Are we at the point where anything can be faked electronically?

The other month I remember reading about this website that can generate pictures of faces from a database. None of them are real people, none of them exist, but the pictures can come out very realistic and seem like an actual person somewhere.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78776-website-uses-ai-generate-fake-human-face-every.html

This of course is just one such website we know about. Somewhere there is likely a more advanced program created to do this, used by a government or something. There's a good chance the tech is farther ahead than we know.

It got me thinking about video, and google maps, and the media. Are we at the point where video can be completely faked and indistinguishable from the real thing? Could the world be told a great lie through false video, and be completely misled?

And is it happening now? Maybe somewhere there is a celebrity or a public figure featured in millions of pictures and thousands of videos, with their own mannerisms, voice and backstory - that never existed.

I feel like we're in this weird spot where there's tons of people on the planet, but we're very distant from one another, and even though technology connects us, it's also potentially an outlet for mass illusion.

And I just read this article, too:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/04/more-jails-replace-in-person-visits-with-awful-video-chat-products/

Coupled with the idea of fake video, images and, going a not-so-unrealistic-step farther, fake live streams... Seems like this could be used to fake the conditions of a prison or to make it seem like someone's alive when they're dead.

Videos already exist. They're not perfect, but if you didn't know they weren't real before watching them it'd be difficult to determine (in this video Obama's eyes look like he's just taken a massive bong rip, for example). The implications are pretty frightening when you think about it, especially in the era of Trump where people don't value fact or what's true, but accept lies because it fits their own worldview.

Btw, this is the website where A.I. is used to composite fictional people.

Almost. It will be very common when Virtual reality gets mature.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/bknxyf/this_ai_can_generate_entire_bodies_none_of_these/

So apparently this AI can create images of completely fake people, head to toe.

Only a matter of time before what we see in ads are completely not-existent people.

glasses seem to screw it up a bit.

got a pic of a guy w/ half glasses and no frames around the lenses... i guess its combining / blending data from other photos to create new faces..

pretty interesting though and at first glance, damn convincing.

Voices will follow, and pretty soon we won't need actors :P

Funny that the people in the clip are all attractive. Guess there is no room in this future robot-controlled dystopia for us uggos.

That's already a thing.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37899902

A new application that promises to be the "Photoshop of speech" is raising ethical and security concerns.

Adobe unveiled Project Voco last week. The software makes it possible to take an audio recording and rapidly alter it to include words and phrases the original speaker never uttered, in what sounds like their voice.

One expert warned that the tech could further undermine trust in journalism.

OT: None of this stuff is that new, really.

Yep, that way we get the movie sequels that we always wanted and the actors wouldn't age.