The new and scary deepfake
Deepfake is according to Wikipedia: syntetic
media in which a person in an existing image or video
is replaced with someone else's likeness.
The problem however is that it is almost impossible
to spot the difference by the naked eye as illustrated in this
YouTube video
by PBS NewsHour.
The good uses deepfakes
Through the use of canetrollers, visually impaired individuals can navigate a virtual world with ease.
Deep fakes can also be used to bring historical figures back to life, or make animals talk. This can be great in education for young kids. Moreover a deepfake can make "fake teachers", that uses AI to teach the kids. You can read more about deepfake teachers in this article on swweducation.org.
Furthermore it can be used for art. Being able to recreate old pictures or make game personas come to life wasn't realistic before. But now they can spring to life and seemingly exist irl. This article by Imran Khan, fanbyte's news editor, shows examples of this.
The dangerous uses of deepfakes
Unfortunately deepfakes can make it appear that a person has said something he or she hasn't. It can both manipulate the body language and voice. A YouTube video by Bloomberg shows multiple clips of famous people talking about deep fakes. The catch? None of them are real!
Not only are politicians misused to spread fake news. There are thousands of deepfakes of celebrities in porn videos. They become easier and easier to make and harder and harder to spot. This is conserning, and can not be fun to the people exploited in the videos. Tracy Clark-Flory, a senior staff writer at Jezebel, talks more about it in this article.
Conclusion
Deepfakes can be an amazing tool in the right setting, and we are yet to explore all the potenital uses. It is however important that it is not missused. It is important that everyone is informed about the potential missues, so that they can be more critical on what they read on the internet.
Read more
- What are deepfakes and how can we spot them? - The Guardian
- This new technology could send American politics into a tailspin - Washington Post
- Deepfake Detecion Challenge Dataset - Facebook