Deepfake

created in 2020 by a nonpartisan advocacy group RepresentUs Deepfakes (a portmanteau of and ) are images, videos, or audio that have been edited or generated using artificial intelligence, AI-based tools or audio-video editing software. They may depict real or fictional people and are considered a form of synthetic media, that is media that is usually created by artificial intelligence systems by combining various media elements into a new media artifact. While the act of creating fake content is not new, deepfakes uniquely leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, including facial recognition algorithms and artificial neural networks such as variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks (GANs). In turn, the field of image forensics has worked to develop techniques to detect manipulated images. Deepfakes have garnered widespread attention for their potential use in creating child sexual abuse material, celebrity pornographic videos, revenge porn, fake news, hoaxes, bullying, and financial fraud. Academics have raised concerns about the potential for deepfakes to promote disinformation and hate speech, as well as interfere with elections. In response, the information technology industry and governments have proposed recommendations and methods to detect and mitigate their use.…

created in 2020 by a nonpartisan advocacy group RepresentUs Deepfakes (a portmanteau of and ) are images, videos, or audio that have been edited or generated using artificial intelligence, AI-based tools or audio-video editing software. They may depict real or fictional people and are considered a form of synthetic media, that is media that is usually created by artificial intelligence systems by combining various media elements into a new media artifact. While the act of creating fake content is not new, deepfakes uniquely leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, including facial recognition algorithms and artificial neural networks such as variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks (GANs). In turn, the field of image forensics has worked to develop techniques to detect manipulated images. Deepfakes have garnered widespread attention for their potential use in creating child sexual abuse material, celebrity pornographic videos, revenge porn, fake news, hoaxes, bullying, and financial fraud. Academics have raised concerns about the potential for deepfakes to promote disinformation and hate speech, as well as interfere with elections. In response, the information technology industry and governments have proposed recommendations and methods to detect and mitigate their use. Academic research has also delved deeper into the factors driving deepfake engagement online as well as potential countermeasures to malicious application of deepfakes. From traditional entertainment to gaming, deepfake technology has evolved to be increasingly convincing and available to the public, allowing for the disruption of the entertainment and media industries.

Applications

Acting

Digital clones of professional actors have appeared in films before, and progress in deepfake technology is expected to further the accessibility and effectiveness of such clones. The use of AI technology was a major issue in the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, as new techniques enabled the capability of generating and storing a digital likeness to use in place of actors. Disney has improved their visual effects using high-resolution deepfake face swapping technology. Disney improved their technology through progressive training programmed to identify facial expressions, implementing a face-swapping feature, and iterating in order to stabilize and refine the output. This high-resolution deepfake technology saves significant operational and production costs. Disney's deepfake generation model can produce AI-generated media at a 1024 x 1024 resolution, as opposed to common models that produce media at a 256 x 256 resolution. The technology allows Disney to characters or revive deceased actors. Similar technology was initially used by fans to unofficially insert faces into existing media, such as overlaying Harrison Ford's young face onto Han Solo's face in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Disney used deepfakes for the characters of Princess Leia in Rogue One and Luke Skywalker in both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. In the 2024 Indian Tamil science fiction action thriller The Greatest of All Time, the teenage version of Vijay's character Jeevan is portrayed by Ayaz Khan. Vijay's teenage face was then attained by AI deepfake. In May 2025, an AI-generated actress called Tilly Norwood was developed by the Dutch company Xicoia, a division of the existing production company Particle6 that was founded by actor and comedian Eline Van der Velden.

Art

Deepfakes are also being used in education and media to create realistic videos and interactive content, which offer new ways to engage audiences. In March 2018 the multidisciplinary artist Joseph Ayerle published the video artwork Un'emozione per sempre 2.0 (English title: The Italian Game). The artist worked with Deepfake technology to create an AI actor, a synthetic version of 80s movie star Ornella Muti, travelling in time from 1978 to 2018. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology referred this artwork in the study "Collective Wisdom". The artist used Ornella Muti's time travel to explore generational reflections, while also investigating questions about the role of provocation in the world of art. For the technical realization Ayerle used scenes of photo model Kendall Jenner. The program replaced Jenner's face by an AI calculated face of Ornella Muti. As a result, the AI actor has the face of the Italian actor Ornella Muti and the body of Kendall Jenner. Deepfakes have been widely used in satire or to parody celebrities and politicians. The 2020 webseries Sassy Justice, created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, heavily features the use of deepfaked public figures to satirize current events and raise awareness of deepfake technology.

Sockpuppets

Deepfake photographs can be used to create sockpuppets, non-existent people, who are active both online and in traditional media. A deepfake photograph appears to have been generated together with a legend for an apparently non-existent person named Oliver Taylor, whose identity was described as a university student in the United Kingdom. The Oliver Taylor persona submitted opinion pieces in several newspapers and was active in online media attacking a British legal academic and his wife, as "terrorist sympathizers". The academic had drawn international attention in 2018 when he commenced a lawsuit in Israel against NSO, a surveillance company, on behalf of people in Mexico who alleged they were victims of NSO's phone hacking technology. Reuters could find only scant records for Oliver Taylor and "his" university had no records for him. Many experts agreed that the profile photo is a deepfake. Several newspapers have not retracted articles attributed to him or removed them from their websites. It is feared that such techniques are a new battleground in disinformation.

Concerns and countermeasures

Though fake photos have long been plentiful, faking motion pictures has been more difficult, and the presence of deepfakes increases the difficulty of classifying videos as genuine or not. AI researcher Alex Champandard has said people should know how fast things can be corrupted with deepfake technology, and that the problem is not a technical one, but rather one to be solved by trust in information and journalism. Computer science associate professor Hao Li of the University of Southern California states that deepfakes created for malicious use, such as fake news, will be even more harmful if nothing is done to spread awareness of deepfake technology. Li predicted that genuine videos and deepfakes would become indistinguishable in as soon as six months, as of October 2019, due to rapid advancement in artificial intelligence and computer graphics. Former Google fraud czar Shuman Ghosemajumder has called deepfakes an area of "societal concern" and said that they will inevitably evolve to a point at which they can be generated automatically, and an individual could use that technology to produce millions of deepfake videos.

Defamation

Deepfakes possess the ability to damage individual entities tremendously. This is because deepfakes are often targeted at one individual, and/or their relations to others in hopes to create a narrative powerful enough to influence public opinion or beliefs. This can be done through deepfake voice phishing, which manipulates audio to create fake phone calls or conversations. Another method of deepfake use is fabricated private remarks, which manipulate media to convey individuals voicing damaging comments. The quality of a negative video or audio does not need to be that high. As long as someone's likeness and actions are recognizable, a deepfake can hurt their reputation. In September 2020, Microsoft made public that they were developing a Deepfake detection software tool.

Prevention

Henry Ajder who works for Deeptrace, a company that detects deepfakes, says there are several ways to protect against deepfakes in the workplace. Semantic passwords or secret questions can be used when holding important conversations. Voice authentication and other biometric security features should be up to date. Educate employees about deepfakes.

Controversies

In March 2024, a video clip was released by Buckingham Palace announcing that Kate Middleton had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. The appearance of a ring worn by Middleton in the clip fuelled rumours that the clip was a deepfake. Johnathan Perkins, UCLA's Director of Race and Equity, doubted Middleton had cancer, and further speculated that she could be in critical condition or dead.

See also

Artificial intelligence and elections Artificial intelligence art Celebrity impersonation scams on social media Computer facial animation Dead Internet theory Digital cloning Digital face replacement Facial motion capture Fake nude photography Fifth-generation warfare Generative AI Hyperreality Identity replacement technology Interactive online characters Regulation of artificial intelligence StyleGAN Synthetic media Uncanny valley Virtual actor

References

Further reading

Daniel Immerwahr, "Your Lying Eyes: People now use A.I. to generate fake videos indistinguishable from real ones. How much does it matter?", The New Yorker, 20 November 2023, pp. 54–59. "If by 'deepfakes' we mean realistic videos produced using artificial intelligence that actually deceive people, then they barely exist. The fakes aren't deep, and the deeps aren't fake. [...] A.I.-generated videos are not, in general, operating in our media as counterfeited evidence. Their role better resembles that of cartoons, especially smutty ones." (p. 59.) Emmanouil Billis, "Deepfakes και Ποινικό Δίκαιο [Deepfakes and the Criminal Law ]"(in Greek). In: H. Satzger et al. (eds.), The Limits and Future of Criminal Law - Essays in Honor of Christos Mylonopoulos, Athens, P.N. Sakkoulas, 2024, pp. 689–732.

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