https://www.vox.com/2018/1/31/16932264/reddit-celebrity-porn-face-swapping-dystopia

The Vox article above describes a new (at least to me, you know I’m always behind the times) video image processing technology with disturbing implications. It is now possible to insert a still image of someone’s face into a video of someone elses body in such a way that the resulting video appears to show the first person doing the actions the body was doing. I don’t know how good the fidelity is from the limited samples Vox has provided, but it looks perfect to me. It may take an expert in the field to be able to detect evidence of the swap (if it can be done at all).

This technique does not just insert a new face onto the body, morphing the old face into the new, the algorithm is clever enough to transfer the facial expressions on one face into another person. And this all occurs in video, in real time–this is not just a still image. The motion picture of the inserted face exactly duplicates the expressions of the replaced one. And there is no reason the audio track couldn’t be altered to receive a convincing duplicate of a new voice.

Apparently, this technology has already been introduced into the porn industry, where the face of a celebrity has been attached to the head of a porn star, so that even the facial expressions and orgiastic grimaces of the porn actress now appear to be on the face of your favorite TV or movie star (or ex-girlfriend, or a rival politician, or business competitor) engaging in a sex act. The algorithm is not only capable of adjusting the morphed face for perspective, light and shadow, foreshortening and so on, but even the passionate contortions of one person are seamlessly generated in the other. If you really want to see an X-rated and very convincing video of Bernie Sanders and Ann Coulter having kinky sex, you can now make one. (Or how about Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher?)
And if there is video evidence of Donald’s Steele Memo Moscow hooker adventures or his Stormy Daniels encounter they might not be admissable as evidence. They might truly be fake news.

Of course, the applications for porn are the least of our worries. The possibilities for blackmail, character assassination, political propaganda and slander are endless. And if the technology becomes widespread to the point that everyone is familiar with it, then no video evidence will be convincing any more. People will simply refuse to believe any video material, it will be as suspect as still photography has already become.

I can think of other, more capitalistic, applications for the tech, too. You could film a scene with amateur actors and replace their faces with public domain images of famous stars. Hey, if it can be seriously suggested driverless vehicles can replace truck drivers and Uber jockeys, why pay top dollar for Meryl Streep or George Clooney?