What are deepfake videos and how can you spot them?
Lawmakers are voicing their concerns about deepfakes, videos that appear real but have been altered in some way.
In a deepfake video, actor and filmmaker Jordan Peele morphed himself into former President Barack Obama. The video is pretty convincing and has caused concern for some.
"We're entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time," Peel said during the video in which he morphed into Obama. "You see, I would never say these things, at least not in a public address, but someone else would. Someone like Jordan Peele."
Deepfake videos are computer-generated replicas that have been run through an algorithm, in some cases, to make one face resemble another.
"Deepfakes are videos that are created not just by people," said Marc Blitz, a professor at the Oklahoma City University School of Law. "People have a hand in their creation but with the use of artificial intelligence."
The results are videos or images of a person saying or doing things they never did.
"The idea is to make it look like it's showing a real event, indistinguishable from a real event, but it's showing something that never happened," Blitz said. "It's showing people doing things they never did."
Blitz, who recently wrote an essay about deepfake videos and the First Amendment, said they might be detectable to the naked eye now. The high-tech forgeries, however, are only getting more sophisticated.
"The feeling is it won't be all that long before the technology can produce videos that are identical to the real thing and that even the best detection methods can't distinguish from the real thing," Blitz said.
Elections could be prime targets for deepfake videos.
"It's conceivable that someone sympathetic to one candidate would create a deepfake showing the candidate's opponent saying terrible things, that do cost them votes but that they never really said," Blitz said.
The U.S. Department of Defense already is working on methods to counter deepfakes. Lawmakers such as Sen. James Lankford are taking notice and sounding the alarm about deepfakes, speaking in the fall to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Lankford also called on social media giants, such as Facebook and Twitter, to help stop the spread of deepfake videos.
"Americans typically can trust what they see and, suddenly in video, they can no longer trust what they see because of the opportunity to create video that's entirely different than anything in reality has now actually come," Lankford said.
Experts said the key to spotting deepfake videos is to watch for blurring that's only on the face, a change of skin tone on the edge of the face, facial features that look a little off and flickering in the video. Also, deepfakes typically are shorter clips.
"There's a reason why technologists are worried," Blitz said. "There's a reason that lawmakers are worried."