Kevin Simler

I confess I don’t get the existential concern around deepfakes. Can anyone explain it to me? I imagine we’ll have a few incidents where deepfakes are taken too seriously, as we get used to them. But we’ll learn and adapt pretty quickly, as we did with Photoshop. Yes/no/maybe?

The concern is not the ability to claim X via deepfake, it is the ability to deny Y by claiming evidence for it is deepfake. Same as the Russian troll farms — just generate so much confusion and doubt that most people say “well WTF knows” and give up caring.

What’s an example of something real that you think people will use the “it’s a deepfake!” excuse for? Celebrity sex tapes are probably first in line. But what else? I’m having trouble thinking of forums where there isn’t going to be other corroborating evidence.