From the course: Understanding the Impact of Deepfake Videos

What is a deepfake video?

- We are currently at a critical juncture in history where the technical possibilities in media manipulation can fool mass audiences in a multitude of ways. Granted, video manipulation has been possible for many years, but until recently, only highly trained professionals using very expensive equipment could achieve realistic results. But now, sophisticated, deep fake technology is available to the masses, and with some training, the right resources, and lots of practice, anyone committed to the cause can produce very realistic results. - We're entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time, even if they would never say those things. - That video of former US President Barack Obama is actually a deepfake, achieved by inserting the voice of comedian and impersonator Jordan Peele. - This is a dangerous time. Moving forward, we need to be more vigilant with what we trust from the internet and it's a time when we need to rely on trusted news sources. - Deepfake, which is a combination of the phrases deep learning and fake, is especially sophisticated because it goes beyond just performing a simple face swap. High quality deepfakes use artificial intelligence to learn many unique visual or oral characteristics about a subject and then maps that information onto another subject. (speaking in foreign language) This can result in a scenario where an actor's facial and lip movements are transferred to a target subject, or when an impersonator's voice is injected into a video of someone else with seamless lip sync. Check out this example, where comedian Bill Hader impersonates Al Pacino. Look very carefully at his face when it subtly switches from Hader to Pacino's likeness and then back again. - Did you do Pacino for your "Saturday Night Live" audition? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did him for the audition and I did Pacino, it was kind of weird, interviewing his new maid staff, so it was like all new maids. - [Conan] Uh-huh, and he's like giving them instructions? - Yeah, yeah. It was like if I walk into this kitchen (audience laughs) and I see a cantaloupe on that table, I would lose my mind. (Conan and audience laugh) (audience claps) - Those are the instructions I give. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like... It's a weird thing to think about, like, "What would Pacino say to his maids?" I don't know. - Yeah, yeah. - Hader is an excellent impersonator, so deepfake creator Ctrl Shift Face used this to his benefit when he created synthetic video of Pacino to accompany some already very convincing audio. Now, take a look at this example, which doesn't use an impersonator's voice at all, but instead, uses completely synthetic audio to make President Richard Nixon deliver a speech that he never actually gave. - Fates has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. - The MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality produced this Nixon speech by creating a video deepfake for the face and mouth movement and an audio deepfake using voice conversion technology. We'll talk much more about audio deepfake technology later in the course. As you can see, there are many different varieties of deepfakes, but the common outcome is that it results in people appearing to say things that they never said. Or at least that's what we'll mostly be focusing on here. At the time I'm recording this course, most deepfakes are actually not focused on the words, but instead, the body. In fact, more than 96% of deepfakes involve the non-consensual insertion of celebrities' faces onto other people's bodies within the adult entertainment industry. Clearly, deepfake technology not only has the power to entertain and enhance reality for beneficial uses, but also has the potential for mass deception. That's especially true because deepfakes often target social media, where misinformation can circulate quickly and widely. So as deepfake technology continues to improve and the resulting videos become more and more convincing, it's important that we remain aware of their presence and that we do everything we can to verify that what we're looking at is, indeed, real.

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