The Deep Fake problem

Deep fakes are a new technology which uses machine learning algorithms to effectively recreate one person’s face on top of another person’s. this means the actor can do or say whatever they want and it will appear to be the other person saying it. For instance, the Jordan Pele video where he gives a speech impersonating Barack Obama. Pele makes an Obama like speech, then Obama’s face is digitally superimposed on top. The effect is Barack Obama ending a speech with the phrase “stay woke bitches.”

This technology relies on machine learning and analysis of thousands of different pictures of both people. by comparing the similarities and manipulating the face of the target to be more similar to the actor. A the moment this technology takes fairly powerful computers to accomplish convincingly. Most convincing deep fakes are fairly static videos, something from the shoulders up without a ton of movement. However talented visual effect artists on Youtube have been using their skills to make more convincing fakes. For instance, Keanu Reeves was not actually in this video.