There’s been a lot of news about faceswapping and deepfake videos on the internet and it can be a challenge to get to the bottom of it all. These are two things that basically describe the same exact effect. A faceswap and a deepsway is when you replace one person’s face with another person’s face. This can be done in videos or in photos. The result is a completely engineered image or video that shows someone doing something they were never involved with. There are lots of implications behind this whole thing, so it warrants some time to look into it.
Humans are Easily Fooled
When you get right down to it, human beings can be easily fooled. A study for Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking found that “At the core of deepfakes is deception, which involves intentionally, knowingly, and/or purposely misleading another person. The deception detection literature suggests that people are not particularly good at detecting deception when assessing messages and can relatively easily acquire false beliefs. Meta-analyses of deception detection studies suggest that people perform only slightly above chance when evaluating a message as either true or deceptive. Importantly, this level of accuracy is not affected by the medium in which the message is conveyed. Studies have shown that deception detection is approximately the same whether the message is conveyed through text, an audio, or a video.”
Why it Matters
There’s a very good reason why that matters and it comes right down to how effective a deepfake video can be. Just because something looks fake to you, who is used to noticing digital manipulation, doesn’t mean it looks fake to everyone else. Any person can be put into a video that turns them into a criminal, or much worse and there are going to be plenty of people that believe it from the second they see it.
It Reduces Faith
So, some people are going to believe them and some people won’t. No big deal that’s been society for millennia. Well, it’s not that simple. In that same study, it turned out that people who could see through the lies still had a negative reaction. “Unfortunately, one of the few empirical studies on deepfakes provides some early evidence that worryingly bears this philosophical account out. In a study looking at the effect of deepfakes on trust in the news, [researchers] found that although people were unlikely to be completely misled by a deepfake, exposure to the deepfake increased their uncertainty about media in general. Confirming the worst expectations, that sense of uncertainty led participants to reduce their trust in news.”
They’re Easy to Make
None of this would matter a whole lot if deepfakes were difficult to make, but they’re just not. You can find deepfake apps all over the internet that let you make a video in seconds flat. All you have to do is upload a source video and the image of the person you want placed in it. Viola: deepfake!
Commonly Accessible Apps
Just taking a cursory look at available deepfake apps revealed dozens of programs and sites. For instance:
Lensa AI
Lensa AI is the latest app that has gone viral for creating AI portraits of you or anyone else.
Deepfakes Web
Deepfakes web is a service that lets you create deepfake videos on the web. It uses Deep learning to absorb the various complexities of face data.
Wombo
Wombo is a lip-syncing app that lets you transform yourself or others into a singing face.
Reface
Reface AI is the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) behind the scenes. To use the app, all you need to do is capture your photo and then choose the gif that you want to use.
Intent is Key
With so many easily accessed programs, it has to be understood that intent always matters in something like this. Anything can be used for negative purposes, but it doesn’t mean that thing is intrinsically bad, just like with magic tricks. Yes, you’re’ being lied to, but it’s not for a nefarious reason, it’s for entertainment. There’s always going to be someone with their own agenda and that’s not a good enough reason to take a technology off the table. These apps can be a lot of fun and they can even come with some adult implications.
Sexy Time with Deepfakes
Unless you’re completely out of touch with reality, you’ve no doubt heard about the emergence of deepfake pornography. These are videos where people have swapped the faces of adult actresses for famous women and shared them online. It’s why you can now see your favorite celebrity’s face on a body that’s carrying out the kinds of acts that no one ever talks about in public. Using a person’s face without their consent is pretty invasive and an act of violation, but you can take that same technology and use it as a way to stimulate your partners in ways you never could have imagined.
The Possibilities are Endless
Just think about all the images or videos you could make for your partner with a deepfake app. All you need is an image of your faces and you can use it to put the two of you into the filthiest and most provocative poses imaginable. Your partner is going to be able to see it played out, in the flesh so to speak, and that can be a lot of fun! It might even lead to a conversation about the things that really turn the both of you on and why you should try them out!
It’s up to You
How you feel about deepswap videos is totally up to you, but you have more than enough options when it comes to making your own. You can find both free and paid apps all over any app store. They take minimal effort and you can save them for yourself or share them with the world. It’s all up to you and how you want to take advantage of the technology. Just keep in mind that putting your ex-girlfriend’s face in a Donkey Punch video is objectively wrong and a violation of that person’s dignity. It CAN be pretty funny, though.