'Deepfakes' Will Create Hollywood's Next Sex Tape Scare

Sexually explicit videos featuring these and a number of other female celebrities have surfaced online in recent days, foreshadowing what could be Hollywood's next big sex-tape nightmare. Only this time, the videos in question haven't been stolen by hackers, or commissioned by porn studios, starring barely-lookalikes. Instead, these new clips have been made with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) technology capable of swapping the faces of porn stars with those of famous actresses and other celebrities. These so-called Deepfakes -- a combination of'fake' and'deep learning' -- first started popping up online in December, when a Reddit user began to post explicit videos seemingly featuring celebrities online. The user in question told Motherboard at the time that he was using images found by Google image search as well as stock photos and YouTube videos to "train" AI algorithms, and essentially give them an idea of how a celebrity's face would look like in any given moment.