The Rise of Deepfake Technology

Be careful when you spot any hidden twin or doppelganger of yours or someone you know with the same face on the internet, it’s highly likely to be fake. All started with the AI technologies that are wrongfully abused and led to cyber crimes… Deepfake.

Deepfake technology refers to the artificial intelligence developed to create “synthetic media” such as images, audios, and videos that are hoaxes or replicating someone’s facial features. The basic concept behind the technology is facial recognition and machine learning using a special technique called generative adversarial network. The GAN can analyze given photos and produce a new image without being an exact copy of any one of the photos. The technology produces a very seamless and convincing media, which is actually remarkable and innovative – but for some people, the deepfake technology is used for the “wrong intentions”.

Let’s talk about the story behind it. 

Deepfake technology has been developed since the early 1990s by academic and research institutions originally created for applications in the media and entertainment industries such as film making, movie dubbing, and pictures motions. Simply, deepfake technology was created to replicate and generate visuals in movies more clearly and easily. However, with the vast growth of technology industries, many researchers have developed even advanced versions of their own with machine learning and artificial intelligence. And eventually led some people to use this technology for “crimes”.

When seeing is no longer believing.
The advance of deepfake technology is making it hard for people and even the authorities to check whether the media is true or false. This advancement has a huge impact on society, political, and government issues. People start to question whether some historical events like the moon landing and terrorist attacks are even real, despite having video proof. Since deepfake is highly accessible for anyone at any time, even you can create one yourself at home –  making this technology “dangerous and threatful”.

A lot of them were using deepfake technology as a source of mockery and laughter, which is highly disrespectful and inappropriate. For instance, you might have seen a video of a public figure doing something weird, or a short clip circulating around the internet of the President singing, and some even go as far as selling these hoax videos to generate money illegally. This is just a few examples of how the rise of deepfake technology over the decades has been immorally used for the “wrong purpose”. 

The cyber crimes behind deepfake.

With our photos, emails, and details stored in the internet, it’s even easier for hackers to penetrate our data privacies and use them along with deepfake technology to create deceitful media that’s harmful. Deepfake technology has the ability to make people say and do things that they never did, or even create an entirely new personality as if it’s the true reality. Far worse, criminals are using it to create devastating effects to blackmail people online, exploiting children for underaged sex, non-consensual pornogrpahy, falsying or manipulating electronic evidence, creating fabricated news… And many more to only show how scary misused technology can be.

Even businesses are at risk. There’s been a lot of voice phishing of deepfake technology to imitate the voice of a CEO who ordered a employee to transfer millions of dollars and then vanished without a trace. In a far worse situation, deepfake technology could create commotion and panic on a worldwide scale – even though it’s fake.

How to spot deepfake technology.

Researchers found although this technology seems to be almost perfect, you can still spot some missing holes in it. A deepfake faces don’t blink normally, they have uneven skin tones and blurred edge on fine details like the hair. However, most deepfake technology has now advanced and making it harder for detection. The alerting concerns also made leading tech companies such as Google and Microsoft develop their own solution towards identifying deepfake technology on the internet.

The technology industry is rapidly growing at a fast pace, as innovative it might be it also produces both advantages and disadvantages. Exploited deepfake technology has brought significant issues on data privacy and data protection. It is also harder for authorities to bring justice to crimes when technology is getting advanced. But one simple way is keeping yourself keen and having a critical thinking towards what we perceive information online. A wise quote once said, don’t believe everything you see on the internet.

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