A TikTok account posting very convincing ‘deepfake‘ videos of Margot Robbie has gone viral.
The anonymous account Unreal_Margot, which has more than 1.7 million likes and 333,000 followers, posts videos of an AI-generated woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to the 31-year-old Australian actress.
One popular video shows the computer-generated woman on her hands and knees scrubbing a floor wearing a mini skirt and jumper. It then cuts to actual footage of Robbie as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad to highlight the striking similarities.
A TikTok account posting very convincing ‘deepfake’ videos of Margot Robbie has gone viral. The anonymous account Unreal_Margot, which has 333,000 followers, posts videos of an AI-generated woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to the 31-year-old Australian actress
In one clip, the AI character stubs her toe and then grimaces (left), which is contrasted with a clip of the real Robbie as Tonya Harding in the Oscar-nominated film I, Tonya (right)
In another video, the AI character stubs her toe and then grimaces, which is again contrasted with a clip of the real Robbie as Tonya Harding in the Oscar-nominated film I, Tonya.
Other clips by Unreal_Margot show the CGI woman displaying ‘model poses’ and dancing in a skintight leather dress.
The identity of the person behind the account is not known.
Experts have warned against the danger of deepfakes, with top tech firms cracking down on savvy internet users who continue to create fake, AI-assisted pornography of many of Hollywood’s leading ladies.
Other clips by Unreal_Margot show the CGI woman displaying ‘model poses’. Both these photos are deepfakes and not images of Margot Robbie
Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting the person behind the Unreal_Margot TikTok account is making AI-assisted pornography.
‘Deepfake’ hobbyists have also used the technology to create digitally altered videos of world leaders, including Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
However, computer scientists recently developed a tool that detects deepfake photos with near-perfect accuracy.
Experts have warned against the danger of deepfakes, with top tech firms cracking down on savvy internet users who continue to create fake, AI-assisted pornography of many of Hollywood’s leading ladies. There is no suggestion the person behind the Unreal_Margot TikTok account is making AI-assisted pornography. (Pictured: a deepfake image of Robbie)
The identity of the person behind the TikTok account is not known
What is a deepfake?
Deepfakes are so named because they are made using deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to create fake videos of a target individual.
They are made by feeding a computer an algorithm, or set of instructions, as well as lots of images and audio of the target person.
The computer program then learns how to mimic the person’s facial expressions, mannerisms, voice and inflections.
With enough video and audio of someone, you can combine a fake video of a person with fake audio and get them to say anything you want
The system, which analyses light reflections in a subject’s eyes, proved 94 per cent effective in experiments.
In real portraits, the light reflected in our eyes is generally in the same shape and colour, because both eyes are looking at the same thing.
Since deepfakes are composites made from many different photos, most omit this crucial detail.
Deepfakes became a concern during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, raising worries they could be used to discredit candidates and spread disinformation. (Seen: a deepfake of Robbie)
‘The cornea is almost like a perfect semisphere and is very reflective,’ Siwei Lyu, a computer science professor at SUNY Buffalo, said at the time.
‘So, anything that is coming to the eye with a light emitting from those sources will have an image on the cornea.’
Deepfakes became a particular concern during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, raising worries they could be used to discredit candidates and spread disinformation.
A heavily edited video of Nancy Pelosi that made it seem as if the House Speaker was drunkenly slurring her speech went viral last year.
One popular video shows the computer-generated woman on her hands and knees scrubbing a floor wearing a mini skirt and jumper (left). It then cuts to actual footage of Robbie as Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad to highlight the striking similarities (right)
Two convincing deepfakes of Robbie are seen here
At the same time, it emerged that photos shared by women and underage girls on their social media were being faked to appear nude by a deepfake bot on the messaging app Telegram.
More than 100,000 non-consensual sexual images of 10,000 women and girls that were created using the bot were shared online between July 2019 and 2020, according to a report by deepfake detection firm Sensity.
‘Unfortunately, a big chunk of these kinds of fake videos were created for pornographic purposes, and that (caused) a lot of … psychological damage to the victims,’ Lyu said.
Celebrities including actress Kristen Bell and model Vogue Williams have spoken out about porn deepfakes of themselves circulating.
Bell said in 2020 she felt ‘exploited’ after discovering a pornographic video featuring an AI woman who resembled her, while Williams said she ‘found it weird’ and worried her children would see the fake clip.
