Tom Cruise has had a huge resurgence … on TikTok.
However, the latest movie star videos are actually not him.
The 58-year-old actor appears in videos that do simple things like magic tricks, telling jokes and playing golf, but account holder @deeptomcruise actually uses “deepfakes” to get Tom Cruise’s face in the video.
What Are Deepfakes?
Deepfakes have used AI technology that can mimic human faces in videos.
It’s about the fact that technology is so advanced, which means that anyone can take someone else’s face and make them do whatever they want on camera.
In 2019, Trump supporters presented a deepfake of Nancy Pelosi slurring her speech on camera.
On Christmas Day 2020, the British people were also outraged when a deepfake of the Queen dancing on a table emerged.
“That’s ridiculous,” wrote one person. “Do you remember that the Queen is a real person, actually alive and all that? Not just a character to play with?”
Tom Cruise’s Impersonator
However, the awesome thing about this Tomcruise deepfake is that they are spot on with the actor’s mannerisms.
The user has nailed his laugh and stare, but there are a few pointers that give him away: he’s taller than the actor, and some of the lighting of the face up close doesn’t match up.
But other than that, users have expressed their concern about how deepfakes are so real that it has become scary.
The photographer – Lauren White – commented on one of the videos expressing her concern.
“Deep fakes are getting scary good and taking over TikTok. Every public figure should just be on there with a verified account – even if they don’t want to make content – to make it easier to identify their fakes.”
Deepfakes first appeared in 2017 on Reddit.
The word comes from a combination of “deep reading” and “fake”.
It uses facial recognition software and two sets of AI called variational auto-encoders (VAEs).
One is trained on images on a person’s face, while the other has a wide variety of people’s faces in different lighting conditions.
When both are combined, a programmer is able to recreate a person’s face that is able to not only move naturally through the world, but attach itself to another person’s body.
