We live in a day and age in which what we watch or listen to may not reflect that the people that we are viewing or hearing are actually those people, and the words being spoken are actually their words. While entertainment has its place, it needs to be recognized that deepfake videos go well beyond just entertainment, for they can contain important personages as well as highly-respected individuals appearing to say and do things that they did not do – in addition to even seeing folks like ourselves placed in the unenviable position of being compromised by deepfake videos which they did not authorize, did not desire, and are untruthful.
The technology behind deepfake videos is so good that, in many cases, we are fooled into believing they are true, and if not, it is only because we intuitively know they can’t be true. That, though, isn’t good enough for the protection and the upliftment of the people, because deepfake videos of all sorts should be clearly watermarked to provide to those watching such, that these are fake and are not real. Yet, that still isn’t going to be good enough, because the first people that we really need to protect our own selves, signifying that we should always have agency over our personhood, image, and voice, which means that deepfake videos that take our image or our voice and then are publicized, without our consent, should never be permitted, which if this was the law, would clearly cut down on deepfake videos that impugn our character by making it appear that we are saying and doing things which many people would see as being demeaning, offensive, overtly sexual, or similar.
The thing about laws and regulations is that they have a strong tendency to be behind the times when it comes to addressing hi-technology and the like which is why those that governed us need to stay on top of things so that we are protected from living in a construct in which truth and lies blend together, so that we aren’t able to clearly draw the line between one from the other. Indeed, to live in a society in which images and videos can be manipulated to such a sophisticated extent that we are at a loss as to what is real is to take that society and begin to erode and unravel it, because we are no longer able to ascertain truth when we are being inundated with lies, deceptions, and deepfakes.
Whenever our eyes deceive us, because the image that we are seeing has been manipulated and structured to deceive us, we need to be able to hold accountable those who have done so, because each of us is fairly entitled to see things as they actually are, as contrasted to seeing things as they aren’t. This thus signifies that deepfake videos need to be acknowledged as being a bane that impinges upon what a good society needs so as to function at a trusting and transparent level, because without this, we devolve into a sea of lies, and are in danger of drowning.