DeepFake: this new algorithm creates disturbing fake videos

A new algorithm allows you to create deepfake videos just by typing text. No, keep in all hands.

Giving motion to mythical paintings or pictures in a very real way is one of the latest achievements of artificial intelligence (AI). Where she can become disturbing is when she can edit a video clip to tell someone something she has never said. These spectacular innovations, dubbed by Anglophones ” deepfake ” are currently not within the reach of any computer.

The treatments are very heavy and it takes hours or even days to achieve the desired result. To accelerate the movement, researchers from Stanford University, Princeton University and the Max Planck Institute with Adobe have developed an algorithm that greatly simplifies the creation of this type of video. Thus, in their article published on the site of the scientist Ohad Fried of Stanford, they explain that it is possible to modify the script of the words of a person who has been filmed so that it naturally announces these modifications.

A bluffing result

In one of the examples, the filmed person quotes a famous phrase from the Apocalypse Now movie: ” I love the smell of napalm in the early morning. By replacing the script of the text “napalm” by “toast”, the result is stunning! The sentence becomes totally innocuous, which suggests the dangers of using such an algorithm fallen into the wrong hands.

To achieve this result, the AI analyzes a video sample of at least 40 minutes of a person speaking. It does not focus only on words, but especially on phonemes and associates them with the movements of the mouth and face. For the moment, the algorithm can handle only the English language which has about 44 phonemes.

Once the transcription of a video is available, then just change the desired few words for the AI to generate the false part and it goes completely unnoticed. Scientists explain that the process employed is adapted to minor modifications, but not when it comes to generating a false speech uttered by a personality.