The Truth Behind Deepfakes

What Are Deepfakes?

If you’ve seen the videos where Barrack Obama says that “Ben Carson is in a sunken place” or where Nancy Poliseo is speaking slow as if she is under the influence, then you have seen a deepfake. Deepfakes are videos that have been manipulated by AI that have visuals and audio that make it appear realistic. Deepfakes are not always malicious but they can in fact be unethical. While many are used for humor and entertainment purposes these types of videos are also used to deceive, intimidate, and can even cause harm to a person reputation. It’s just not the actual visual that can be a deepfake but the audio can as well. For audio people use what’s called “voice cloning” to alter the speech of someone else in order to make it appear as if someone is actually talking.

How To Detect Deepfakes

As people, we tend to seek out information that support whatever it is we want to believe and ignore the rest. This can be dangerous as it leads to bias and leaves room for deepfakes to come across to the viewer as real. However, there are different ways to spot a deepfake. One way to detect a deepfake is through eye movement and blinking. The average person blinks around 15 to 20 times per minute, so paying attention to see if a person blinks to much or not enough is a way to detect a deepfake. Another way to spot a deepfake is to look at the persons mouth as they are talking, some deepfake may have poor lip-synching. Lastly, another way to detect a deepfake is by paying attention to facial features. Though the technology used for deepfakes is good deepfakes do not have the ability to pick up on certain features, so paying attention so see if the person’s skin is to smooth, or if there’s a mole missing, or looking at person’s teeth alignment are all ways to detect a deepfake. These are just a few ways to spot a deepfake, but by training your eyes to see the details you will be able to see the truth instead of believing what your mind wants to believe.

The Power Technology Holds

Fake news has already made the trust between the public and the media very low. Deepfakes hold the power to completely destroy the trust that is there and create a zero trust society. Deepfakes do not seem as if they will be going away anytime soon. In fact, I believe that as technology advances so will everything that comes with it, including deepfakes. Manipulation to the media is nothing new, but with deepfakes being able to so easily trick the human eye and mind it truly has the capability to cause disruptions. The more people are aware of deepfakes and how to detect them then the more power we will regain as viewers.