Convincing Tom Cruise DeepFake videos spread on TikTok
Chillingly realistic Deep Fake videos of Tom Cruise are circulating TikTok, demonstrating just how convincing this relatively new brand of fakery has become.
If you’re not familiar with the term DeepFake, or are not quite sure how it works, let us briefly explain.
DeepFakes are videos that can use artificial intelligence to digitally insert the face (or likeness) of one person onto a completely different person, to create the illusion that you’re watching someone you’re not.
Now, videos showing people’s faces edited onto the bodies of other people have existed for years, but they’re often crudely executed and consequently easily identified as fakes. And if you ever did want to try and create a convincing fake video, it would prove to be a very time consuming endeavour.
DeepFake technology, on the other hand, is quickly solving these problems. DeepFake artificial technology utilises photographs of people to map the contours of their face to build a 3D model. It can subsequently use this information to allow a video prankster to automatically correct for different angles and lighting conditions to create an almost seamless fake video. Such videos can even incorporate the unique mannerisms of their intended target.
Combine that video with some convincing audio (and yes, DeepFake can also mimic voices) or audio copied from the original person, or even in some cases a good impersonator, and you have yourself a fully-fledged DeepFake.
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The technology makes fake videos easier and quicker to create, more convincing, and open up this niche of Internet fakery to even more people. And that’s got a lot of people worried.
Take these videos spreading on TikTok, from user deeptomcruise. The actor can be seen playing golf and making jokes about Gorbachov.
@deeptomcruise
@deeptomcruise Sports!
Only, of course, it isn’t Tom Cruise. And while some may have spotted some subtle clues that the videos are fake, Cruise not being as tall as the person in the videos for one, a casual observer is more likely to be duped.
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And not everyone is going to be using this technology to create humourous videos on TikTok. In fact a 2019 study by Deeptrace found that 99% of DeepFake videos online were mapping celebrity female faces onto porn stars.
And as the technology increases in popularity, it’s likely that DeepFakes will be used for things such as circulating misinformation, propaganda, defamation and revenge porn. To retiterate the ominous words in one of the above Tom Cruise videos above, “if you like what you’re seeing, just wait for what’s coming next.”
In the meantime, see how good you are at spotting DeepFakes on this webpage from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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