The 昭和 の ポルノinternet is full of misinformation. In an election year, that often means that bad actors are trying to sway the vote one way or another. The president of the United States often spreads misinformation himself.
Since the 2016 election, deepfaketechnology has often been considered one of the biggest threats in the online information wars. The ability to use machine learning in order to seamlessly swap one person’s face onto another in order to trick people is certainly concerning. So worrying, in fact, that the U.S. Department of Defense has preparedtools for a potential onslaught of deepfakes.
However, deepfakes don’t necessarily mean “fake news.” Unfortunately, the name of the technologyhas become synonymous with “misinformation,” but the ability to use artificial intelligence and “teach” a computer how to recreate an individual’s likeness using existing media is actually pretty incredible.
And some organizations are seeing how powerful deepfakes can be to spread a message, without fooling people into believing it’s real.
Take the new ad campaign, "Dictators," from nonprofit RepresentUs. It consists of two separate videos, one featuring North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and another featuring Russian president Vladimir Putin. In both, the men sort of gloat over America’s fragile democracy and how they haven’t had to do much of anything to disrupt things — the American people are doing it to themselves due to the divided state of the country.
Both videos were made using deepfake technology and they're a stunning example of just how realistic deepfakes are getting.
SEE ALSO: Microsoft is launching new technology to fight deepfakes“We were looking to take an issue that we work on, which is saving democracy, which sounds important but generally people view it as kind of a snoozer,” Joshua Graham Lynn, president and co-founder of RepresentUs, said. “We came up with a way to speak to the American people and show them how important this issue really is and how much we need to be paying attention to it.”
“The idea didn't start with the deepfake aspect of it,” explained Bianca Guimaraes, executive creative director of Mischief @ No Fixed Address, the firm hired to create the videos. “It was more of the technology that brought the idea to life. Instead of just doing this with actors that look like dictators we thought it would be much more powerful coming from the mouths of these people.”
Deepfake technology "was the way to bring it to life,“ she continued.
The ads involved a bit more than the usual deepfake creation. There was a video production team, special effects, and actors. And of course, a deepfake expert, John Lee, who swapped the images of Putin and Kim Jong-un onto the actors’ faces.
The RepresentUs ads did create some controversy. The videos were originally supposed to air on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC in Washington, D.C. during last week’s presidential debate. The networks rejected the ads.
“We didn't try to fool people, that this was real,” Guimaraes tells me. “We had a big disclaimer at the end. Even though this video was fake, this footage isn't real...the issue is real.”
RepresentUs released the videos online, complete with the disclaimer informing viewers: “This footage is not real, but the threat is.” As of Oct. 7, they've had about half a million views in total. And while there has been some criticismof the ads, Lynn tells me that there was no confusion about whether the video was real from those who watched it.
“You can post about eggs on Facebook and people will find a way to turn it into QAnon or something crazy. It's impossible to avoid right now,” said Kevin Mulroy, another executive creative director at Mischief. “We just felt like the idea of a dictator sitting back and letting us do this to ourselves is a very scary thought and also pretty true.”
And Mulroy is right. It is pretty true. While there have been documented instances of foreign interference in our elections from Russia and other countries, experts seem to agreethat the biggest threat to our democracy is domesticmisinformation.
RepresentUs will be far from the last organization to utilize deepfake technology. There have been a number of other examples just this year.
Phil Ehr, a Democratic candidate running against Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz useda deepfake in a campaign ad to attack his opponent. Like RepresentUs, Ehr also used the technology to make a point and fully disclosed the deepfake within the ad.
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Perhaps the most effective and chilling of these deepfake ads is this one from gun safety organization, Change the Ref. It uses deepfake technology for its get-out-the-vote campaign, Unfinished Votes. The group created a powerful ad featuring Joaquin Oliver, a teen who died in the Parkland school shooting.
Once again, the ad fully explains to the viewer what they’re seeing: media created using deepfakes. They’re not trying to fool anyone. In these instances, deepfakes are used as a mere tool to elicit an emotion or reaction, just like any good narrative film would do.
“Did the technology work in the way it was intended to? It's a resounding yes,” Lynn of RepresentUs said regarding their "Dictators" campaign. “There are lots of people who were made uncomfortable by watching this video, either because they saw it as 'oh my God, this is what deepfakes can do'...or they saw it as 'oh my God, I've never heard this message from a dictator like this.'”
Related Video: This scary deepfake tool can make someone say something they never said
Topics Elections Politics