Precis

A new generation of "deepfake" videos has got Hollywood excited ... and Washington worried. They’ve got the potential to change reality as we know it.

Deepfakes are synthetic media created by Artificial Intelligence - technology that can make real people say and do things they never actually did.

This week, reporter Hamish Macdonald does a deep dive into an emerging technology with explosive potential.

Until recently, deepfakes videos were mostly a staple of the dark web, their subject matter mainly porn.

Now the technology is coming out of the shadows and into the mainstream.

In Bangkok, we meet a video effects expert with a reputation as one of the world's best deepfakers, who recently created a Tom Cruise TikTok video - that wasn’t Tom Cruise.

"I see the creative possibilities," deepfaker Chris tells Foreign Correspondent. "I think we’re coming to a point where everything is synthetic, especially in the movie industry."

"I think it's a good thing I created these videos, because now I'm raising awareness and (people) realize… this is real…it's coming!"

TikTok Tom was so convincing, he beat nearly all the latest deepfake detection technology, racking up millions of online views and becoming a global AI sensation.

But some US security experts see him as a harbinger of dangers to come, a technology that can now be weaponised; fake politicians declaring war...fake CEOs triggering the collapse of financial markets.

In Washington, we meet a former CIA officer, now a lawyer advising corporate America on how to combat the rising tide of digital disinformation.

"I think that we've only really started to scratch the surface of the bad things that can happen because of deepfakes," says Matt. "In the national security context, there’s no end to the nightmare scenario."

Recently the FBI issued an unprecedented warning to business and financial markets, declaring that that it was "…almost certain’ that in the next 12 – 18 months, (they) would be the victims of synthetic media (attacks)."

"I think deepfakes play into the hands of anybody, any state sponsor, any institution that wants to create confusion or deceive," says Mounir, a former US diplomat, once based in Syria, where he attempted to visually distil fact from fiction.

So will TikTok Tom, born of neural networks and machine learning, be harnessed and regulated, to entertain us? - or will he usher in a real-world version of Hollywood's "dystopian future"? Stay tuned.

AV Montage. Fake Tom Cruise

FAKE TOM CRUISE: "My fellow Americans, you deserve the truth and I know you can handle it!

00:00

'Concession' excerpt

I won’t be your next president. That point has been made crystal clear."

00:06

Fake Obama

FAKE OBAMA: "We're entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time. Like President Trump is a total and complete dip-shit."

00:12

Title over Washington GVs:
American Deepfake

Music

00:21

Fake Jeremy in Washington/Deepfakes montage

FAKE JEREMY FERNANDEZ: Hello, welcome to Foreign Correspondent, I’m Jeremey Fernandez. Well, it took a global pandemic to force us all indoors, and to increasingly rely on video screens to connect our lives. But, is seeing still believing? This program delves into the world of Deepfakes. 

00:30

NINA SCHICK: A deepfake is essentially a piece of synthetic or fake media that's either been generated entirely by artificial intelligence or manipulated by artificial intelligence.

00:50

David Beckham

DAVID BECKHAM: "Malaria isn’t just any disease…"

01:03

Nina interview

NINA SCHICK: Which by the way, includes fake video of real people saying and doing things that they never did.

01:08

Fake Tom Cruise in desert

FAKE TOM CRUISE: "This is no stunt."

01:14

Fake Jeremy

JEREMY AVATAR: Hollywood is delighted by the movie-making potential of Deepfakes, but in Washington, the tech is increasingly viewed as dangerous and subversive.

01:17

Fake Putin

FAKE PUTIN:  "You'll blame me for interfering with your democracy."

01:26

Deepfakes montage

MOUNIR IBRAHIM: Deepfakes plays into the hands of anybody, any state sponsor, any institution that wants to create confusion or deceive.

01:29

MATT FERRARO: The Deepfakes are a fundamental threat to democracy and to any civilisation that relies on the truth. Deepfakes could very well undermine our sense of reality.

01:40

FAKE JEREMY FERNANDEZ: So, are we entering a world where artificial intelligence will distort our sense of reality?

01:50

Fake Jeremy to camera

Perhaps, as I have a confession to make. I am actually a Deepfake, and you’re now watching my computer-generated avatar, that Hamish McDonald and I have created.

01:56

Hamish at keyboard creating Jeremy avatar

What’s extraordinary is that almost anyone can now do this; all you need is a credit card and internet access.

02:09

Jeremy joins Hamish at computer and look at Jeremy Deepfake

Jeremy: "Show me what you’ve got."

Hamish: "It’s time to see something that will probably blow your mind a little bit."

Jeremy: "A Jeremy Fernandez deepfake."

Hamish: "It might also mean the end of your career…

02:17

FAKE JEREMY: "I'm Jeremy Fernandez. Tonight's program delves into the world of deepfakes, also called synthetic media."

02:26

Jeremy: "What do you think?

Hamish: "It’s pretty good!"

Jeremy: "I have to say, I’m not entirely convinced.

02:32

But I think you put the three elements together of the location, the face, the voice, it makes a reasonably compelling case.

FAKE JEREMY FERNANDEZ: "Can we still say that seeing is believing?"

Jeremy: The thing is, I’ve never said those words to camera before, this has all been generated by the program."

02:37

Synthesia website video

Music

02:54

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  The system was developed by two companies, Synthesia and Descript.

02:57

Deepfake Jeremy creation

We’ve created a Deepfake Jeremy by providing the program with video and audio samples, but you can simply pick your avatar, language, type in the words, wait a few minutes for processing, and there it is.

FAKE JEREMY: Hola… [in Spanish]

03:02

Hamish to camera. Super:
Hamish Macdonald
Presenter

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  This is all pitched as a corporate training tool, but there are some restrictions. The developers prohibit you from creating any content that’s discriminatory, political or sexually offensive. So, there’s a limit to what we can do with this Jeremy avatar. I think it all looks pretty impressive, but it actually pales in comparison to what’s coming. In the United States, some of the security experts say they are terrified by the next generation of deepfakes."

03:20

AV montage. Deepfakes

Music

03:49

Bangkok. Night/Digital billboards

CHRIS UME: I like living the life of a digital nomad. I never imagined that I would be a digital nomad, but somehow I became one. And it's pretty cool.

04:19

Chris walks. Bangkok, night.

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Chris Ume, video effects designer, is said to be one of the world’s best deep-fakers. His computer servers are in Belgium. He worked for the US-based animation team that produces South Park. Now he’s riding out the pandemic here in Bangkok.

CHRIS UME: I did a few months of research, how to do it, and a half year later I had my first deepfake,

04:32

Chris 100%

and then it evolved rather quickly. Because I saw the potential and I just started creating crazy things.

04:56

Bangkok. Chris at café on computer

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  It was his latest "crazy thing" that got American national security experts downloading TikTok.

05:03

Fake Tom Cruise video/Creation of fake Cruise

FAKE TOM CRUISE "What’s up TikTok? You guys cool if I play some sports?"

05:13

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Teaming up with Tom Cruise impersonator, Miles Fisher, and some cutting-edge technology, Chris produced a succession of increasingly sophisticated deepfakes.

05:20

FAKE TOM CRUISE:  "Hey, listen up sports and TikTok fans. If you like what you're seeing, just wait 'til what's coming next.

05:32

Chris at computer

CHRIS UME:  I love how he's not looking in the camera. He's looking a bit wonky next to the camera. Miles looks a lot like Tom Cruise.

05:39

Miles creating Deepfake Cruise

He has a lot of similarities. That makes my work easier in a way. It saves me a lot of time. The Tom Cruise videos are so special because deepfakes shouldn't be able to do such things.

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  The cut and paste look of early deepfakes made them easy to spot.

05:52

Deepfake Cruise, TikTok

Not anymore. In response, the tech industry’s now investing heavily in software detection tools. But TikTok Tom, reportedly beat nearly all of them.

06:12

Chris 100%

CHRIS UME: It's like a cat and mouse game. They can't follow. And of course the deep Tom videos, they are pretty good. I'm not saying their flawless,

06:24

Fake Cruise, magic trick

because I see a lot of mistakes myself. And they cannot detect it.

FAKE TOM CRUISE: "I'm going to show you some magic."

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Deepfake Tom’s near-flawless performance went viral.

CHRIS UME: We never exposed ourselves in the beginning. People didn't know who created these videos.

FAKE TOM CRUISE: "It's all real. Think."

06:33

Chris 100%

CHRIS UME: And you had a lot of articles talking about the end of the world, and this technology is getting out of hand, and anyone can do this right now. So it was really difficult. I had to think about how to approach this.

06:51

Chris making Tom Cruise deepfake

I see the creative possibilities and I just want to entertain people. I want to make people smile when they look at my content. But of course there will be people misusing this technology.

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  So, how did he do it?

07:04

Fake Cruise, 'making of' video

DEEPFAKE TOM CRUISE: "In this reel, you’re going to see my amigo, Chris Ume. He’s going to introduce you to the wonderful world of deepfakes, how AI and VFX are unlocking the future of our imagination."

07:21

Chris shows making of data

CHRIS UME: For Deepfake you start with the source data, and by source data I mean pictures and videos of the character you want to deepfake. In my case it's Tom Cruise. Around 6,700 stored images of all his angles, of all his expressions.

07:33

Images flash framing on screen between computers

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  The key to building a deepfake is what’s called a Generative Adversarial Network. It takes two ‘neural networks’ which are algorithms that mimic the way our brains work; they learn from each other and adapt. It then pits the two computers against each other to build a perfect deepfake.

07:55

Chris at computer

CHRIS UME: It took me two and a half months in total just to prepare it, to get it running, to get where the model is at.  And after that it took two to three days to train on each video separately, and up to 24 hours of post-production. Going frame by frame, working on details, working on glitches. If you compare the quality we could achieve for deepfakes a year ago and what we can achieve now, it's a day and night difference. It's unbelievable.

08:14

I've been talking with certain governments as in advising. In a good way, right? A lot of governments are still unknown to what deepfakes is, and I'm here to explain what it is, and which things are possible.

08:44

Chris 100%

And government realise this could be used as a weapon.

08:59

Capitol building time-lapse

Music

09:05

Washington, night

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Chris Ume’s TikTok-Tom startled a Washington still traumatised by the chaos of the Trump years.

09:09

MATT FERRARO: I think terror is probably not too strong of a word. I think it's because people realise how dangerous they are. It is a Tom Cruise effect. I mean, in your mind, think about the Tom Cruise video and then manipulate what he says. Just think about what he might say.

09:08

Trump Jan 6 speech

TRUMP: "We will stop the steal. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building."

09:33

Jan 6 Capitol riot

09:42

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  The mob that assaulted the US Capitol on January 6 this year was fuelled by a mix of anger, fake news, and alternative facts, egged on by a President claiming he’d been robbed of election victory.

09:47

Ferraro walks, Washington, night

For Matt Ferraro, former CIA officer and disinformation specialist, it was all too close to home.

MATT FERRARO: Yeah. So this is my neighbourhood.

10:05

It’s funny, during the pandemic, I try to make a point of walking every day. I would come out this way and to see what happened on January 6, it was terrible. Desecration is really the word that comes to mind.

10:16

Jan 6 Capitol riot

These people thought the election was stolen, they were tricked by lies, that were as basic as could be, just written and spoken lies, and pretty soon you’re going to have tailor-made video to convince you of anything.

10:32

Ferraro walks, Washington, night

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  He worked for America’s top spymaster, the Director of National Intelligence, who reports directly to the President. Matt Ferraro fears deepfakes will open the door to a dark, dystopian future.

MATT FERRARO:  The real danger is what we saw on January 6 is just the beginning, that things are going to get so much worse, the partisanship that we see, the visceral hatred for one another, is going to just be made so much worse by deepfakes, and the fact that anyone is going to be able to order up their own synthetic reality, regardless of the truth.

10:53

Capital building view through security fence

Music

11:33

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Now a lawyer, he advises corporate clients on how to counter the rising tide of digital disinformation.

11:39

Ferraro 100%

MATT FERRARO: Now, what if I told you that seeing isn't believing, that what you saw with your own eyes was not in fact true? What you heard with your own ears was not true?  Even what you read, thinking it was by a human, was in fact written by a computer. I think that would have a fundamental effect on how you perceive the world.

11:47

FBI building exterior, night.

Now, in the national security context, there’s no end to the nightmare scenarios. The FBI put out this rather extraordinary warning in March of 2021, in which they said that it was "almost certain" that in the next 12 to 18 months, private businesses would be the victims of synthetic media – by that they mean deepfakes –

12:05

Ferraro 100%

in both cyber-attacks launched by nation states, and foreign adversaries, and by criminals.

12:29

Celebrity images on computer

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  The focus is now on threats to politics and business, but ever since the first low-quality deepfakes emerged about five years ago, they’ve been weaponised – against women. The figures are disturbing. The number of professionally-made deepfakes is now doubling every six months. 93% of it is porn.  American targets account for more than 40% of victims globally, much of it celebrity-porn of actors, musicians, social media stars. 

12:36

Sydney. Night.

Music

13:13

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter: Humiliation intimidates most deepfake porn victims into silence. Most, but not all.

13:20

Sydney. Night. Hamish walks with Noelle

Noelle Martin, is locked in a constant battle with anonymous deep-fakers on the dark web.

13:31

"What are the consequences of you choosing to speak out about it now?"

NOELLE MARTIN: Well, the consequences of speaking out about the abuse has meant that they’ve gone from manipulating images of me to creating these deepfakes, so they’ve essentially  weaponised this technology against me.

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  So they punish you? They go after you?

NOELLE MARTIN: Yes.

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Because you’ve criticised them?

NOELLE MARTIN:  Yes.

13:38

Music

14:06

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  A 26 year old law graduate, Noelle has now been campaigning for almost a decade. It all started when, as a teenager,

14:10

Noelle. Random porn images

she was the victim of a random porn attack; her images posted in low-rent, obvious, fakes.  

14:19

Noelle interview

NOELLLE MARTIN:  They had been targeting me presumably since I was 17. And it was only until about a year later that I actually found out.

14:28

Noelle social media images

So they've gotten images from me from my social media, but they weren't just collecting it from my social media.

14:36

Noelle interview

They were collecting it from friends' accounts. They were looking at

14:43

Noelle social media images

the bars that I went to and the photos from that event on Facebook, and they would collect it from there.

14:48

Noelle. Censored porn images

14:54

Hamish and Noelle look at images on computer

15:00

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Oh wow.

NOELLLE MARTIN:  That’s fake me! That’s a complete fabrication!

15:04

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  It’s escalated a lot from the beginning, hasn’t it?

NOELLLE MARTIN:  Yes, it has. Yes.

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Like really obvious Photoshopping, to that sort of stuff?

15:10

Noelle. Censored porn images

NOELLLE MARTIN:  Yes. It's so dehumanising and degrading and violating. It makes you sick and it's humiliating.

15:21

Noelle interview

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  You said it almost destroyed you?

NOELLLE MARTIN:  Yes.

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  How close did it come?

NOELLLE MARTIN:  Very, very close.

15:29

I didn’t have the right coping mechanisms, so I really struggled to cope, and there was a time where I did try and hang myself, and my father stopped me.

15:39

Hamish and Noelle look at images

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Noelle’s advocacy helped drive the introduction of revenge porn laws in Australia. But she’s not stopping there.

15:56

NOELLE MARTIN: I really think that there needs to be some sort of global response, because it is not enough for any one country to target this issue

16:04

Noelle interview

that is global in nature and borderless.  And it is not acceptable that in 2021, someone from halfway around the world, can misrepresent you and there's nothing you can do. And that impacts your whole life.

16:14

Computer screen 'deepfake' tag

NINA SCHICK: Deepfake porn is still, without a doubt, the most pernicious use case of malicious deepfakes. But rather than this being a tawdry woman's issue, I see this as a harbinger of what's to come.

16:27

Nina CU. Voice over

My name is Nina Schick and I focus on how exponential technologies are reshaping geopolitics and society.

16:44

Nina 100%

Specifically, with deepfakes, I have advised global leaders, including Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former NATO secretary general, and Joe Biden, who at the time was VP, now President of the United States.

16:54

When you consider deepfakes, as well as the epidemic of bad information that is inundating our societies, they absolutely can be seen as an existential threat to liberal democracies. And we're already at a place where a single creator, right – you interviewed him for your documentary – Chris Ume,

17:06

Fake Tom Cruise videos

can create fake video content that's more sophisticated than anything a Hollywood studio would be able to do, even with a multi-million-dollar budget or teams and teams of special effects artists.

17:25

Nina 100%

And this democratisation is happening so quickly that experts suggest that by the end of the decade – so 2030 – up to 90% of online video could be synthetically generated, so, made by AI.

17:37

Police clash

Even before they become ubiquitous, what they're already doing is undermining trust in all authentic media. This is a phenomenon known as the Liar's Dividend. And we've already started to see that at play. 

17:55

Nina 100%

So if everything can be faked including video, then everything can be denied.

18:08

George Floyd protests news report

News Reporter: "The four officers involved have been fired, but protestors are demanding criminal charges."

18:12

NINA SCHICK: One of the really interesting examples of the Liar's Dividend at play is something that I saw around the George Floyd death video. This video was so visceral that it united millions of people in protest, right?

18:17

News Reporter: "The violence, fuelled by anger over the death of 46 year old George Floyd. The fire department reports that he showed no signs of life."

18:34

Winnie Heartstrong video

WINNIE HEARTSTRONG: "Hi there I’m Dr. Winne Heartstrong. I'm running for Congress to represent Missouri…"

NINA SCHICK: Doctor Winnie Heartstrong, she argued that the entire George Floyd video was a deepfake hoax.

18:42

Nina 100%

That the man you see in the video is a former NBA player. And that AI has been used to swap George Floyd's face onto this former NBA player's face!"

18:47

Winnie Heartstrong video

WINNIE HEARTSTRONG: "There is no way that George Floyd is dead; George Floyd is alive America! Prove me wrong!

19:02

Nina 100%

NINA SCHICK: Most people still believe that George Floyd died in 2020.

19:08

George Floyd news report

However, if your influencer of choice suggests that something like the George Floyd video is a deepfake, then by 2030

19:12

Nina 100%

many people might believe that that is indeed the truth. So, that is the Liar's Dividend in play.

19:22

Winnie Heartstrong video

WINNIE HEARTSTRONG: "So folks, do not believe anything you read or hear or watch on TV, okay?"

19:27

Represent.Us deepfake parody. Putin

FAKE PUTIN: "America, you blame me for interfering with your democracy, but I don't have to. You are doing it to yourselves."

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  These deepfake parodies, were commissioned by the non-profit Represent.Us,

19:31

Represent.Us deepfake parody. Kim

in the lead up to the 2020 election, to highlight the fragility of democracy and encourage voting. But the group says they were so realistic, American TV networks refused to run them.

19:47

FAKE KIM JONG-UN: "I don’t have to do anything – you’re doing it to yourselves."

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  But what happens if a deep-faked leader not only looks real, but mouths far more dangerous intentions?

20:00

CU Twitter screen. POTUS

This is the scenario that keeps former CIA expert Matt Ferraro awake at night.

20:13

Ferraro 100%

MATT FERRARO: The most plausible nightmare scenario involves a deepfake of the president, say, announcing a missile strike against North Korea.  So let's walk through that.

20:20

US military exercise in South Korea

Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea are always high. But let's say it's time to come out at a period of particularly difficult relations between the U.S. and North Korea. Maybe during a military exercise that the U.S. is doing with the South Koreans on the Korean Peninsula.

20:29

Creation of deepfake Biden

Say that it's a deepfake of President Biden announcing that because of North Korean perfidy, he is launching a first strike missile attack, and it's believable, it's him in front of a podium.

20:47

Deepfake Biden

DEEPFAKE JOE BIDEN: Tonight I come to talk about crisis, to declare war on North Korea. Nuclear program presents serious threats to American security and the security of the world. We will respond.

21:08

White House Twitter feed

MATT FERRARO: But also imagine that it doesn't just appear on the internet, maybe it's combined with another kind of attack. Like a cyber intrusion, maybe for months now, hackers have been able to infiltrate the White House Twitter handle.

21:23

Fake Biden video

They post this deepfake video and it goes viral instantaneously, in a moment. Tens of millions of people see it. Now, of course, the White House is unsure what happened; this totally blindsides them.

21:37

Biden model in front of green screen

BIDEN MODEL:  We will respond accordingly.

21:51

Deepfake Biden

DEEPFAKE BIDEN: May God bless you all! May God protect our troops!"

21:44

North Korea military parade

MATT FERRARO: The North Koreans are 80% sure it's him, maybe only 20% sure it's him. Are they willing to just sit back and take a missile strike that will end their regime? Probably not.

22:00

North Korea. Missile strike

They launch a retaliatory strike against Seoul, which is only so many miles from the North Korean border

22:13

Ferraro 100%

and millions of people die. And it turns out it's all a fake.

22:22

Creation of Deepfake Biden

Chris Ume, he said it took him a couple months to train the Tom Cruise algorithms. But imagine if you're the intelligence service of the People's Liberation Army, known as the 2PLA. They could put 10,000 man hours against the creation of a deepfake tomorrow.

22:26

Ferraro 100%

And so the fact that it takes 24 hours to create a of video, really isn't that surprising at all, not when you have the resources of a nation state.

22:45

Biden model in front of green screen

Music

22:52

NY Time-lapse

22:57

Mounir walk past UN building, NY

MOUNIR IBRAHIM: My name is Mounir Ibrahim. I was a US diplomat in Syria at the US Embassy in Damascus,

23:05

and continued to work on the Syrian conflict in a variety of contexts, including here at the United Nations. I saw user generated content, images and videos from a conflict zone, influencing the discussions and the narratives in the meetings taking place.  Proving that these images and videos were in fact true became very, very relevant to some of the world's largest issues.

23:14

Detecting Deepfakes video

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Detecting deepfakes has become big business, with everyone from Facebook to the Pentagon now working on the problem.

Facebook video narration: "So Facebook is commissioning a first of its kind data set. It's part of the deepfake detection challenge."

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  But Mounir Ibrahim argues detecting deepfakes is a lost cause.

MOUNIR IBRAHIM: It is going to be impossible to detect forgery

23:40

Mounir 100%

in real time and at scale across the internet, particularly with the advancements of AI moving so rapidly. So if we can't prove what's fake, let's try and prove what's real, by authenticating media and digital content as it's being created.

27:06

Mounir walks. NY. Night. Looks at app/ o'lay conflict footage

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  His company, Truepic, is developing an encrypted, tamper-proof security app, for recording vision. A kind of watermark of authenticity. The system is already being trialled by the United Nations. Truepic is part of a growing coalition of tech and media companies now working towards creating a new global standard – tamper-proof vision that can be trusted in the Deepfake world.

MOUNIR IBRAHIM: The world's first standards body

24:23

Mounir 100%

on digital content provenance was created by the name of the Coalition for Content Provenance Authenticity, the C2PA, and Truepic is proud to be a founding member along with the likes of Adobe and Microsoft and Intel and ARM and the BBC.

24:55

NY time-lapse/GVs Times Square

Music

25:10

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  Crowds in the Big Apple still haven’t returned to pre-COVID levels. Those who venture out share the visual experience with those who still prefer to stay home. The big tech players –  Apple, Google, YouTube have implemented bans on malicious deepfakes. But they’ve got no control over the dark web. US Federal and state law makers are also moving to combat the deepfake threat. But will it be enough?

25:35

MOUNIR IBRAHIM: I do believe that the US government is taking it very seriously. We've talked about the FBI warnings that have come out.  We've seen multiple states passing deepfakes related laws.

26:11

Mounir 100%

So I do believe there is a level of seriousness. I would also say this is not a simple solution that a government can fix. They can't legislate their way out of this.

26:21

Lincoln memorial. Night.

26:32

FAKE OBAMA: "How we move forward in the age of information

26:38

Fake Obama

is going to be the difference between whether we survive, or whether we become some kind of fucked-up dystopia!"

26:43

NINA SCHICK: Actually, I am really optimistic. I believe in our ability to overcome these challenges.

26:49

Nina 100%

But I think realistically, it will probably get worse before it gets better.

26:58

Sydney. Night.

NOELLE MARTIN: Well, I think it's terrifying,

27:04

Noelle interview

especially for women who are disproportionately targeted by fake pornographic material that's out there. It affected me so badly emotionally, in my wellbeing, and in my health.

27:09

Noelle nods

HAMISH MACDONALD, Presenter:  It does sound like it’s changed your entire life?

27:23

Capitol building/Biden model

MATT FERRARO: I think that we've only really started to scratch the surface of the bad things that can happen

27:30

Ferraro 100%

because of deepfakes. Because we're going to move to a world in which photographic and video evidence is a bit like paintings. Where you look at a painting now, an abstract painting, and you and I take our own meanings from that painting.

27:41

Fake Tom Cruise. Concession video.

FAKE TOM CRUISE: "Some people claim I’m not actually Tom Cruise,  and I didn’t actually run for President… Don’t let my masks fool you!... Take a deep breath."

CHRIS UME: People are always scared of things they don't understand or they don't really know.

FAKE TOM CRUISE: "We should be safe down here."

27:55

CHRIS UME: They should be worried, as in we should work on ways to regulate these things and to detect them as well. I think that makes sense. So that's why I think it's a good thing I created these videos,

28:23

Chris 100%

because now I'm raising awareness and they realise, this is real; it's coming!

28:36

Fake Tom Cruise. Concession video.

Music

28:42

Credit [see below]

29:00

Fake Obama

DEEPFAKE OBAMA: Thank you, and stay woke, bitches.

29:23

Outpoint

29:28