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They erase the mat.

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They trace the line of
Elizabeth's leotard.

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They isolate the movement.

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They take the physical reality
of these people and turn them

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into little pixels on a screen.

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And you might know what happens
next.

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They build a game called Mortal
Kombat.

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It arrives in bowling alleys
and pizza parlors and

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darkened arcades.

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It glows and it is loud.

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Kids crowd around the sticky
cabinet, slamming the plastic

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buttons, completely mesmerized.

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The violence in the game shocks
parents and politicians,

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ultimately sparking
congressional hearings.

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But the violence is only
shocking because the bodies look

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so real.

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The human weight was translated
perfectly.

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They are in millions of
machines.

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And then soon after they are in
millions of living rooms on

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Super Nintendo's and Sega
Genesis's.

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The game is a phenomenon, and
it is making an absolute

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fortune.

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But Daniel isn't.

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Elizabeth isn't.

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None of them are.

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They were paid for their
afternoons in that hot room in

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Chicago a flat rate.

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Just gig work.

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And they start to see their
faces, their literal faces, the

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shapes of their bodies, their
specific martial arts stances,

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selling millions of copies,
plastered on magazine covers and

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television commercials.

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So they go to court.

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They file a lawsuit.

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They point at the screens and
they say to the judge, that's

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me.

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You just can't take my body and
put it in a machine and send it

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around the world and not pay
me.

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Daniel doesn't even wait for
the verdict.

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He puts his Spandex shorts back
on and puts on his sunglasses

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and poses in character for a
print ad for a rival fighting

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game.

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Midway games, the creators of
Mortal Kombat, are furious.

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They fire him.

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When the next game comes out,
Daniel has been erased, replaced

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by someone else doing the exact
same moves.

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And then the final blow.

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The court looks at the screen.

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They look at the pixels.

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They look at the little squares
of color.

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The court decides that because
the video was manipulated,

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because it was color corrected
and isolated and turned into

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computer source code, it was
transformed.

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It's a new thing, a derivative
work.

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They even cite a survey
claiming that only 6% of people

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could look at the pixelated guy
in Spandex shorts and recognize

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him as Daniel Pisina.

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So, legally speaking, if you
run a human being through a

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computer thoroughly enough, they
cease to belong to themselves.

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We spend a lot of time today
worrying about what happens when

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the machine takes our face.

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But this all started long
before AI, before the facial

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recognition software really took
hold.

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It started with a guy in
Chicago standing under a light,

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throwing a kick at the empty
air, completely unaware that he

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was about to disappear into the
machine.

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Thanks for listening to Found
in the Margins, and thanks for

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supporting the Patreon.

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It makes a world of difference.