Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Baby Elon Musk, rapping Kim Kardashian:
Welcome to the world of silly deepfakes
Deepfake is an AI-based technology that is used
to produce or alter video content to present something that didn't occur. In other
words, it shows a video image of someone doing something that the person didn’t
do. For example, a famous scholar is dancing and singing like a school kid or the
former president is criticizing the present administration like a rap star.
Though it could be just funny and
entertaining as long as a deepfake video is made just for fun, it could also harm
or ruin the reputation of the person whose image was used maliciously in the video,
like pornography or discriminatory conducts.
Fortunately, it takes quite a lot of work to
create such videos. First, the creator needs a base video of the person and
thousands of photos of his or her face. Then, he has his computer match the
subject’s face with the key points on someone else’s face frame by frame. After
that, he uses deep-learning programs to replace faces in the video manually to
finish the work.
As long as those amateur creators are making
fun of celebrities or politicians with their deepfake videos, the public can
just enjoy watching them and give encouragement to the creators with emojis and
comments in return. However, if such techniques are used to attack a political
opponent or destroy someone’s reputation or status especially for elections,
such videos need to be removed from social media sites like YouTube and Instagram
before they’ve gone viral. Will they act quickly and decisively? Another hearing
may be held in congress.
Enjoy reading the article and watching the
video to learn what deepfake is about.
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