Robert Pattinson is a well-known British actor, known primarily for his role as Edward Cullen in The Twilight Saga. His latest role was in the most recent Batman movie in the leading role. He has won two Empire Award nominations, eleven MTV Movie Awards, and two People’s Choice Awards for his work on The Twilight Saga.
Deep Fakes
Deep fakes are fake videos created using digital software, machine learning and face swapping, resulting in videos being created about events that have never actually happened. The results of these videos are convincing and can be hard to identify as false. Many people use deep fake technology to create fake videos of themselves as celebrities. Apps like Tik Tok and Instagram enable these videos to be spread like wildfire and to go viral. It’s shocking to see your body and face photoshopped into a video and doing an activity you did not do. Because of the incredible technology available to us, these deep fakes are terrifyingly realistic. Most of these videos contain recreations of the actor’s interviews or scenes from movies.
Robert Pattinson
Robert Pattinson is a very well-known English actor. He is mostly recognized for his roles as Edward in the Twilight Saga and Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter Series. Recently, plenty of deep fake videos of this actor have come to light. These videos recreated a scene from a movie he starred in or an interview. These were videos of the actor doing Tik Tok dances. He never did these dances. However, according to the actor, even friends who knew him well were asking what he was doing on Tik Tok. This technology shows how realistic the deep fake technology is.
Speaking to the ES Magazine, the English actor admits to his discomfort over the videos:
“It’s terrifying. The amount of people who know me quite well and will still be like, ‘Why are you doing these weird dancing videos on TikTok?’ It’s really bizarre. You just realise that we’re two years away from it being indistinguishable from reality — and what on Earth am I going to do as a job then?”
Robert Pattinson/ES Magazine
How Far Our Technology Has Come
The actor brings up a really good point. We can create videos that look identical to the original clips. If we can do so, what is going to stop us in a few years time from making movies without actors? A large number of people will be out of a job. There probably wouldn’t be Award nominations anymore as there would be no one to give awards to. It is a scary thought.
Our technology has come this far. So, what is stopping it from continuing to progress? Years ago, make up artists had to work extremely hard to make the characters in TV shows and movies look realistic. However, nowadays, CGI and editing take away most of the work. That is just one example of technology taking away people’s jobs. It is looking more and more likely that technology won’t only take away people’s jobs from behind the camera but also in front of the camera. It will still be the actor’s face and body. With the power of photoshop and deep fake technology, movies can be made without there needing to be a set or actors.
Deep fake technology, so far has only been used to recreate an interview or to make an amusing dancing video. However, if those innocent videos can be made, and people cannot tell the person and the deep faked version apart, who knows what else is possible with this technology?
