Digital illusion – what is a deepfake?

The photo of the boy above looks like an ordinary photograph, doesn’t it? The reality, however, is surprisingly different: this person does not exist, and his image has been created artificially. In short, it is what is known as a deepfake.

In the past, fraudsters could, at best, cut someone’s head out of a photo and paste it onto another image. Today, technology allows us to do the same with video and voice – and much more realistically. A deepfake is an advanced computer-generated photomontage that is often extremely difficult to distinguish from reality.

Where does the name come from? The word is a combination of two English terms:

• ‘Deep’ – refers to ‘deep learning’, i.e. the way in which a computer learns exactly what our face looks like, how we blink or how our lips move.
• Fake – because the end result is not real, although it often looks almost exactly like reality.

Why are we talking about this? Deepfakes can be used for harmless entertainment or for wonderful purposes. It becomes possible to ‘bring to life’ old photographs, allowing us to hear our great-grandfather’s laughter or have a conversation with a favourite artist who died long ago (Salvador Dalí himself talks about his works in a museum in Florida, suggesting a photo together at the end of the tour).

Unfortunately, deepfakes are also increasingly being used as a tool by fraudsters who artificially manipulate the voices of children asking for money or the images of well-known and respected figures in order to deceive us into doing something. This course will teach you how to use modern technology safely and what to watch out for.