Forget DeepFakes, Deep Video Portraits are way better (and worse)

The strange, creepy world of "deepfakes," videos (often explicit) with the faces of the subjects replaced by those of celebrities, set off alarm bells just about everywhere early this year. And in case you thought that sort of thing had gone away because people found it unethical or unconvincing, the practice is back with the highly convincing "Deep Video Portraits," which refines and improves the technique. To be clear, I don't want to conflate this interesting research with the loathsome practice of putting celebrity faces on adult film star bodies. But this application of technology is clearly here to stay and it's only going to get better -- so we had best keep pace with it so we don't get taken by surprise. Deep Video Portraits is the title of a paper submitted for consideration this August at SIGGRAPH; it describes an improved technique for reproducing the motions, facial expressions, and speech movements of one person using the face of another.