The boundaries between what is considered original and fake is getting narrow. The reality of things are beginning to change from what we know it to be, the advancement of technology keeps changing the perception of humans and also empowering us with tools capable of things we never thought possible. All we grew up knowing in those days was a popular adage that says "There is no cheating in photography, how you seat is how you will appear" but we all know how wrong that sounds now.
We now have things that could present a fake appearance in such a way that it would be almost impossible to tell if it is fake or original. It was just a controversy theory, when people say something like "The advancement of technology would be mankind's doom" but I'm starting to believe it to be true. The concept of deepfake is all about a technology based artificial intelligence capable of mimicking the reality of anything into a desired result. It means the kind of technology that can allow a person create any form of art or motion pictures with the image of a person, making such a person say anything they desire without the person in question knowing anything about it.
For instance, let say I want to create a video of a celebrity giving a speech or doing something I want, normally that will mean I have to find a way to make an appointment with the celebrity and come to an agreement. But with deepfake, I can easily create video of that celebrity without his/her permission and the video would look so real, only someone that is aware of the existence of deepfake would be able to suspect that the video is not real but then it is real enough to fool vast majority without most people suspecting anything.
Which means I could create content about someone committing some kind of atrocities or immoral act and I can use deepfake to manipulate the person's picture into desired result just to back up my claim. Even if it is untrue, it is still capable of sabotaging the person. We are all aware of the role public image play in every individual's career, most people career are built on their public image, especially public figure. Now imagine what that kind of technology would be capable of in the hands of someone with bad intentions.
Is there a way this kind of technology can be used for good? Truth be told I can't think of any. All I can think of is all kind of ways this technology could be used to harm people, probably there is but I can't just think of any because this is another level of identity theft, anyone from anywhere could impersonate a person in a way the rest of the world would believe it to be true. I still wonder why such a technology was created in the first place, the only area that deepfake can be of good use is in the media industry.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled Deepfake in hive learners community.
Cover image - 𝖣𝖾𝗌𝗂𝗀𝗇𝖾𝖽 𝗎𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖼𝖺𝗇𝗏𝖺
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