Deepfake Technology: The Future of AI Generated Content

What is deepfake technology?

Deepfake technology is a type of artificial intelligence that is used to create images, videos and audio recordings that are believable. The word deepfake describes both the technology and the resulting fake content and is a portmanteau of deep learning and spoofing.

Deepfakes often alter existing source material where one person is replaced by another. They also create completely original content where someone is depicted as doing or saying something they did not do or say.

The biggest threat posed by deepfakes is their ability to spread false information that appears to come from credible sources. Deepfakes can be risky, but they’re not all bad. They’re useful in things like making video games voices and cool effects for movies. They’re also useful for customer service, like forwarding calls or acting virtual receptionists.

How deepfakes work?

Deepfakes aren’t just videos or pictures that have been edited or photoshopped. They’re made with special algorithms that mix old and new clips to create something completely fake but realistic. For example, small details of a person’s face in images are studied using machine learning, so they can be adjusted or changed in other videos.

Deepfakes works by using two algorithms - generator and discriminator - to create and refine fake content. The generator starts by making a rough version of the fake content using a training data set. Then the discriminator checks how real or fake it looks. They keep working together over and over - the generator gets better at creating the content look real and the discriminator gets sharper at finding mistakes for the generator to fix.

The generator and discriminator together form a generative adversarial network (GAN). A GAN uses deep learning to study patterns in real images and then recreates those patterns to produce fake ones.

How deepfakes are used?

Deepfakes can be used in many different ways, both good as well as bad. Here are some examples:

Customer support

These services use deepfakes to give custom answers to callers, like forwarding calls or handling receptionists tasks.

Art

Deepfakes are used to create new music by mixing parts of an artist’s original songs.

Blackmailing and reputation harm

This happens when someone’s image placed in a harmful, embarrassing, or illegal situation, like lying, being involved in explicit acts etc. These fake videos are used to blackmail the person, destroy their reputation, or just bully them online.

In entertainment

Hollywood movies and video games use deepfakes to copy and change actor’s voices for certain scenes. This is helpful when scene is hard to film, when the actor can’t be there to record their voice, or just to save time for both the actor and the production team.

Fraud

Deepfakes are used to obtain a person's personally identifiable information, such as bank account and credit card numbers. This can sometimes mean pretending to be company executives or other workers to steal sensitive information, which is a big cyber security threat.

How to detect deepfakes?

• Strange or unnatural facial expression.
• Odd or jerky body movements.
• Unnatural skin tones or colors.
• Videos look strange when zoomed in.
• People who don’t blink.
• Inconsistent audio.
• Small changes in the light reflected in their eyes.
• Skin aging doesn’t math hair and eye aging.

Conclusion

The sudden rise of deepfake content led tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft to invest in creating tools to detect them. Despite the efforts of these companies and governments to fight deepfakes and tackle detection, the technology keeps advancing, producing increasingly realistic AI-generated images and videos.