Be afraid: The era of easy deepfake videos is upon us

In a computer science lab in Dublin City University (DCU) students are busy at work. Take a closer look and you will realise they are creating deepfakes. This is not a secret project and they're not afraid of getting caught by their lecturer because it is, in fact, a course assignment. Deepfakes of comedian Bill Hader morphing into Tom Cruise and Al Pacino or'Mark Zuckerberg' boasting about how Facebook owns its users, demonstrate how easy it is to use machine learning techniques to create realistic fake footage of people doing and saying things they never have. The technology is getting better and telling deepfakes from genuine footage is becoming increasingly difficult.