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Deepfake videos are getting shockingly good [techcrunch.com]:

Researchers from TikTok owner ByteDance have demoed a new AI system, OmniHuman-1 [github.io], that can generate perhaps the most realistic deepfake videos to date.

Deepfaking AI is a commodity. There’s no shortage of apps that can insert someone into a photo, or make a person appear to say something they didn’t actually say. But most deepfakes — and video deepfakes in particular — fail to clear the uncanny valley. There’s usually some tell or obvious sign that AI was involved somewhere.

Not so with OmniHuman-1 — at least from the cherry-picked samples the ByteDance team released.

Here’s a fictional Taylor Swift performance:

Here’s a TED Talk that never took place:

And here’s a deepfaked Einstein lecture:

According to the ByteDance researchers, OmniHuman-1 only needs a single reference image and audio, like speech or vocals, to generate a clip of an arbitrary length. The output video’s aspect ratio is adjustable, as is the subject’s “body proportion” — i.e. how much of their body is shown in the fake footage.

Trained on 19,000 hours of video content from undisclosed sources, OmniHuman-1 can also edit existing videos — even modifying the movements of a person’s limbs. It’s truly astonishing how convincing the result can be.

Granted, OmniHuman-1 isn’t perfect. The ByteDance team says that “low-quality” reference images won’t yield the best videos, and the system seems to struggle with certain poses. Note the weird gestures with the wine glass in this video:

Original Submission