Editing 2650: Deepfakes

{{comic
| number    = 2650
| date      = July 25, 2022
| title     = Deepfakes
| image     = deepfakes.png
| titletext = If so great a deductive mind as Arthur Conan Doyle can be fooled by the Cottingley Deepfakes, what chance do we mortals have? Soon our very reality will be dictated by the whims of Frances (9) and Elsie (16).
}}

==Explanation==

A {{w|deepfake}} is an altered video, designed to deceive, by replacing a person in a video with someone else. [[White Hat]] believes that this technology will make it difficult to trust video evidence from now on. However, [[Cueball]] responds by saying that "fakes" have always existed, in photos (either through {{w|photoshopping|alterations by software such as Adobe Photoshop}}, or deliberately staging faked images, for example {{w|Loch Ness Monster#%22Surgeon's photograph%22 (1934)|of the Loch Ness Monster}}) and even more so by people simply lying. White Hat comes around to Cueball's position and says that even the written word is prone to deception and lying.

Scientific studies of deepfakes have produced surprising results, suggesting that they are more likely to increase uncertainty than persuade,[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305120903408] that their increased prevalence could inoculate the public against {{w|disinformation}},[https://dspace.cuni.cz/handle/20.500.11956/150489] and that they are more likely to be shared because of their humorousness than persuasiveness.[http://essay.utwente.nl/91654/] Other studies have found that deepfakes are persuasive, especially among those who are unfamiliar with them.[https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2020.0174][https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1780812]

The {{w|complaint tablet to Ea-nasir}} is a 3,800 year-old clay tablet containing the oldest known written complaint, in which a customer complains to a merchant, Ea-nasir, about the quality of his copper ingots. Cueball's last statement says that perhaps this complaint could have been a lie to begin with, and there was nothing wrong with Ea-nasir's wares. This supposition is arguably the humor of the comic, apart from the hyperbole of the title text.

The title text references the {{w|Cottingley Fairies}}, a series of five photographs produced in 1917 by two children, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, who were 16 and 9, respectively. The photographs appear to show the children playing with fairies in their garden. The photographs received widespread attention when Sir {{w|Arthur Conan Doyle}}, the author of the {{w|Sherlock Holmes}} stories, used the photos as proof of paranormal phenomena in a 1920 magazine article. Conan Doyle was noteworthy for being a strong proponent of reaching conclusions based on evidence and reason, and also held a deep belief in paranormal and supernatural phenomena. In 1983, Elsie and Frances finally confessed that the photos had been faked, by the simple process of making and posing cardboard cutouts traced from figures in a children's book with wings added. Due to technical advances, young children now can more easily create convincingly realistic fakes,{{Actual citation needed}} but similarly there are many more self-styled 'experts' willing and able to dedicate themselves to 'proving' one or other side of any argument about authenticity.

A similar dilemma was alluded to in the [[1958: Self-Driving Issues]] comic, where technology does not create a new way to lie, but may make certain lies more convincing to some parties, such as self-driving cars in that comic.

==Transcript==
:[White Hat and Cueball are walking to the right.]
:White Hat: Thanks to deepfakes, soon we won't know what's real anymore. Video will become meaningless.

:[White Hat and Cueball walk on, Cueball lifts one hand with the palm up.]
:Cueball: I dunno.
:Cueball: We've had Photoshop for decades and  staged photos for centuries.
:Cueball: It hasn't made photos meaningless.

:[Zoom in on Cueball, who is turned left towards off-panel White Hat.]
:Cueball: The bottleneck for fake stuff isn't technical. The bottleneck is willingness to lie.
:Cueball: "People lying" is a very old problem.
:Cueball: It's a known exploit.

:[Zoom back out on White Hat and Cueball who have stopped. White Hat has a hand on his chin. Cueball holds his hands out to the sides.]
:White Hat: I guess technically we've been able to make '''''text''''' deepfakes for 5,000 years.
:Cueball: Maybe Ea-nasir's copper ingots were actually fine!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring White Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring real people]]
[[Category:Photography]]