Diving Deep into Deepfakes: excuse me, that’s my face!

Utopias, Dystopias and Today's Technology

At times chilling, at times inspiring, guest Rajendra Shroff leads host Johannes deep into the world of deepfakes and their potential for both political manipulation and artistic expression. They discuss the devastating case of journalist Rana Ayyub, who fell victim to a deepfake sex film that featured her face without her consent, as cited in Danielle Citron's riveting TED talk on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg5WtBjox-Y&t=1s
They discuss the implications of the deepfake inflection point at which it becomes costless for everyone to make such videos of anyone else.
The conversation then shifts to the potential of deepfakes beyond their negative implications, including the use of the technology to bring deceased actors back to life and augment the work of human artists. Shroff highlights the power of deepfakes and other forms of artificial intelligence as new tools in the artist's toolkit, tools that can help to create new forms of expression, which themselves are deeply rooted in human experience. Tune in to hear about the darker and more optimistic aspects of deepfakes and their implications for our world.
Prescient fictional accounts of deepfakes were briefly discussed:
Futurama episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVs8_DzaRrE&t=15s
Twenty Minutes into the Future (Max Headroom): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZY-yQYVf38