If you can't picture Nicki Minaj, Stormzy and Greta Thunberg
as bickering neighbours, just tune into ITV's new show
'Deep Fake Neighbour Wars' and see for yourself!
Except that - as the name of the show suggests - you won't
see the real Nicki, Stormzy and Greta. Rather,
impersonators will be lending their voices to deepfakes of these
(and other) public figures and celebrities.
When ITV announced the show, my first question was: won't
lawsuits quickly follow? But the answer, as ever with deepfakes, is
not so clear-cut.
What are deepfakes?
Deepfakes are photos, audio recordings or videos of a person
that are digitally altered or synthetically generated using machine
learning and artificial intelligence to make a person appear as
someone else (in this case, to make the impersonator appear like
the real Nicki Minaj) or to make someone (e.g. a politician or
celebrity) appear as if they were saying or doing things that never
actually happened.