EOTO: Deep Fake

A deep fake is a video of a person where their face or body has been altered so they appear to be someone else or doing something they havent. Deep fakes are typically used either with bad intent to cause harm, or to be funny and provide entertainment for others. Deep fakes are a danger that result from the advancing technology of our present day world. Nowadays deep fakes are both easily made and easily accessible. Anyone can create deep fakes through apps, or softwares, including, FaceMe, FaceApp, Wombo, and others. Within these apps there are AI that recognize facial movements and can replicate them onto another. Despite the dangers of deep fakes, they are not considered to be illegal, but posting or making them of course, can put some at risk for defamation. This is if the deep fake made has damaged their character in some way, shape, or form. 

While anyone is susceptible to deep fakes that are some tip and tricks to make yourself less vulnerable. In a world where social media tends to be at the center of everything it made be hard for some generation to do so, but limiting social media posts. The less you post the less photos and videos there are for someone to take and use against your wishes. Along with that keeping your account private and only accepting people you know for sure, like loved ones or friends. Not only will this keep you safe from deep fakes but the dangers of strangers as well.  When scrolling through the internet always use critical thinking and never believe the first thing that is seen. Because as real as something may look it does not hurt to  double check on another site if this information is real. Doing this will also limit the spread of misinformation. 

According to Intelligence Group, while deep fakes seem to only uphold negative effects, they do put positive things out into he world. They help to lower the cost of video campaigns in various ways. Whether is it cutting down the time by less editing and using a deep fake over the original scene, or receive permission from someone famous and rather than needing them to fly out to film, simply requesting a picture or video of their face. Hyper-personalization is another big thing deep fakes help with as well. A makeup or clothing brand online can mimic the customers skin tone, and demonstrate what their  products will look on the customer. This significantly helps sales, and may even push an unsure customer over the edge of buying that product. Deep fakes can even allow those to connect with passed ones, and make them seem as if they have realistically come back from life. 

But, make sure to keep both sides of deep fakes in mind. Most commonly, Cambridge Dictionary , states that deep fakes have been used for porn or even revenge porn. Where a persons face is edited onto porn performers. Being used in a highly inappropriate way and could potentially put some at risk for losing their job. It is a fake video that has real world effects. 

Some other harmful effects consist of, misinformation being widely spread, chaos being caused as those stress over what is truly going on, encourages false realities and conspiracy theorists, and can be used inappropriately. A famous example is Bill Hader. He had been on a talk show doing something he was famous for, impressions, mostly of other celebrities. The video was taken and as Bill did an impression of Tom Cruise his faced morphed into him. This encouraged conspiracy theorists and made them believe Bill Hader sold his soul, was a sign of the devil, and sent them into chaos and uproar about the illuminati.   Another negative effect of deep fakes is fraud. There can be various forms of a fraud involved. using audio deep fakes a voice of a famous CEO can be stolen and have wired money transferred to whoever is behind that audio, another common one is synthetic identity fraud. Where criminals will take a mix of fake and real information from others and use a deep fake to create someone who is not even real.  

While all of this can be stressful, there are helpful tools to help allow you to spot a deep fake. Q5ID, goes into further detail of some of the dangers above as well as how to prevent yourself from falling victim to a deep fake of someone else. 

1. Unatural Eye Movements 
2. Mismatch is Color and Lighting 
3. Bad audio Quality 
4. Odd Body movement 
5. Awkward physique 

If the eyes are either not blinking or blinking an excessive amount it tends to be an AI generated image edited on to the face of another. If the audio sounds low quality on a high quality video that you have seen somewhere else but haven't heard before it most likely has been taken and turned into an edited version. If the body seems to be moving different than the head and movements that do not make sense it is a deep fake. Or if, for example, they are smiling when talking about something extremely sad. Things such as that. But these guidelines are not strict for everything and should be applied with lots of thought and consideration if it would make sense for someone to do such a thing.