We may recognize deepfakes as memes and internet gags, all in the name of fun. We are also pretty good at telling it apart from the real thing due to the uncanny valley effect of the fakes’ hollow eyes. But what if technology grows so enhanced that it becomes indistinguishable? What repercussions could come from that?A new study finds that people are increasingly less able to differentiate between real faces and virtual ones created by artificial intelligence. It is also highly possible that <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-find-ai-generated-faces-more-trustworthy-than-the-real-thing/">humans find the AI-generated face more trustworthy than an actual visage</a>.&nbsp;This is raising concerns that the technology is in danger of being used for all kinds of misdeeds : disinformation campaigns for political gains, creation of false porn for extortion, and of course, frauds. Although currently the technology is not flawless enough for such impact, the experts agree that it may well be very soon.Image: <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/119/8/e2120481119">Nightingale SJ and Farid H/PNAS</a>&nbsp;Image caption: Images ranked from most (top and upper middle) to least (bottom and lower middle) accurately classified as real (R) and synthetic (S).&nbsp;#deepfake #face #AI #artificialintelligence #trustworthiness

The four most (top) and four least (bottom) trustworthy images from a scale of 1 to 7 (with 7 being the most trustworthy). Note that synthetic faces (S) are rated more trustworthy than real faces.

Representative set of side-by-side real and AI-generated synthetic faces