Deepfakes - Seeing Is Believing...Or Is It?

I've linked two videos in which a visual effect company I follow on YouTube, Corridor Digital, uses deepfakes to put Keanu Reaves and Tom Cruise in two different videos. Now you might be asking, what are deepfakes?

What are deepfakes?

Deepfakes refer to a recent technological advancement in machine learning where you can basically upload thousands of pictures of a person's face and a computer will analyze all the different photos and effectively learn what that person looks like. After teaching the computer what a certain person looks like you can then have it apply that face to a different person's face in a video.

Why does this matter?

This technology is still in its infancy but from watching the videos you can see that it is very close to indistinguishable from reality. In a few years we could reach a point when video is no longer a reliable source of information and the phrase "seeing is believing," will be forgotten.

The Good

Technology like this can be used to revolutionize the entertainment industry. Rather than awkward CGI Princess Leia in Rogue One, visual effects artists can use this technique to more convincingly create a lifelike version of an actor.

The same visual effects company mentioned above is working with Snoop Dogg on a video that appears to bring back a computer generated version of Tupac with a Tupac impersonator playing the part.

Eventually when the tech advances enough, I don't see what would stop Marvel from having digital versions of all their actors in their full range of motion and their full range of facial expressions and just make movies with those.

The Bad

This raises another question, who owns the rights to someone's likeness? The law does provide certain rights to privacy and publicity but people ultimately do not have complete ownership of their likeness.

Taking it a little further, who gets the loyalties for using deceased artists likenesses? Will artists need to sign some type of release form before their death granting corporations the right to use their likeness postmortem?

The Ugly

Possibly the worst part of how advanced this technology is becoming, will be the heaps of misinformation that will be spread. As humans we have learned to be skeptical of still photos. We understand that certain people are capable of manipulating or even creating images in photoshop that aren't accurate. But we will have to learn to watch a video and then convince ourselves that someone is capable of that same manipulation of footage.

When the technology was first released, it was reported that hundreds of deepfakes videos were uploaded to pornographic websites portraying all types of celebrities. Within a few days, most websites banned deepfakes from their online libraries but once the internet finds out about something, there's no stopping it.

Like all new technology, it will take time for this to become fully actualized and effective but when it does, the possibilities are endless, good and bad. Will we start seeing governmental regulation in the film industry limiting usage of such technologies? Or will the technology be left unchecked for creative and nefarious purposes alike? One thing I do know is when this technology goes mainstream, things will change.

Here are videos from Corridor Digital:

Here is a link to another blog that has compiled some of the best mini deepfakes clips I've seen: https://www.creativebloq.com/features/deepfake-examples

Until Next Time...