(RNN) – The video begins believably enough.
Former president Barack Obama looks like he’s giving an address.
“We’re entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time. Even if they would never say those things,” he says.
Or, appears to say.
There are cues the video is not real. It would be strange, to say the least, for Obama to be giving an official address from the White House in 2018. Something’s not quite right with the way his mouth moves.
But if you weren’t expecting it to be fake, the thought might never occur to you. At least until “Obama” uses a vulgar insult to describe President Donald Trump.
About half a minute into the video, it’s revealed that Oscar-winning director, actor and comedian Jordan Peele, not Obama, is speaking. Obama’s image is simply being manipulated to match Peele’s words.
This is the new frontier in internet forgery. Where Photoshop has long been used to trick people into believing that, say, a shark is swimming through flood waters in a major city, now programs like Adobe After Effects can functionally achieve the same thing with video.
“This is a dangerous time,” Peele says after his reveal. “Moving forward we need to be more vigilant with what we trust from the Internet.”
The “Get Out” director made the video in conjunction with BuzzFeed, which posted it on Tuesday. It’s a PSA for this remarkably simple emerging technology.
Right now it’s mostly used for uncanny jokes. People can use face-swapping apps, for instance, to switch the Queen of England’s face with her young great-grandson’s.
But as Peele’s video shows, taking it a step further – producing videos and gifs known as “deepfakes” – is becoming easier and more realistic.
They’ve already proliferated on porn sites, with videos popping up of celebrity faces morphed unsettlingly into graphic scenes. Sites have attempted to ban them.
For an example of how these look, here’s German Chancellor Angela Merkel turning into President Trump mid-speech:
“What I learned from this whole thing is that while it will still require a good deal of human intervention, this kind of thing is not only possible but going to get a lot better,” said Jared Sosa, who worked on the visual effects for BuzzFeed.
Copyright 2018 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
