My uncle's 80th birthday video got faked and nobody believed it was him

Last month my cousin sent a deepfake of our uncle reading a birthday speech. Looked perfect. Sounded like him. But he's been dead 2 years. My aunt started crying. Then my other cousin pointed out the teeth were wrong. Realized then - we can't trust video anymore. Even family photos feel fake now. I deleted all my old recordings. What's the point if nobody knows what's real? Has anyone else had a deepfake mess with a personal memory like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

pat_stone7d ago

Hit that teeth thing hard. It's always the tiny details that give it away. My buddy's grandma passed last year and someone tried to deepfake her voice for a voicemail. The cadence was off by a half second. We all knew it wasn't her. But the damage was done. Now I look at old home videos and wonder if they're doctored. It's like the whole concept of proof is gone.

aaron_mitchell7d ago

Yeah but here's the thing nobody talks about - even real memories shift over time. So if we can't trust our own brains to remember things right, does it even matter if the video is fake?