Ten years ago, if someone were to tell you that robots would eventually take over the world as we know it, every Sci-Fi movie released from then to the end of the decade would likely lead you to believe it in some capacity. Although that sentiment awaits from a reasonable distance, for some, teasing the possibilities has already begun.

Enter: “deepfakes;” a Reddit username turned application title and video genre at the helm of the first major contest against artificial intelligence. Having garnered attention in December 2017, the user made available to the platform a video software with the ability to swap faces amongst people from multiple angles, altering the qualities of the picture and making it look real. 

While the feature seemed harmless at first, it soon gained an unsavory amount of traction when a number of similar applications sprouted from beneath the creases of the internet, followed by examples of a newfound hobby.

According to The Washington Post, a number of celebrities have become the target of pornographic face-swaps, including Taylor Swift and Gal Gadot, in which fictitious sex tapes are being composed of subjects engaged in sexual activities, having their faces replaced by AI technology. 

Through scores of photographs fed into an algorithm, a face – swapping software is able to create a kind of human mask to replace the face of anyone on video, says Nick Statt of The Verge. In allowing the software to improve over time, the accuracy of these swaps has become disturbingly realistic, ultimately lending itself to the ignorance of those who watch and do not know any better.

While “deepfakes” claims the original software required a fair extent of computer and programming knowledge, recent installments are reported to be much simpler to navigate, thus more accessible to the casual user. “I think the current version of the app is a good start, but I hope to streamline it even more in the coming days and weeks,” the redditor behind an alternative app told Vice: Motherboard.

To be fair, this alone does not condemn this type of technology as a bad thing seeing as it technically classifies as yet another variation on computer – generated imagery. Not only has CGI existed for longer, but it was the exact means by which Paul Walker’s entire face was recreated in the seventh “Fast and Furious” movie.

If most viewers are honest with themselves, if it weren’t for them hearing about his passing beforehand, they would hardly have been able to tell the difference, if at all. 

This type of technology isn’t new. AI, however, still has yet to breach its infant stage considering how far people mean to take it. If the thought of a software having the power to automatically change how a person is depicted on camera is the future, then so help us all. What if celebrities are only the beginning?

Despite since being deleted, over 15,000 anonymous users were reportedly enlisted in “deepfakes’ private subreddit, spawning a sort of shameless delight in sharing these videos amongst themselves. Adult-friendly sites such as Pornhub also have a history of removing videos from their platforms that violate their community guidelines for illegal or immoral use.

Using someone’s face without consent in this manner may just conceive of a new form of defamation even satire cannot pardon. And do not even get me started on the vomitrocious possibilities of revenge porn.

Who knows how far this will go. Suffice to say as of now, there does not seem to be a clear way to stop “deepfakes,” whether they are used for fun or for malice. Software is only going to improve as the years go by, and attempting to halt technological innovation in 2018 is about as ambitious as fighting the ocean.