Deepfake Videos of Tom Cruise Raise Concern

A series of deepfake videos of Tom Cruise have gained more than 11 million views on TikTok. The creator said he never wanted to trick people. But since he has, he’s hoping the sudden influx (涌入) of attention can help bring greater awareness to the continued evolution of the technology that can create incredibly realistic fake videos of people.

“The important thing is, we didn’t want to fool people at any moment,” Chris Ume, 31, the Belgian visual effects artist behind the visual deepfake, said in an interview. “If I can help in creating awareness, or even work on detection in the future, I would love to.”

Ume created the four videos, in which it appeared to show the Hollywood star playing golf, doing a magic coin trick, and falling over while telling a story. The videos went visual, attracting attention on TikTok and across the Internet.

And though most people realized quickly that the videos were fake, even experts were impressed by their quality.

“My first thought was they’re incredibly well done,” said digital image expert HanyFarid, who is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and specializes in image analysis. “They are funny, and they’re clever.”

But they also offer a warning: Deepfake technology that has emerged in recent years continues to evolve and improve. And while deepfake videos have not yet been effectively used in many misinformation(虚假消息) campaigns, the danger is growing.

“In the early days, you could see the potential, but it wasn’t even close to being there,” Farid said. “But this felt to me like it was a real step, like we just took a big step forward in the development of this technology.

Synthetic(合成的) digital content, otherwise known as a deepfake, can include anything from an image or video in which one person or object is visually or audibly manipulated(操纵) to say and do something that is fabricated(伪造).

Although Ume used sophisticated visual effects editing, advancements in digital editing through smartphone apps such as Reface, Facetune and even Snapchat have made techniques like face-swapping(换脸) and image altering easier and could cause serious consequences, experts say.

Smiles Are Always Preferable over Pity

An artist from Washington is bringing smiles to babies and their parents, one helmet at a time.

Flat head syndrome is a common condition in infants and affects about half of babies in their first year of life. Fortunately, it doesn’t cause significant medical consequence and is treatable with a specialized helmet that an infant will wear for weeks or months. But these helmets usually come in a dull white.

More than a decade ago, artist Paula Strawn was approached by a friend whose granddaughter was prescribed one of the helmets and asked if she could make it a bit more fun.

“I had never seen a baby with a helmet before and they quickly explained what it was for,” Strawn says. “I was a little frightened as I hadn’t painted on anything like this before. But it went and they were very happy.”

Strawn was living in Southern California at the time. After painting the helmet for her friend, she quickly began to get inquiries from other parents who wanted to stylize the helmets for their babies.

Soon, requests snowballed in from across the state, then from around the country.

“Within the year it was my main painting work for folks all over Southern California and within a couple of years I started hearing from folks around the states,” she recalls. “The last few years it’s been my full-time business. I get helmets from all over the country.”

Strawn, who now lives in Washington, says she has painted more than 3,200 helmets in the 15 years since she painted her first one.

She frequently posts her paintings to her Instagram page, which features helmets designed with bright flowers, cartoon characters, sports team logos and other colorful pictures.

“It’s a fun, friendly and personal design that brings smiles to baby and a chance for parents to have a conversation about the helmet instead of pity,” Strawn says. “Smiles are always preferable over pity!”