- Buzzfeed published a video that appeared to show former president Barack Obama cursing and calling Donald Trump names, but revealed the clip was actually fabricated using emerging video editing technology.
- The voice of director and actor Jordan Peele was actually used in the video, which had been inserted into an original clip of Obama, effectively creating a "deepfake," aka video of someone saying or doing something that didn't actually happen.
- This technology, widely being called "the future of fake news" is already being used in controversial ways, including to insert the faces of celebrities into pornography.
An realistic-looking video that seemed to show former President Barack Obama cussing and calling President Donald Trump a "total and complete dips---," went viral on Tuesday, bringing attention to the dangers of a controversial video editing technology that many have called "the future of fake news."
About halfway through the video, originally published by Buzzfeed, it is revealed that Obama had actually not uttered those words, and that they were actually said by "Get Out" Director and Writer Jordan Peele, whose voice and mouth had been digitally inserted into an original-much less scandalous-video of the former president.
Here's the full video:
Peele, Buzzfeed, and Monkeypaw Productions used a controversial, but widely available software to make the video, in an effort to demonstrate the potential dangers of "deepfakes," aka digitally manipulated videos that have the power to "make it look like anyone is saying [or doing] anything at any point in time," that didn't actually happen. According to Buzzfeed, the video took roughly 56 hours to make, along with the assistance of a professional video editor.
"So the good news is it still requires a decent amount of skill, processing power, and time to create a really good 'deepfake,'" said BuzzFeed News
Unfortunately, this technology is already being used by non-experts for nefarious purposes, including inserting the faces of celebrities into pornographic videos, creating-in some instances-very convincing and disturbing results.
Deepfakes are most commonly created with the free AI software, FakeApp, that was popularized in forums dedicated to the sharing of fake videos on Reddit and Discord, and first reported on by Motherboard in December 2017. The software requires a large amount of photos of the person the user wishes to insert into a video, so celebrities and public figures-like former presidents-have become naturally easy targets.
Even beyond non-consensual pornography, the greatest potential dangers for this technology have only begun to emerge. Many experts have begun to ask what this technology, along with sophisticated audio editing, could mean for the future of fake news and media in general.
"It may sound basic, but how we move forward in the age of information is going to be the difference between whether we survive or whether we become some kind of f---ed up dystopia," said Peele, in unison with the artificial Obama, who eerily and convincingly uttered the same words.