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How Deepfakes Will Change the Future
How Deepfakes Will Change the Future
Deepfakes, or digitally altered media of a person designed to look like another person, could change our lives
September 2, 2021
What if someone decided they didn’t like you, and what if they wanted to harm your reputation? How could they do that? Attempt to spread a rumor? You could debunk it. Try to use something you did against you? Well, if you've stayed a good citizen, there won't be anything to find. But what if they could put your face on an incriminating video that you couldn't debunk? How could they pull that off?
Well, recent advances in deep learning AI, among other tech, has allowed ‘deepfaking,’ or using AI to put someone's face on someone else, whether on a video or in a photo, to become a reality. Deepfakes, a term coined by a Reddit user named u/deepfake, combines the terms ‘deep learning’ and ‘fake.' And although deepfakes have been impressive since their earliest appearances in computer science fields in the late 90’s, they only really started making notable appearances in the 2000’s and 2010’s.
To get a perspective on how much these types of programs have changed, let's start from the beginning. As stated, deepfaking has been around for some time- not always in name, but in function. One of the earliest examples is the Video Rewrite Program in 1997, which took existing footage of someone speaking and, through AI, modified it to appear as if the person was speaking another audio track.
Jumping forward a few years, a team of researchers at UC Berkeley created a program called ‘Do as I Do,’ which took a professional dancer, learned how their limbs were moving, then transferred that movement onto someone else, creating an illusion that the ‘puppet’ was dancing.
Now, the technology for deepfaking is here, but what can you do with it?
Acting is one of the most notable uses; specifically, one recent example was the use of deepfakes to bring Carrie Fisher into the movie Rogue One, allowing her classic character to appear faithfully to her original appearance.
By Riccardo Ghilardi - Crop of File:Actress Carrie Fisher © Riccardo Ghilardi photographer.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0
But for all its amazing capabilities, the concept of being able to put someone's face on pretty much anyone else invites some malicious uses. This ability has been pointed out by quite a few in multiple fields, but the ability to damage someone’s reputation inside of the political sphere has been particularly worrying.
In one dramatic case, comedian Jordan Peele worked with Buzzfeed co-founder Jonah Peretti to create a deepfake of President Barack Obama giving a PSA about fake news. The fake Obama warned that viewers shouldn't trust everything they see - a pretty clear warning that deepfakes could easily be used malevolently in politics. Additionally, deepfaking has been used in other capacities, such as fraud, notably when a scammer using voice-mimicking software tricked a energy firm’s CEO into thinking he was on the phone with his boss, convincing him to transfer $243,000 to the scammer.
Deepfakes are a simple and powerful tool, and, like many other tools, have the potential for wonderful uses- but also for less savory ones. Deepfakes are already beginning to change the way we perceive media, and they're sure to become even more powerful sooner than you'd think. In the future, make sure to stay aware when consuming media, and always remember: don't believe everything you see.
This is Cole’s second year at Edgewood, and the first on the writing staff. He enjoys creative writing, drawing, and playing various video games, both PC and VR. He hopes to better his writing by creating stories about interesting events.
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