What is deepfake?
Did you happen to see the viral video of Nancy Pelosi talking slowly and slurring her words?
This is a deepfake.
Deepfake is the modification of photos, videos and/or audio into realistic and believable adulterated copies. Here’s a better explanation.
Other examples include fake celebrity porn or a recent artists’ statement using Mark Zuckerberg.
With continued advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), this type of content is getting increasingly easy to create. While these can be humorous, they bend truth and can cross ethical lines. Deepfakes are playing a larger role in distribution of news, particularly through social media.
Society is flooded with this deepfake phenomenon, and for good obvious reasons.
Often, the deepfake seems more interesting than the truth. Using the Nancy Pelosi example, someone talking at a press conference happens all the time. However, a doctored Nancy Pelosi has a better hook: She’s “not well,” “unstable,” “drunk,” and “unfit for office.”
The most difficult thing about a deepfake is that it is so realistic, it is hard to distinguish between truth and fiction. Long gone are the days of “honest livings,” handshake deals, and taking things at face value.
With deepfakes, our ignorant consumption encourages their presence, and our blind sharing fuels their wildfire spreading. This prioritizes the manipulation of truth and reality.
Lying is now acceptable. People take things as they are without questioning their validity.
Drop the deepfake.
Imagine how many resources are spent on creating a deepfake. Time, energy, money… Now imagine if those same resources became well intended and were focused on truth instead.
While we will not be able to rid society of deepfakes as a whole, we can make decisions, both personally and professionally, to devalue them. We can reinstill the value we place on authenticity:
Drop the deepfake. Forget the shallowfake and the shallowreal, for that matter. Instead…
Make a deepreal.
- Do due diligence with the content we consume; fact check articles we read, videos we watch, photos we see.
- Take a few extra steps to ensure that the information we present is fully supported with vetted facts.
- If we have not yet read/watched it, we do not share (talk about, forward email, retweet, etc).
- Seek out truth, and support people and organizations that do.
- Be direct and honest, yet respectful when communicating, across all mediums.
- Put your time and energy into personal relationships that add value to your life and the lives of others.
Recommended reading:
- Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
- A Genocide Incited on Facebook, With Posts From Myanmar’s Military
- The Crisis of Legitimacy (particularly the section on Trust)