The definition "deepfake" generates in many of us worries and concerns. The technology has indeed been linked with malicious ends, from fake news - like the video last year of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appearing to tell his soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender the fight against Russia - to fraud and revenge porn.
This technology employs AI generated imagery that maps somebody's body part, usually a face, and applies it onto another person (usually deepfakes work better when the impersonator shares a basic facial layout with the subject they want to recreate). The results can be extremely realistic, strikingly authentic and slightly disturbing as well.
The most popular tool capable of generating deepfake images is the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), created by Ian Goodfellow. GAN employs two deep neural networks that iterate and compete with each other - a "generative" model that generates similar data to the original training set and a "discriminatory" model that classifies whether a particular data set is synthetic or original.
Celebrities have often been targeted with this technology by people who produced deepfake pornographic videos. Yet there have been clever uses of this technology as well: three years ago a YouTuber user, Shamook, showed that you could improve the CGI renditions of Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia in Star Wars movie Rogue One (eventually, after Shamook posted more examples including a scene featuring Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian, Lucasfilm hired him as "Senior Facial Capture Artist").
Up until a couple of years ago, blurry edges and an unnatural look - a sort of "uncanny valley" aesthetic - made sure that you could easily recognise deepfakes, but things are changing, even though the technology must still be improved as exaggerated facial expressions tend to disrupt the deepfake, while screens in front of an actor, such as windows, create barriers that block the AI.
The progress of deepfakes is proved by the recent series, "Deep Fake Neighbour Wars" (on ITVX from 26 January 2023). The comedy show revolves around a group of well-known celebrities - among the others actors Tom Holland and Olivia Colman, music stars Adele, Ariana Grande, Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj, and environmental activist Greta Thunberg - living ordinary lives in ordinary houses, dealing with everyday problems and quarrelling with their neighbours (other celebrities).
To create the characters AI-generated images of the celebrities were refined and overimposed on the body of actors by StudioNeural, the company that provides the deepfake technology for the series.
Series employing deepfake technology at this level may generate some legal conundrum: "Deep Fake Neighbour Wars" features an onscreen disclaimer to remind people that these are not the real celebrities, and, while you hope the producers asked the celebrities replicated in the series for permission, you wonder if any of them will complain in future of exploitation and to which degree creators of such deepfakes would be able to appeal to satire. After all, the characters portrayed are perfect copies of the original ones (something that may generate confusion in those viewers who may not notice the disclaimer) and not grotesque caricatures (think "Spitting Image") that would immediately justify the satirical intent.
We'll see what happens for what regards legal issues and deepfakes, but what's for sure is that this technology has progressed a lot in the last two or three years and can now be used to create almost perfect synthetic renditions of human beings, but also to inspire new narratives and intriguing video art.
Which leads us to the question - which other areas will deepfakes be applied to and which late fashion designers may be brought back to life at the next shows and for which purposes? Who knows, maybe some fashion houses opting for a collective team approach rather than a single creative director will go for a deepfake as a front or a deepfake late fashion designer may endorse a contemporary designer taking the helm of a historical fashion house.
So who will be resurrected as a "deepfake"? Cristóbal Balenciaga? Christian Dior? Coco Chanel? (a Text-to-Image AI assisted tool created in just a few seconds an almost perfect portrait of the French designer, pearl necklace included, so imagine what a deepfake may do…) Gianni Versace? Alexander McQueen? Karl Lagerfeld (maybe in time for the retrospective dedicated to him at The Met's Costume Institute...)? The list is long and, if heirs do not object, you can bet that deepfake fashion designers will soon come to a runway near you. Yes, agreed, they're probably unnecessary (and a bit nightmarish....), but fashion, as we all know, thrives on the concept of unnecessariness.
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