The pros and cons of deepfake videos have been a topic of debate on the internet for the last few years as the technology to create them becomes increasingly accessible. Initially more of a novelty or curiosity, deepfakes are now achievable by nearly anyone thanks to consumer-friendly tools like Deep Word, leading to some public trepidation about what kind of negative repercussions might follow that shift. Some people have already chosen to use deepfake technology for selfish or malicious purposes, so the concern is understandable. But the impression that synthetic video is inherently dishonest couldn’t be further from the truth.
Why Make Deepfakes?
Deepfake technology is just a tool, and there are countless reasons to use it in productive ways. For example, an educator could use it to improve their online classes by creating a more convincing level of student-teacher interaction for remote learners. Or a company might use it to create personalized training or sales videos, uniquely targeted at each employee or customer, for a fraction of the time and money it would require to film separate videos the old-fashioned way.
The possibilities extend to even greater heights when you apply synthetic video to the medical field. In 2019, a health charity teamed up with David Beckham to create a deepfake video of Beckham imploring viewers to do their part to help end malaria in nine different languages. Medical researchers have even used deepfake technology to create synthetic brain scan imaging that can be used to quickly train AI to reliably spot brain tumors.
These are only a few of the examples of positive applications of synthetic video that are beginning to be realized. New constructive uses for the technology continue to be discovered as more people gain access to it, and the possibilities are exciting.
How Do I Choose the Right Tool?
Packaging deepfake technology in a way that’s accessible to consumers is still a relatively new concept, and while there are a growing number of options, choosing between them can feel a bit like venturing into uncharted waters. This is a real obstacle for those who want to utilize synthetic video but don’t know where to begin. To make the search a little easier, let’s take a look at some of the different tools that are out there and compare the advantages and disadvantages of each.
Open Source
Some of the most open-ended and rudimentary options are open source projects such as DeepFaceLab and Faceswap. This type of tool provides an enormous amount of control over exactly how it is used. DeepFaceLab, for example, is capable of altering video in just about any way imaginable, including swapping faces, entire heads or other body parts, de-aging, manipulating speech, and more. The benefit of an open source tool is that it gives the user access to the basic resources needed to create any kind of deepfake they want.
However, the downside to an open source option is that they are very cumbersome to use.
While projects like DeepFaceLab and Faceswap played a large role in bringing deepfake technology into the limelight, they are not particularly user-friendly and require a lot of technical expertise to use properly, not to mention a relatively powerful and expensive GPU. They simply provide the raw materials necessary to create deepfakes from scratch rather than package those materials in a way that makes them easily understandable and accessible for the average person. This gives especially tech savvy folks more freedom to be as creative as they want, but fails to provide a particularly convenient method of creating synthetic video
Consumer Tools
Other tools have been specifically developed with the challenge of bridging the gap between consumer and new technology in mind. Services like Wombo greatly simplify the process of creating deepfake videos and make great strides towards getting the technology into the hands of the average consumer.
Using Wombo to create your own deepfake is as simple as uploading a picture and tapping a few buttons. However, this incredible ease of use comes at the expense of the freedom that open source deepfake tools offer. Wombo’s only purpose right now is to create deepfake lip sync videos, and even that capability is still limited, as the app includes just 14 short song clips to choose from. Sure, it’s accessible to anyone regardless of tech know-how, but it lacks the potential to create anything actually useful.
The best synthetic video tools available are those that find a middle ground between ease of use and freedom of customization. Websites like Deep Word, Synthesia, or Rephrase expand on the capabilities of a tool like Wombo, maintaining a user-friendly experience while offering a much wider variety of applications. The aforementioned examples of deepfake use in education or business can be accomplished with these services by synthesizing convincing videos of interchangeable faces speaking in interchangeable voices.
However, Synthesia and Rephrase do come with their own limitations. While they can be used to create custom online lessons or personalized sales videos quickly and efficiently, they mostly confine users to a selection of predetermined video actors. In a way, they reverse Wombo’s approach; rather than upload a face to be lip-synched to the provided words, the user uploads the words to be lip-synched to a provided face. Synthesia does provide the option to upload your own video, but at $1,000 per custom video actor, it is hardly a cost-effective choice. There’s greater potential for productive use here than with Wombo, but the full potential for personalization isn’t realized.
Finding the Middle Ground
The best synthetic video tools available are those that find a middle ground between ease of use and freedom of customization. Websites like Deep Word, Synthesia, or Rephrase expand on the capabilities of a tool like Wombo, maintaining a user-friendly experience while offering a much wider variety of applications. The aforementioned examples of deepfake use in education or business can be accomplished with these services by synthesizing convincing videos of interchangeable faces speaking in interchangeable voices.
However, Synthesia and Rephrase do come with their own limitations. While they can be used to create custom online lessons or personalized sales videos quickly and efficiently, they mostly confine users to a selection of predetermined video actors. In a way, they reverse Wombo’s approach; rather than upload a face to be lip-synched to the provided words, the user uploads the words to be lip-synched to a provided face. Synthesia does provide the option to upload your own video, but at $1,000 per custom video actor, it is hardly a cost-effective choice. There’s greater potential for productive use here than with Wombo, but the full potential for personalization isn’t realized.
Verdict: Deep Word
Deep Word, on the other hand, is the only option that allows the user to both upload their own video and lip-synch it with their own words. This makes it possible for the typical consumer with little or no technology expertise to create their own entirely personalized deepfake video for any of the purposes mentioned earlier, and more. It’s also free to use for your first five videos.
This is the best Deepfake choice for most consumers who are interested in using synthetic video to save time and money on personalized video content without sacrificing quality. Deep Word provides consumer-level access to the tools that will allow you to customize your content for any audience or context, at any scale, for the same amount of effort (or less) that it would take to create a single video. Start creating videos for free by signing up for an account or book a call to learn more about how Deep Word can be applied at scale.
Right now is the perfect time to jump in if you’re curious about the benefits this technology has to offer. There’s still more progress to be made, and consumer-friendly deepfake resources will likely only continue to improve as the idea gains more momentum. If you want to become part of that momentum, Deep Word is a smart place to start.
