FakeApp is a software that scans a bunch of images of a celebrity’s face and uses the data to graft that face onto another face in any given video. The technology is called deep learning, and while plenty of its implications are dangerous and horrifying (political speeches, pornographic images), a few of its implications are a good deal of fun. (h/t AV Club)
Take for example, the work of this Redditor who used FakeApp to put actor Nicolas Cage into a bunch of things Cage is definitely not in, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Terminator 2 or Man of Steel (though, with the latter, it’s not exactly in the role you would expect). Here, look:
All this fun aside, it is worth mentioning that facial mapping and deep learning have been combined into insidious videos, where celebrities are made to appear in certain adult situations they weren’t actually in, and quite literal “fake news” was perpetuated by political figure switch-ups.
The legal and ethical boundaries for this kind of technology don’t exist legally yet, either. As Wired has reported already, putting people in situations they were never in doesn’t count as a privacy violation because the situation was fabricated and thus no real privacy breached. The First Amendment protects spoofs and caricatures, and as is well worn in the American lexicon, First Amendment rights are very, very difficult to address or limit.
