The ease of deepfakes creation may soon overwhelm our sense of digital truth

Deepfakes use AI to produce manipulated media to mislead viewers

Unlike most content created from large language and diffusion models, deepfakes intentionally misrepresent real people or events with the intent to deceive. As the products of this technology become more realistic, they pose increasing risks to public trust, security, and privacy.

Once limited to expert studios, automated tools can create convincing deepfakes

Although the best deepfakes are engineered using generative adversarial networks where systems compete to create and assess fake data until the two cannot be distinguished, simpler tools have allowed nonexperts to develop deepfakes for financial scams, political deception, and nonconsensual pornography.

Malicious use of deepfakes can be found in scams, misinformation, and disinformation

Artificial neural networks can identify an individual's physical characteristics when provided with training data, such as real footage of the person speaking. Graphics techniques overlay these with matching characteristics from another real or generated person to create novel footage of things that have never taken place in reality.

Deepfake potential ranges from destabilizing democracies to improving accessibility

The technology can revolutionize education, medicine, and art through actions such as helping a disabled person express themselves. However, fictional audio and video can also jeopardize a person's reputation and life or quickly spread misinformation, even without content being flawless recreations.

Deepfakes came to prominence in the form of nonconsensual pornography

The explosion of deepfakes depicting renowned people in both ridiculous and compromising videos has provoked widespread fears they will undermine public trust in authoritative knowledge. However, some scholars argue that real videos will always be distinguishable from deepfakes via the video-sharer's testimony and a broader social context.

AI-generated avatars allow users to create deepfakes in real time

Synthetic media tools can map voices and faces to make individuals appear as someone else. Although they open the door to new opportunities in immersive education and entertainment, they also raise concerns about the misuse of personal identity.

Governments are now using generative AI to manipulate public opinion

A Freedom House report found that AI-powered disinformation campaigns and censorship tactics are spreading, with 16 countries utilizing the technology to shape online narratives or suppress dissent, as of 2023. In Venezuela, deepfake software was used to push pro-government propaganda with fake news anchors.

Deepfake pornography poses significant challenges in combating sexual abuse

In 2017, 96% of deepfake videos involved image-based sexual abuse, which has disproportionately targeted minority women, LGBTQ individuals, adolescents and celebrities. Cultural norms, misogyny and AI advancements have contributed to the proliferation of explicit deepfake content.

Take a quiz to identify whether you can spot deepfakes

Advances in artificial intelligence have made deepfakes increasingly difficult to identify, as they are intentionally designed to appear real. The technology has exacerbated some of the problems brought on by digital editing tools like Photoshop.

Surreal backgrounds, asymmetry, and indecipherable text can help identify deepfakes

Differences in the backgrounds of training data with the same subject introduce variability, resulting in background textures and text that lack realistic detail. Difficulties with managing long-distance dependencies, the complexity of hair, and other real-world phenomena introduce errors that can be used to flag AI-generated content.

In 2024, deepfake audio of London Mayor Sadiq Khan nearly caused real-world disorder

The audio included incendiary remarks related to the ongoing Palestinian protests and played on the public's preexisting political biases. The technology has since destabilized the concept of truth in elections, where politicians blame the use of real gaffes on AI and deepfakes to spread misinformation.

Digital re-aging and de-aging of faces in film and TV has become increasingly common

Traditional techniques for accomplishing this process were slow and labor-intensive, and often required manual frame-by-frame edits, forcing them to be reserved for "hero characters" and close-up shots. Deep learning methods used by Disney and other production companies now provide fully-automatic and production-ready methods to produce such deepfakes for entertainment purposes.

Warren Buffett has worried that AI might end up being as consequential as the development of the nuclear bomb

Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett is one of the many people who’ve come face-to-face with the downside effects of AI, and in particular, deepfakes. He was recently shown a deepfake of himself in a video, which caused him to worry about how bad actors will take advantage of the technology.

Technologies labeled “AI” have historically lost that title after widespread adoption

Generative AI is the latest entry in a recurring cycle where emerging tools start as "AI" until they become common software, like databases or machine learning. Generative AI and large language models may be the next platform shift after smartphones and the Web.

The AI that creates any picture you want and how it works

Since January 2021, advances in AI research produced a plethora of deep-learning models capable of generating original images from simple text prompts. Researchers at OpenAI, Google, Facebook, and others have developed yet to be released text-to-image tools, and similar models have proliferated online. This video is a primer on how we got here, how the technology works, and its implications.

In 2024, Meta launched an AI video generator to create or edit videos through prompts

The tool puts the Meta in direct competition with OpenAI and Google as more companies are investing billions of dollars to capitalize on the explosion of public interest in machine learning and generative media technologies.

AI is not good at understanding satire

Social media has become rife with misinformation. In response, some organizations have deployed AI-assisted programs trying to curb the spread of this inaccurate content. The problem is that misinformation and satire, rhetorically speaking, often use the same kind of language, something AI struggles to understand.

Watch LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman interview his deepfake doppelgänger

LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman created an AI doppelgänger of himself in 2024 that was fed a sample of his voice and trained on his books and other writings and speeches. In this conversation, his deepfake version attempts to replicate human mannerisms, including scratching their nose and getting distracted.

Balancing free speech while curbing misinformation has destroyed content moderation

Accusations of censorship and bias have led social media companies like Meta and X to scale back or abandon moderation tools—just as foreign propaganda surges. Researchers say their ability to track manipulation online has become severely limited.

Stephen Wolfram on AI's rapid progress & the "Post-Knowledge Work" era

AI, as a concept, has been around since at least the 1950s, but it's only in the last year or so that the technology has been able to equal humans at many tasks -- and in many cases surpass humans. In this podcast, mathematician and computer scientist Stephen Wolfram provides an AI 101, explaining how we got here, how highly advanced chatbots like ChatGPT work, and what our world is in store for next.

DeepSeek is a Chinese AI startup that rattled US competitors when it made an AI model much faster and cheaper than they did

DeepSeek unveiled an AI model in 2025 that it said was made in two months for roughly $6M. For context, OpenAI has suggested it took over $100M to make its AI model GPT-4. The news rattled the stocks of American tech companies, including leading chipmaker Nvidia.

Unlike the models made by large AI companies, open-weight models can have their safeguards removed or weakened, a process that has become increasingly easy and may expose users to harmful information.

This removal is made possible by developers making the parameters behind their models publicly known. By adjusting these parameters, users can modify how the model processes and provides information. Many of these models can be downloaded locally, preventing developers from seeing how people are using them.

Expert predictions on the metaverse

Experts are split about the likely evolution of a truly immersive metaverse. Many worry current online problems may be magnified if Web3 development is led by those who built today’s dominant web platforms.

As of 2025, perfect synthetic replication of natural organs remains elusive

Advancements such as 3D printing muscles, performing vaginal reconstruction with colon tissue, and growing organs in a lab have shown promise, but artificial options and transplanting substitutions continue to exhibit functional and performance limitations compared to their natural equivalents.

Science fiction or new technology?

Dystopian literature is no longer relegated to the page, with innovations like the Tesla Cybertruck and Meta virtual reality headsets mirroring the aesthetics of texts like "The Running Man" and "Neuromancer." In this essay, Casey Michael Henry argues that the images from these works remain while their messages have faded.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

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Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

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Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

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The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.