AI lets you be Albert Einstein or the Mona Lisa on all your Zoom calls

Customised video conferencing backgrounds have gotten an artificially intelligent upgrade: real-time animated deepfakes that transform your face into that of a celebrity. Karim Iskakov at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow, and Ali Aliev, a software developer in Moscow, have developed a program that lets you create deepfakes in real time during video calls. The program, called Avatarify, works with video conferencing applications such as Zoom or Skype. All it requires is a headshot of the person you want to appear to be. Demonstrating to New Scientist via a Zoom call, Aliev used the program to appear to be speaking as several figures including Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Albert Einstein and the Mona Lisa.