We’ve all seen AI-generated deepfake photos and videos of famous people. Earlier this year, French president Macron launched his Paris AI summit with a video of him in various poses and with some extraordinary hairstyles. The video clips were exaggerated to point out their lack of authenticity.

But what happens when the deepfake is harder to distinguish from reality? With tools like DALL-E, OpenAI’s ChatGPT-based art generation chatbot, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell what is fake. 

It's all a bit of fun until bad actors get involved…

A quick bit of desk research uncovered a variety of websites (not even on the dark web) that let you create a very basic deepfake video for less than £5.00. Most people use these services for fun - maybe to make a spoof birthday or anniversary message - or to design a piece of digital art.