It's true that because of technology, people's lives have become better, such as with the way we used to travel and how we communicate with people on the other side of the world. But with the previous years, we had stray paths from bringing innovations that would help people's lives to get better to making people more lazy and finding ways to replace them of their jobs, as all the big tech now focuses on the A.I. Bubble. And one of the technologies that was born through this A.I. bubble is the Deepfake technology. In layman's terms, Deepfake feeds on hundreds or thousands of images to A.I. and uses it to make the user look the same as the image. It's a dangerous technology that can turn our society into a Black Mirror episode.
To begin with, I think it's already outright criminal for these technologies to use another person's image without their consent, but our laws can't just keep up with how fast the technology changes. But the reason why I said that Deepfakes are dangerous is that they can be easily used in spreading disinformation. Just imagine, one day you suddenly see someone from the internet using the face of your favorite artist to say that owning slaves is a good thing. For you and me, we might easily identify it as a Deepfake, but what about the children and old people who couldn't know better? It will be very difficult for them to determine what's real and not, another reason why scammers have become more active than ever. Another thing that is quite disturbing about these Deepfakes is how they are used to put people's faces on adult content materials and spread them on the internet. Usually, the targets were celebrities, but I'm sure some sick people out there are using it to fantasize on their neighbors or even with minors.
The only thing I could say that Deepfake can be used for and is actively used right now is in the movie industry. Things like putting the face of an actor on a body double during an action sequence, because, as we know, some action stunts can be really dangerous without proper training, so they usually leave those parts to professional body doubles. It can also be used in de-aging actors to better fit with their role, since movie franchises can take years to have a sequel, but during that time, the actors have definitely grown older. Just look at Daniel Radcliffe, for example. He was only 11 years old when he played his role in the first Harry Potter Movie, but when the last movie came out, he was already 21 years old, whereas in the books, Harry Potter was only supposed to be 17 years old. If during that time, Deepfake technology already existed, they could make him look more age-appropriate with his role.
But in the end, do I think that Deepfake technology should stay? Absolutely not! It has very few use cases that do not really bring much good to humanity, in contrast to all the dangers that it brings right now and all the dangers that it could possibly bring into the future. Because remember, through time, this technology will just going to keep getting better, and it may come to the point that we cannot really differentiate what's real and not. And when that time comes, I can only imagine what chaos it will bring to society.
Thank you for reading my post, and see you in the next one!
