Deepfake videos are a subject of increasing interest and scrutiny worldwide. To this effect, Linkedin Learning has produced a course about synthetic media called “Understanding the Impact of Deepfake Videos'' that aims to provide a comprehensive overview of deepfake technology (AI content generation).
Respeecher was invited to provide insight into deepfake audio, how it’s produced, its current and future use cases. Read on to find out the exact section of the course we’re featured in and watch our own Grant Reaber dive into the topic of AI voice generation.
Senior staff instructor Ashley Kennedy explains what deepfake videos and deepfake audio are, and delves into the impact of this technology, its dangers and benefits, how people can learn to identify synthetic media, and what to do when we suspect such content.
Ashley Kennedy is a Managing Staff Instructor at LinkedIn, leading the team of Staff Instructors in the Business and Creative Libraries at LinkedIn Learning. She is involved in course creation, instructional design, and course production and she also created her own courses on various topics (including video, filmmaking, storytelling, social media marketing, education and more).
Ashley was kind enough to interview Respeecher’s Chief Research Officer Grant Reaber in the section called “What is Deepfake Audio”.
Generally speaking, synthetic media (also known as ‘deepfakes’) consists of manipulated media (video and/or audio) that uses AI to replace a person with someone else's liking and made to appear as if they said or did something that never happened.
Because while some ethical problems regarding AI voice cloning are simple, others are more difficult. We don't simply trust our gut to tell us what we should do. Our decision-making is guided by this set of ethics principles you can read all about on the Respeecher FAQ page.
Companies from the synthetic media landscape like Respeecher aim to revolutionize the way content is produced, by bringing more flexibility in industries like entertainment, video games, advertising, and more. Even so, unethical deepfakes can be used for negative purposes to mislead audiences. This is why part of our mission at Respeecher has always been to:
So you can imagine our excitement when Ashley reached out to us.
The course “Understanding the Impact of Deepfake Videos” coveres skills like: compositing, video production, media psychology, and visual effects. So far, over 65,000 members liked the content and over 180,000 enrolled in the course. And these numbers keep growing.
In the piece called “What is a deepfake audio” from the first part of the course you can watch our own Grant Reaber talk about voice synthesis, give a few examples of synthetic audio content, and use the voice of some famous politicians like Barack Obama and Richard Nixon.
Through speech-to-speech voice conversion technology (STS), the general speech patterns of the speaker remain unique, but their voice is replaced with another. It can be successfully used to gain more control over the emotions that are being expressed. STS delivers a natural performance, keeping the inflection and the other characteristics of the human speech.