How internet companies are preparing to fight the ‘deepfake’ future

By Cade Metz

Several months ago, Google hired dozens of actors to sit at a table, stand in a hallway and walk down a street while talking into a video camera.

Then the company’s researchers, using a new kind of artificial intelligence software, swapped the faces of the actors. People who had been walking were suddenly at a table. The actors who had been in a hallway looked like they were on a street. Men’s faces were put on women’s bodies. Women’s faces were put on men’s bodies. In time, the researchers had created hundreds of so-called deepfake videos.

By creating these digitally manipulated videos, Google’s scientists believe they are learning how to spot deepfakes, which researchers and lawmakers worry could become a new, insidious method for spreading disinformation in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. […]

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