[The Glass Room, which began as a touring exhibition and is now an online “public intervention that provides an interactive, fun, and challenging experience, bringing to life the most pressing challenges facing people and the tech industry today,” features a four-minute video about deepfakes and how they can create alternate versions of different aspects of each of us (including versions that remain after we die). The video could be a useful resource for those who teach students about presence. The text below accompanies the video. See also the Deepfake Lab website, where “researchers take you behind the scenes to reveal how deepfake technology works, the process of how a deepfake is created, and how you can identify one,” the larger Glass Room: Misinformation Edition website, and “Skin Deep: Deep Fakes and Misinformation” in Medium. –Matthew]
How deepfakes may shape the future
This visualisation explains how AI-generated synthetic images, text and video have the power to change what we say, what we do and how we look, and how they might shape our memories and even our after lives.
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How will deepfake video technology change “your” life and how will it change how we see others? Will we ever trust videos again?
Your Speech
In the digital world, the movement of your mouth can be altered, the sound of your voice can be replicated, the content of your speech can be beautified, too. Your mouth is like a blank canvas that can be made to express literally anything. Is there you wouldn’t want people to think you said? Or that you would like to say but can’t? Deepfake technology can change all of that. In India in early 2020, a local politician created a deepfake video of himself that was distributed widely on WhatsApp, which made him seem like he was speaking a language he did not know.
Your Face
Fun video filters on social media can already swap your face in a video with a cute animal or your favourite film star, or can transport your face into different scenarios. Today more than 95% of these types of deepfakes put people’s faces into unpleasant and compromising positions on other people’s bodies. Consider which real-life scenes you would not want to be transferred into, like parties, protests or even riots that you were never at.
Your Body
Deepfake videos can make your body move in different ways – your arms, legs or your whole body can be seen doing things it normally can’t. This technology can be fun but it can also be used by others to make “your” body do things “you” never did. Presenting them with body types and movements tailored to their online preferences.
Your Personality
Automated actions like auto-fill already help us send quick replies or fill in forms without us having to think about what to do or say – but how does this change who we are to others?
Your Memory
There seem to be no limits to how we can improve the way we present ourselves. In fact, we don’t have to be ourselves at all. Are you always sure that the person you are watching in a video is real?
Your After Life
Will we eventually get used to creating digital versions of ourselves from different periods of our lives as easily as we upload our DNA to ancestry services or create a realistic 3D-printed model? Will we be able to make ourselves digitally available forever?