Can you really trust anyone or anything? Can you trust your eyes with what it sees? They say “Seeing is believing.” Is it really? We are living in a world where technology and computers are part of our lives. As the years passed, technology evolved. You can do anything with technology. AI is coming everywhere. Siri, Alexa, robots which are AI-powered like Sophia the Robot. We use AI everywhere, every time. It is really useful. But it can also deceive us.
Have you heard Deepfake? According to Whatis.com, Deepfake is an AI-based technology used to produce or alter video content so that it presents something that didn’t, in fact, occur.“ The term came from a Reddit user in the name “manipulation” who, in December 2017, used celebrity faces and put it in pornography sites. Although it is first used in pornography, it can also be used for other purposes. It has been used by researchers for the manipulation of audiovisual for a long time. Deepfakes, as we know, are also used in movies. One notable example is the reliving Peter Cushing in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Deepfakes are also used as training data. This means that deepfakes’ algorithms are trained. These data are used in learning how to perfectly fit the face of one human to another. It uses deep learning technology, a branch of machine learning that applies neural net simulation to massive data sets, to create a fake. The better the training, the better the performance.
We all have used deepfake at least once in our lives. Remember FaceApp, MSQRD, and AI-powered Swap? These filters are deepfakes. It traces your face and puts the filtered face on your face.
According to Wardle, an expert in online manipulation, said that “deepfake is eerily dystopian and they’re only going to get more realistic and cheaper.” In the next few years or so, maybe everything on the internet will be fake. Deepfakes can easily be accessed. It can easily destroy lives by editing a face and showing it to the public.
Deepfake still exists rampantly. You can even watch videos of Deepfake on Youtube. A channel “Ctrl-Shift Face” makes deepfake videos. An example of this is “Bill Hader impersonates Arnold Schwarzenegger [DeepFake]” In this video, as Bill Hader is being interviewed at a Late Night show, one part of it when Bill is telling a story of his daughter. And Bill unintentionally impersonates Schwarzenegger and this is where the face of Schwarzenegger is put to Bill’s face. It became more convincing when Bill continued impersonating Schwarzenegger while Schwarzenegger’s face was put to Bill’s face.
This makes Deepfake sound interesting, or even more amusing. However, I’d like to point out the advantages and disadvantages of deepfake. Pros, deepfake can be used to make a movie more realistic or relive a dead person when making a movie involving them. For example, Peter Cushing in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Or making older cast young again like Carrie Fisher in the same movie. Its cons include the fact that fake news can be manipulated more easily with deepfake. As it was mentioned earlier, deepfake is becoming cheaper and more accessible. It will be easier to change a story with a video.
As technology gets more evolved, it is terrifying to say that in more years, deepfake can be more realistic and undetectable.
Be more vigilant on the news you heard and be skeptical. Be wise and believe the right.
Article by John Ryle Singh.
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