In recent years, various images and videos created with deepfake technology have enlivened social media. There are an increasing number of applications available that allow you to manipulate an image or video.
Nowadays, technology has become more sophisticated. You can find various fake pictures and videos that look very real.
From the digital content, you can understand that deep learning technology can really help in the filmmaking process. Nonetheless, the majority of people are concerned about this technology. If used by irresponsible people, deepfakes can be misused to create realistic-looking engineering videos for negative purposes.
There have been numerous cases of this technology being used to damage someone's reputation.
This article will explain everything you need to know about deepfake.
{jistoc} $title={Table of Contents}
What are Deepfakes?
Deepfake is a photo or video manipulation using Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled technology to unify a person's likeness to another person's face. In other words, this deepfake technology can manipulate a person's image or video to appear as if they are doing or saying something that never actually happened.
The word deepfake combines two terms together, "deep learning" and "fake". So simply, a deepfake is a fake video or image created using Artificial Intelligence deep learning technology.
This technology can seamlessly incorporate anyone's face into a video or photo. This technology is used in the Fast & Furious 7 movie, where actor Paul Walker was "revived" again.
Some examples of applications or software that use deepfake technology are:
- Faceapp
- Faceswap
- MyHeritage
- DeepFaceLab
- Zao
- Reface
- AvengeThem, and many more
How are Deepfakes Made?
There are various methods that can be used to create deepfake videos. However, the most commonly used method relies on Deep Neural Networks (DNN) involving autoencoders with face swapping techniques.
A Deep Neural Network is a collection of algorithms designed to recognize patterns and process data in complex ways.
To create a deepfake, you must provide a target video that will be used as the basis for the video. Then you also need a collection of clips from someone's video that you want to include in the target video. Please note that these videos do not have to be related.
With autoencoder technology, the AI deep learning program will be tasked with studying the video and understanding the person's looks from various angles and environmental conditions.
After that, other machine learning technologies will be added to the video again. The technology is called Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN), which can detect and fix flaws in deepfake videos.
Generative Adversarial Networks are also used as a popular method for creating deepfakes that rely on studying large amounts of data to learn how to develop images that mimic the real thing.
After several detections and fixes by the GAN, the deepfake video will be completed. Many people assume that Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) will be the main framework for developing deepfakes in the future.
When this technology first appeared, it took experts a long time to produce the effect. But now, deepfake technology has advanced to synthesize images and videos faster.
What Are the Risks of Using Deepfake Technology?
Although making videos with deepfake technology looks interesting, this technology has a negative side that attracts the attention of many people.
After the invention of this technology, Reddit was flooded with fake pornographic videos featuring the faces of famous politicians and celebrities.
Along with the advancement of deepfakes, today's AI technology allows for the creation of not only fake faces but also fake voices. This condition heightens the dangers of creating videos to spread false information.
If used by people with malicious intentions, this technology can be a "tool" for destroying someone's reputation.
There have been many cases where this technology has been used to spread false information that damaged someone's reputation. For example, in 2018, there was a video of Donald Trump calling on Belgium to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. In fact, Donald Trump never gave that speech, and after research, it turned out that the video was made with deepfake technology.
Many experts believe that deepfakes will become so much more sophisticated that they can pose a more serious threat to the public in the future.
On the other hand, nowadays, most people do their activities online through various digital platforms. If fake videos continue to be widespread, the long-term effect could be a growing distrust of audio and video evidence in general.
Is There a Way to Detect Deepfake Videos?
Since deepfake videos are now becoming more and more common, as internet users we have to be more careful and smarter in detecting fake videos. Here are some indicators of deepfake videos:
- Check the color of the skin, hair, or face of a person in the video. Usually, a fake video will show a person with a face that looks more blurry than the image of the surrounding environment. In addition, the focus of the video also sometimes looks unnatural.
- Check the lighting in the video. Does it look unnatural? It's worth noting that often deepfake algorithms will still use the exposure from the video clip of the person you're trying to add. So, the exposure will look out of proportion to the exposure in the target video.
- You can re-examine the audio in the video because deepfakes often feature mouth movements that look unnatural. This is often found especially when the video that is manipulated using audio is not edited properly.
In addition to observing the indicators above, there are currently several applications that can be used to detect deepfake videos. Some of them are:
1. Sensity
Sensity works like an antivirus that can detect deepfakes. This software can protect you from the threat of visual evil.
Sensity was developed by Machine Learning researchers and threat intelligence specialists to protect individuals and companies from threats posed by fakes and other forms of harmful visual media.
When used, Sensity will send a notification via email when users see something that shows synthetic media created by AI technology.
2. Operation Minerva
This software uses digital fingerprinting to identify and find fake videos created without your consent. On its web page, Operation Minerva mentions that they also provide a service to remove the fake video.
Conclusion
In recent years, deepfakes have become one of the new technologies in demand by many people. Social media is often enlivened with various images or video content that is manipulated so that someone can look older or younger.
In fact, many people use various applications and try to change the face of their favorite actor with their own face.
Deepfake videos created with widely available apps in the app store are easy to identify as fake. However, it will become increasingly difficult to detect if they are carefully created using advanced technology by highly skilled individuals.
If you are using a deepfake app, you need to be careful when using it. Read the terms and conditions of the application first before using it. Also, don't let your videos be used by bad people to make fake videos that damage your reputation.
Post a Comment