When it comes to telling fake news apart from the real ones, how do you distinguish the fake from the real? We suppose if you were to watch the news and see someone with authority speak, chances are you might be more convinced compared to if you were to read an article online.
However director Jordan Peele together with BuzzFeed have disproved that with the creation of a fake PSA video featuring Barack Obama. The video shows Obama speaking, the words seem to match his lip movements, and it sounds exactly like him complete with gestures and all. However halfway through the video, Peele reveals himself to be the one who created the fake video using AI and a bunch of video editing tools.
These kind of fake videos aren’t particular new and are also known as deepfakes, where faces of people are swapped onto the faces of other people in very convincing videos, thanks largely to the efforts of AI that help make them more realistic. In a way it is ironic because the video is a PSA about fake news, which uses a deepfake to deliver it.
However it is a sobering reminder that what we see or read online might not always be true, even if it looks like it might have come from a reputable source. That being said, various companies such as Facebook and Google have been working to help cut down on the amount of discoverable fake news videos, but whether their efforts are good enough remains to be seen.
Filed in . Read more about AI (Artificial Intelligence).