Deepfakes are a very serious issue to be dealt with in the world of fake news and misinformation. But before we learn how to deal with them, it is important that we understand what these are.
Deepfakes are synthetic media where original content is manipulated using artificial intelligence. It not only produces manipulated photos but also videos and sounds.
One famous example of deepfakes was a video of Barack Obama using an obscenity to refer to Donald Trump. It later turned out that the video wasn’t real. It was made by filmmaker Jordan Lee.
The technology of deepfakes is not very old and it’s getting better and better with time. And this is disturbing for many reasons.
It has the potential to disrupt politics and business, defame a person or as far as creating false evidence.
How ‘deepfakes’ works?
It’s not hard to understand the basic way these deepfakes work. Or how they are made. Deepfakes uses an artificial neural network to train a computer in finishing certain tasks.
For making deepfakes videos, you can feed high-quality images of the target to the program. That program then swaps it on the face of someone else.
That’s not all. Deepfakes can also imitate a person’s voice by training the computers to talk like a particular person. For training the computer in voice imitation, it uses original recording of the target.
Where are deep fakes mostly used?
So this is a major question. Where are these deep fakes used? You might or might not be shocked to know that deep fakes so far has been majorly used in pornography.
Images of target women are mapped on the bodies of the pornstars to make it look like they are the ones involved in any given video. Popular actresses are the most common targets.
Deepfakes has also been used to extract money from unsuspecting people. A person can imitate another person and use that in fraud.
Defamation is another threat that deep fakes pose towards any person. It helps fraudsters to issue a statement from a person who in reality never said it.
So you get the idea of how a deep fakes is a threat to the integrity of a person. Moreover, they pose the risk of spreading misinformation and fake news.
It is a matter of concern
After explaining what a deepfake is, it’s easy to see how they are a reason for great worry and deep speculation.
Deepfakes hold power which can be highly destructive if not monitored by responsible authorities. They can ruin reputations of people, affect elections and if intended, can cause unrest among masses.
We already have a surge in fake news by the arrival of social media. Can you imagine using technology like deepfakes specifically for misguiding people?
It is horrible, but not altogether that far-fetched. What we require today is a monitoring system that can assist authorities in filtering truth from an ocean of deepfakes.
Stay safe. Until next time, bye!