Deepfake technology - A modern weapon of synthetic media

Whenever the world of technology has advanced, it has always amazed human thinking. Whether the development is in the form of information, robots, or software’s. The concept of technology in the movie Terminator, made in the 90s, for example, considered an imaginary technology at that time, but it still gained remarkable attention and popularity.

Today we see the same technology available to us in diverse ways in the form of artificial intelligence. As such, there are software online that you can use to get written content. If you just want information on a topic, these software’s will use the algorithm to present you a variety of content on that topic from the Internet. For example, Simplified, Jarvis, Writer, Copy.ai.

Oblivion is a Hollywood movie that uses a technology named clone. The movie has Tom Cruise in the lead role. The second character was the clone of the real one, the other person was made from the genes of the main character and the first person even did not know it.

In any case, he sets out to find it and brings it to an end. Other examples we can see are Womb, Ayn Flask, The Iceland, Dowell, Ripley Cass, Gemini Man.

Like the Oblivion, the Terminator depicts the likeness of a person who is called a clone, and that is why we call them clones having the same shape and form, whether they be objects or living things. However, the name has not received as much attention and popularity as the name of a similar technology has received in the last few years. Surely you have understood who I am talking about. I am talking about deepfake technology.

It would not be wrong to think of it as a clone-like technology. However, there is a big difference between the two technologies and that is from a scientific point of view, clone copy is physically present. You can see it directly. This is exactly what happened in the movie Oblivion. But so far there is no such scientific evidence regarding human cloning. Deepfake, on the other hand, has nothing to do with reality, nor does it have any physical status to be believed. Therefore, it is a fake virtual face copy of a person which does not really exist.

The name Deepfake was used on a website platform called Reddit and was first used in pornographic videos. In this technique the faces of different people are sometimes applied to the faces of other characters with their permission and without permission and the viewer seems to believe that this video belongs to the same person, while it does not belong to that person. Nor does it have anything to do with reality.

Deepfake is an artificial intelligence technology that uses algorithms. And it has to do with a synthetic media field where false and fake content, facial expressions and voice modifications are used. If you also want your face to look like a celebrity or your favourite person in which the viewer cannot even guess that you are playing the role in it, then you can use your Innumerable images must be given from different angles in deep fake software.

Because the software uses iterative algorithm, it will evaluate or train itself on this character by repeated iteration of images from different angles, and then after a while that character will show the full face of your face from all angles. But for that it is necessary that you have a computer with high processor and the enormous number of your images in different angles the more software gives you the realistic video. If you have a video with a longer timeline instead of pictures, it will be even easier for the software.

This technology uses generative adversarial networks consisting of two neural networks. They interconnect data sets using algorithms. One is called a generator and the other is called a discriminator or detector and they both work against each other. The job of the generator is to give the output using the given images while the job of the discriminator is to find out if the created image or video is not artificially created. In This repeated way of work, and the output is further improved over time, and we got the realistic output near to reality.

It's like a cat-and-mouse game. As soon as a detection model is built, to detect the Deep Fake, there is a generator in front of it ready to defeat the detector.

The famous Hollywood actor and the main character of the movie Terminator has described this technology of artificial intelligence dangerous in the future. According to him, the technology used in the movie has become a virtual reality nowadays and this is having a terribly negative effect on the people who are playing the role in the films. Because the producers are making huge profits without using their physical acting capabilities but instead used their image faces with this technology.

In addition, CNN's October 3 published paper states that there are currently approximately 14,678 Deepfake videos online, most of which are related to pornographic videos.

Moreover, a deep-faked video of the Ukrainian president announcing his defeat in the war against Russia has surfaced. But later the video turned out to be fake and it was removed from various online platforms.

While there are some downsides to this technology, there are also some pros to this technology, such as Shah Rukh Khan's deep fake video made during Co-vid in India at his request in an ad for Cadbury Chocolate for his marketing as well.

Also, this technology will be particularly useful in the absence of a person who for some reason is not available.

Additionally, the use of this technology has created centuries-old distinctive faces.

If the technology is to be considered a legal aspect, the laws regarding Deepfake are not yet clear. However, the world's leading technology companies are working against unethical content relating to Deepfake, including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.

Google and Microsoft have provided developers with a data set so that they can use it to train their systems to compete with Deepfake.

Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and the world's leading universities have challenged Deepfake Detection Software to be rewarded with $500,000. However, efforts are being made to see who is lucky enough to achieve this target.