Thursday, May 30, 2019

"There's a scarily good 'deepfakes' YouTube channel that's quietly growing – and it's freaking everyone out"

From The Register, May 28:
Watch for yourself
Videos “Do not believe what you see on the internet, OK?” a techie, who doctors video clips apparently using AI algorithms and puts them on YouTube, has warned.

The resulting digitally altered material ranges from a comedian doing impersonations of celebrities, with the performer's face changed to match those of the stars being lampooned, to the face of Heath Ledger's Joker superimposed over the actor's characters in other movies. The alterations are made using, it is claimed, deepfake neural network algorithms.

Russian researchers hit the headlines last week by reanimating oil-painted portraits and photos into talking heads using AI. Now, here’s another reminder that the tools to craft deepfakes are widely available for just about anyone with the right skills to use: the manipulated videos posted on YouTuber Ctrl Shift Face are particularly creepy.

At first, the faces of the characters in specific movie clips are normal and recognizable, but they slowly morph into someone else. And before you know it, the actor Edward Norton suddenly turns into Brad Pitt during a scene in Fight Club. See it for yourself in the video below, the change occurs at about 42 seconds into the clip.
Blink and you’ll miss the transition....MUCH MORE