Review Of Deepfake Technology From The Consequentialism And Deontology Perspectives

Deepfake is technology that is used to modify images or videos by combining them with the source image or video. This technology was first found on the internet in 2017 on Reddit. The capability of this technology makes it easier to create or modify the audio and videos of real people saying and doing things that they have never said or done. By using the advanced techniques of machine learning concept, Deepfake is becoming the most sophisticated technology for creating a content that looks more realistic and difficult for identifying whether it is real or fake. It uses machine learning algorithms to alter the faces or voices of actual people into videos that we wanted to modify. This technology will bring with it a few benefits, but also certain harms.

In this essay, we will now discuss for both positive and negative impacts on the view of consequentialism and deontology. Consequentialism is an ethical concept that is towards the consequence of one’s conduct or action. Consequentialism is thinking about the results of a task or an action. Whereas for Deontology is more about the rules, and regulation in performing an action. If we take a simple example, let us assume of a video of a politician from a superpower, regarding some controversial and intensive comments on the action taken by its enemy nation for nuclear weapons. Here if we think from point of view of consequentialism, it might impact on the relationship of both the countries, it is more likely to get intensify then the present situation or it may help to re-evaluate the actions taken by the other nation. And from the view of Deontology, it is correct from the aspect of political agendas or for the safeguard of humanity it is correct to make such comments. We will first discuss the positive side of using Deepfake, a sophisticated technology in our real world and society with a lot of different beliefs, idea, rules and regulations.

So from the aspect of a technology machine learning, artificial intelligence are the current most trending concepts which are based on data interpretation and analysis. Using these concepts, Deepfake has become one of the most advanced technology for image processing and modification. We have seen a lot of technologies for photo and video editings like photoshops and video modifiers which are used just to enhance the quality of the content and as well as to modify in some scenarios. But this has certain limitations on how and what can be done to the source content. With Deepfake, it has beaten all these concepts of content modification and took it to the next level. By implementing the most complex concepts of machine learning, for which I was always fascinated to learn but I realized that it is not my cup of tea, Deepfake made it possible to overcome the limitation in using the old methods to modify the content.

Let us take an example of a positive side with Deepfake technology. Thinking as a movie lover, if this technology is more developed and used in making a movie, in some scenarios it might be helpful for the movie makers in terms of budgets and time taken for making a movie, but this should be with several strict “rules and regulation”. The reason for stressing on the rules and regulation is that there is more chance of misusing this technology. Let me explain with this example below with more clear idea on how it can be used. “Fast and Furious”, one of the popular action movie series, in this series we have a lead role played by late Paul Walker. In the year 2013, the whole world of Fast and Furious fans was in great shock with the sudden demise of the actor in an accident. It was the 6th part of the movie in this year to be released and was in the process of making. So the movie unit and production house were in huge shock with this incident as he was the playing the important role for the whole movie series. After this incident took place then they have decided to take help of CGI technology to complete the part of the movie that has Paul Walker, this CGI process takes a lot of time and investment to interpret the realistic effect.

In such scenarios, if we had this technology like Deepfake, with more advancements, it might have helped the movie team to complete it with less struggle, money and time. So here if we think from the point of consequentialism, for making the movie using Deepfake it would have saved a lot of money and time for the team and also the outcome would be more efficient and quality in the content that is created and also be more realistic. But here if we evaluate the negative side of this, it might be more problematic when these type of things are done without proper consent and permissions from the person. So in our case, using CGI/Deepfake to create content with consent from the actor’s family will be an ethical and moral way of doing things in respect to the late actor. And also if we think of Deontological aspect, I believe that it is correct to use this kind of technologies under well-bounded regulations because it is the job of the movie makers to complete for what they committed for, as entertainment and making money out of it is the important aspect behind that.