Good Actor and Deepfake AI Technology Create Disturbingly Realistic Results

Actor and impressionist Jim Meskimen shows impressive skills impersonating famous celebrities, which combined with the latest deepfake AI technology creates shockingly convincing results.

Deepfake is the technology that allows to change the face of any person in an existing video footage with the face of someone else if there were enough photographic images of them shot from similar angles. Deepfake technology can be used to imitate once's voice too, but that's not needed if the actor did a good vocal job. That AI gimmick is getting more and more available to the general public and with the abundance of data we have of famous persons almost any face can be replaced with that of a celebrity.

In the following video by the YouTube user Sham00K you can see the original footage by Jim Meskimen and the result after the video manipulation:

It is a fascinating technology that can be used for both good and bad purposes. I can tag that article with both #humor and #horror at the same time. The bad sides you already know: creating a convincing photos or videos of someone that look like an evidence of them doing something they can be wrongly accused of. There are already such cases in the real world with harmful results to certain people. On the other side, the good purposes deepfake AI can be used for is in the VFX industry. It can take away the need to create complex 3D models to replace someone's face with their younger version or to replace the face of a double with the real actor's one. I am pretty sure this can work with much less effort for replacing parts of environments like facades of buildings so-so built on sound stages with those of the real buildings.

I don't know about you, but to me it's still the bad side of the technology that's prevailing when I evaluate it.

Tihomir Lazarov's picture

Tihomir Lazarov is a commercial portrait photographer and filmmaker based in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is the best photographer and filmmaker in his house, and thinks the best tool of a visual artist is not in their gear bag but between their ears.

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12 Comments

Interesting...Very realistic and you are right, somewhat disturbing.

WOW. Amazing and disturbing....and thoroughly entertaining.

So the evaluation is that it’ll cost VFX people who now get paid to (painstakingly or otherwise) create this effect in films, while offering anyone with the urge to cause geopolitical turmoil an opportunity to do so. And, somewhere in the middle, the masses will probably get a few new Instagram filters which add nothing of value to society.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool as hell. I just don’t see any way it’s a net positive for the world.

I really really tried hard to find a positive value, but you caught me. At least you've found a neutral (a.k.a. "nothing") value.

I don't really care about all the "deepfake" hype but, this poem and delivery is badass!

Three letters ... W T F !

Presenting... Taxi Driver, starring Al Pacino! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NkKj0aNB0s

The way Hollywood is going, I can see studios using this tech to inject young and popular actors into old movies, then re-releasing them for a young audience. Rebel Without a Cause starring Tom Hardy?

No more can we believe what we see. Next; live deep fakes.

I think that's already existing. The problem with real-time deepfakes is mainly processing efficiency so that it happens while the live broadcast is airing. That problem is already solved. For example Instagram filters can change your face live on a mobile device processor. No need for super computers. Instead of enlarging your eyes or blurring your skin, the filter replaces facial features with other facial features in their database. I remember there was some filter recently that changed woman's face with that of a man.

So, "next" is already in the past.

Well done. Interesting, I think what really sells it is the impressionist's ability to make the same facial expressions as the actors.