There is No Need for Actors Anymore: The Reality of DeepFake Technology

by Victoria Nikolaeva

What are DeepFakes?

In today’s society, there has been a lot of talk about Artificial Intelligence and the content it makes. But did you know that this type of computer generated content has been popping up all over before 2021’s ChatGPT? This other form or name of technology is called Deepfake, and according to University of Virginia, it is “an artificial image or video (a series of images) generated by a special kind of machine learning called ‘deep’ learning.” In general, this technology (similar with AI) gets a series of images and videos, usually of a person, and builds a library of expressions, hairstyles, and lighting systems for the computer to build out. Deepfakes allows you to depict someone, voice and all,  without the someone being there in the first place. This type of technology is often used for replacing and synthesizing speech and faces, which creates a new world of possibilities and risks.

What are the Possibilities?

With such technology available, what are the series of possibilities?  According to GAO, some uses and benefits from deepfakes include; entertainment, where “voices and likeness can be used in movies to achieve a creative effect or maintaining a cohesive story when entertainers are not available”, e-commerce, “letting customers use their likeness to virtually try on clothing, and communication. In particular, lets talk about entertainment.

In the world of entertainment, the possibilities are endless. Originally, there were computer-generated characters, basically like videogame characters, that would be put into the scene after filming. This is how we get characters like Jar Jar Binks from 1999’s Star Wars: Phatmon Menace in 2001’s Lord of the Ring’s Golem. With computer-generated characters starting to become better and better, a new tactic/technology appeared that helped real-life actors add almost another layer of makeup or prosthetic on, the best example of this is with Chris Evans in Avengers: Endgame, at the end of the movie when we, as the audience, see him as an old man. There was makeup and prosthetics on the actor to make him old, but computer technology added another layer to it, enlarging and shulking parts of his body like his neck to be more slim and saggy.

However, deepfakes are a completely different league! With this form of technology, many movies and shows have been able to completely deage an actor or even better (or worse) resurrect characters from the dead. One of the best examples of deepfakes used in entertainment comes from the Star Wars franchise. In their spin-off show, The Mandalorian, season two starts a plotline with a young version of Luke Skywalker, but he is completely made from deepfake technology. The original actor, Mark Hamill, was 70 years old when the show needed Luke’s actor to be 28 years old. According to Richard Bluff, supervisor of Industrial Light and Magic VFX from The Daily Targum, “They effectively reproduced a de-aged version of Hamill for the shots by combining the texture from his face and also (the body double's) younger face.” The same article provides context that not even the voice was done by the real actor but was also done in deepfake. Another example, that brings a dead actor back to the life for the screen, is the used in the Star Wars film: The Rise of Skywalker with the use of deepfake to bring back the character of Princess Leia. These examples are only a few that have come from modern media and can really show the real world of what deepfakes can really do.

What are the Issues?

Deepfakes create a series of issues that stem all over the place, from misinformation, ethics, and privacy concerns. With today’s social media filled with news and political converstities, the addition of deepfakes have been causing major concern for media in general with misinformation. For example, The New York Times displays two videos of news anchors delieving reports, and if you give it a quick look you can miss the somewhat pixelated video with the slightly out of time with the lip-sync. Another example from The Daily Targum was a “video of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. uncomfortably lolling his tongue retweeted by former President Donald J. Trump in April 2020”. Misinformation, in general, has been an issue for a long time, however, when just anybody can make a deepfake, there is a new level of difficulty for detecting misinformation and influence to the masses,

To dive back deeper into entertainment’s uses of deepfake, there are a lot of ethical and privacy issues that are caused by the technology. In the 2000s, the name of big actors were what keep the Blockbuster system running, but in current times, it is the IP (intellucal properties) of nostalgia that keep the theaters going. This is important because even though these movie companies don't own the actual actors, they do own the characters from their IP. Which in return, leads to those character’s actor’s features being part of the company's property. One of the biggest companies in movie-making magic, Disney, has started creating their own library of scans of these actors as “Last Jedi” VFX supervisor, Ben Morris, says to Inverse: “We will always [digitally] scan all the lead actors in the film. We don’t know if we’re going to need them. We don’t intentionally scan them as an archive process. It’s for reference later.” This causes major concerns as companies can now completely remove the actors from the picture, all they need is a person to be a body-double. The ethics of taking away someone’s likeness is in question as these deepfakes become progressively more and more realistic. This question becomes more heightened when you think about this in terms of bring back the dead. Is the privacy of their lives and likeness for the deceased family now gone bcause of this form of technology? Even current actors have spoken some thoughts on this issue as BBC’s article refers to actor, Tom Hanks, who commented on Adam Buxton Podcast "I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that's it, but my performances can go on and on and on." Overall, there are many issues that this type of technology presents and it is important that this technology gets fairly-regulated in the near future.

What are the Realities? How do we Respond?

So what is the reality of deepfakes? Currently, deepfakes are in a weird spot, they are powerful tools of creation, and yet are in sticky situation in terms of morals. The technology is still new enough that audiences are having some form of backlash against it. Often because of how inauthentic it is or that it gives an uncanny valley vibes (an eerie feeling one gets from looking at something that is human-like but isn’t huma). But, one should remember that everytime we see a deepfake on screen that looks a little bit better, there is a little bit more exposure for us, as the audience, and thus we may slowly start to get used to it one fake at a time.

Besides that, the technology is not undetectable and there needs to be importance in talking about this with the younger and more impressionable users. According to  BrightCanary, the way you can detect a deepfake is:

• Weird facial movements like unusual facial expressions, blinking/lip movements that don't seem natural.

• Odd-sounding voices, especially if they don't match the person's mouth movements.

• Strange backgrounds

• Mismatched emotions

• Pixelation or blurriness as those areas around the person's face or edges could indicate a manipulated video.

• A questionable source

In conclusion, deepfakes present a fascinating and yet concerning development in society.  As it offers so much potential in terms of story-telling and user experience but yet still raises questions of misinformation, ethics, and privacy concerns. Not only do we, as the users, need to protect ourselves from deepfakes when we are online but we also need to help support the actors we love, in order to still see them on the big screen 20 years from now.