The Ethics of Digital Face Swapping

Author: Benjamin van Loon

Date: April 24, 2019

Link: https://www.digitalethics.org/essays/ethics-digital-face-swapping

First Impressions: By looking at the title, the essay probably talks about how digital face swapping may be, at the same time, harmful and helpful to the current condition of the world, since most people receive information online.

Quote: “It’s the responsibility of the ethicist - both academic and civilian - to continually analyze and judge, and to be scrupulously skeptical of seemingly simple ethical solutions to complex moral problems, especially within our visual-ethical paradigm.”

Reflection: 

The internet is used for things we would have needed a person to tell us not even ten years ago. Today, it is full of information that anyone could use to understand a variety of topics, especially ones that talk about updates on what is happening to the current generation of politics. The internet as a source of guidance seems to be common among younger generations. It is a quick and easy way to get a general idea on many topics, including news and politics, but who’s to say that we can one hundred percent trust what we see on the internet?

I am quite familiar on Face Swapping and how it works, since I have seen a lot of videos on the internet about this topic and I was able to use a filter on Snapchat before that is able to face swap faces with friends, so reading this essay gave me more knowledge of what Face Swapping is and what it could do to different people, such as politicians, celebrities, and musicians. The only big problem with face swapping is the controversy it will make once a master face swapper swaps a face of, say for instance, a politician to a person who is an impersonator of this politician and then this person does something that is discrete. We must know how to validate the credibility of people who have been face swapped online before it affects a wide area of a population. 

5 Things I Learned:

1. Whoever has mastered the art of digital face swapping is able to produce fakes news, if his power is abused.

2. People who use deep fakes on random people do not know the consequences the people they are face swapping are facing.

3. With deep fakes, it is possible to put someone’s life in danger.

4. People who possess the technology and the power to face swap someone should first ask for a target’s consent.

5. People use deep fakes for pornography.

5 Integrative Questions:

1. With AI being used to determine things online such as drugs, how is AI able to determine if a photo of someone is a deep fake?

2. What are the positive effects of digital face swapping?

3. What are some good things people can do with digital face swapping?

4. How will companies like Apple handle face recognition of someone whom is being face swapped?

5. If a person becomes a victim of deep fake. How will he prove to people that he is not the real person who is in the deep fake video?