Deep Fakes- A Tech Talk

This week in Honors Modern Fiction, we ran a class facilitation about potential issues and current dangers that are present in 2019. In addition, we had to relate these threats to the book 1984 by George Orwell. My partner and I chose to focus on a new technology with dangerous implications, this technology is known as Deep Fakes. A deep fake is created by using pre-existing source information of a person, which is then analyzed for face patterns, to be mapped onto another person to create a false video. This video, paired with a digitally created voice, could lead to war.

Based off of the information we presented the class with from Buzzfeed and the Wall Street Journal, we had to create a class activity to increase awareness and understanding.

 

The video from Buzzfeed was a Deep Fake of former President Obama where he ‘said’ inappropriate things that he would never say about current President Donald Trump. During the video, it was revealed that this video was in fact, fake, and it was Jordan Peele, a YouTube and movie influencer. This video was presented to the class to demonstrate how a Deep Fake works and that “seeing is not always believing” (WSJ). This video did present some political bias towards the Democratic party, or rather Anti-Trump supporters. However, we still believed that this was a reliable video to show the class because we were not talking about politics directly, we were talking about Deep Fakes that could be a threat to politics. This clip was reliable because it showed the unmasking of what appeared to be former President Obama, to actually be Jordan Peele. This video was necessary to emphasize the idea that these Deep Fakes are becoming so precise that the figure of the United States for 8 years was not recognized.

This was a great video to show the class and it helped the class understand what a Deep Fake is and how they are made, which increased understanding.

The video from the Wall Street Journal, was reliable because it presented both sides of the story, not just the positive of the Deep Fake technology, but also the negatives. It discussed the use of Deep Fakes in movies and TV shows in Hollywood, using Forrest Gump’s scene with John F. Kennedy as the example. This movie is one of the most well-known and widely liked movies ever produced. The technology was used for good. Then, it discussed how the use of Deep Fakes could lead to war and destruction if put into the wrong hands, along with the idea of destroying one’s career and livelihood. This resource is reliable because it presented both sides, however, it was biased in the direction of banning the Deep Fake technology from being used and developed. The biased ideas were backed up by explaining the repercussions of this technology, which convinced us to use this video in our presentation.

This video also contributed well to our presentation because it showed how anyone can make them and how the skill is easily learned.

For our class activity, we did a ‘Spot the Deep Fake”- where we presented a photo or video to the class, that may or may not be real. They were split up into 3 groups and each group had to come up with the answer. This game could have worked better if we more convincing photos, considering most of the deep fake videos were taken down due to YouTube guidelines. This lead to the groups easily recognize which one was real and which one was fake, which disproved our point about how dangerous they were, but they still recognized them. I was also surprised when my classmates were able to figure out the most difficult deep fakes by looking at the close details.

Grace, a fellow classmate, said that the photo of Stephen Colbert looked fake because the angle of his glasses was wrong… I spent 20 hours finding photos and making the presentation and I didn’t even notice it. Matt said that a photo of Robert Downey Jr looked fake because his face looked smaller, once again, I did not notice it AT ALL.

 

 

 

 

Additionally, we should have given the groups less time to figure out the photos because the immediate answers were incorrect, then after getting more time to look at the photos, they changed their answers. It made the game somewhat anti-climatic.

Overall, it went very well, but the ideas for the game could have been improved by making it timed.

Featured Image: https://www.wsj.com/articles/deepfake-videos-are-ruining-lives-is-democracy-next-1539595787