DeepfakesDeepfake myths: Common misconceptions about synthetic media

By Aviv Ovadya

Published 17 June 2019

There is finally some momentum to “do something” about deepfakes, but crucial misconceptions about deepfakes and their effect on our society may complicate efforts to develop a strategic approach to mitigating their negative impacts.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence convened [last Thursday] to discuss the challenges posed by AI-manipulated media, better known as deepfakes. There is finally some momentum to “do something” about deepfakes, but crucial misconceptions about deepfakes and their effect on our society may complicate efforts to develop a strategic approach to mitigating their negative impacts.

The term deepfake has many connotations. Colloquially the word deepfake is used to describe the use of artificial intelligence techniques to create a fake video of someone saying or doing something that they never said or did, as in the fake videos of Barack Obama demonstrated by Radiolab and BuzzFeed. But this is only the tip of the iceberg of the types of fabrication enabled by new technology. For example, it is now possible to generate seemingly realistic faces of non-existent people—and this capability is already being abused by bad actors.

Experts generally prefer the more general term synthetic media, which refers to the generation or manipulation of media—video, audio, imagery, and potentially text—that would have been difficult and expensive to create prior to recent technological advances. This relies primarily, but not exclusively, on artificial intelligence.

In responsible hands, this technology could eventually be used to create art, seamlessly translate audio and video across languages, or even create realistic, personalized avatars in digital spaces. In the wrong hands, synthetic media could deepen divisions in society—and in government—as it becomes difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t. Understanding this technology and its implications is critical to developing a thoughtful policy response that will enable its best features and protect us from its worst ones.