"Deepfakes", what is it and why it's scary

Somewhere in France, in what seems to be a cellar, Emmanuel Macron, face camera, the lines drawn: "my dear compatriots, I am sequestered by a foreign power, the President at the Elysée is a look-alike. I make a solemn appeal. This message from Emmanuel Macron is a fake, the video, ultra-realistic, is a deepfake, a fake video. A sci-fi scenario? Yes, of course, for this example.

Digital mask

But Deepfake technology has come so far that it is becoming more and more realistic and accessible. First used in cinema to revive dead actors, the Deepfake consists, simply put, of putting a digital mask on a person to make them look like someone else. An ultra-realistic digital mask by Emmanuel Macron, for example, which captures not only the features of the President but also the movements and expressions of the face, thanks to artificial intelligence and powerful algorithms.

On the social network Tik Tok, Chris Umé, a specialist in special effects, released videos (1) of the actor Tom Cruise: Tom Cruise who plays golf, Tom Cruise in his garden, suckers in the mouth, close-up, laughter recognizable among all. Deepfakes.

With these videos, the author wanted to warn of the dangers of hyperrigging. To perfect realism, Chris Umé called on a Tom Cruise impersonator for the voice.

Possible propaganda tool?

So of course, as in the early days of photomontage, technology will open up new perspectives... To the crooks. For now, only a slight blur betrays the deepfakes. But the technology is advancing, and Tom Cruise's video, perfect in every respect, is an illustration of this.

Some are concerned about the use of deepfakes by fakenews peddlers. A technology that, in the wrong hands, can also serve as a very elaborate political propaganda.