Content
When you see a picture online, how can you be sure it’s true? That’s right, you can’t. And that’s because of two of the most fascinating and potentially disruptive technologies: deepfakes and digital humans.
Let’s reveal the difference between a deepfake avatar and a digital human as these technologies continue to integrate into our daily lives. With this brief overview from DigiMate pros, you’ll learn to distinguish between them to harness their full potential. Let's start!
The Definition Unfolded
AI-generated pictures, created using advanced algorithms like Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), are synthetic images produced without direct input from cameras or real subjects. These images range from realistic human faces to imaginative scenes. Let’s delve deep into each one of the tech cores.
What is a Deepfake?
Foremost, a realistic deepfake is synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else's likeness using artificial intelligence (AI). Since its creation, this technology has gained notoriety for its potential misuse in creating misleading content, such as fake news, deceptive videos, and fraudulent schemes. For example, deepfakes have been linked to a surge in cyber attacks and phishing scams, with a 3,000% increase in related incidents noted in 2023.
What are Digital Humans?
Unlike deepfakes, which manipulate real footage, digital humans are entirely synthetic creations from scratch. They are created using advanced 3D modeling, animation, and rendering techniques. These virtual characters can be designed to look, act, and speak like real humans, often for use in video games, films, virtual reality, and customer service applications. So it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish the truth. So the necessity to implement special markings of computer-generated content is at hand. H2 The Technologies Behind
Since deepfake VR and digital humans are complex technologies, let’s consider where they root from and why are so lifelike and persuasive.
Dubbing
Dubbing is replacing the original audio track of a film or video with a new one in a different language. Deepfake technology can be used in dubbing to synchronize the lip movements of actors with the new audio, creating a seamless viewing experience. Digital humans, on the other hand, can be programmed thanks to dubbing to speak any language with perfect lip-sync.
Aging and De-aging
Aging and de-aging techniques involve altering the appearance of a person to make them look older or younger. Celebrity deepfake VR technology applies age-related transformations to the faces of actors in videos to achieve this. On the other hand, digital humans are created at any age from the outset, allowing for complete control over their appearance and aging process.
Voice Cloning
Voice cloning uses AI to replicate a person's voice. Deepfake voice cloning involves recording a person's voice and using AI algorithms to generate new speech in that person's voice. This technology also can be used to create synthetic speech that sounds like the original speaker. That’s why digital humans can have voices generated from scratch or use cloned voices to enhance their realism.
Music Cloning
Music cloning replicates a musician's style or creates new music that sounds like it was produced by a specific artist. For example, Rhianna’s songs by Freddi Mercury. Deepfake technology analyzes and replicates the musical style, voice, and instrumentation to produce new, synthetic tracks. Meantime, digital humans can be designed as virtual musicians, capable of performing and producing music in various styles.
Face Swapping
Face swapping is digitally replacing one person's face with another's in images or videos. Deepfake technology excels at face swapping. It creates highly realistic results that can be difficult to distinguish from real footage. Digital humans, however, do not require face swapping as their appearances are entirely synthetic and can be designed to look like anyone.
The Difference Between Deepfakes and Digital Humans
We have discovered the primary deepfake comparison with digital humans lies in their creation and application. So let’s compare them.
Deepfakes | Digital Humans | |
|---|---|---|
Creation | manipulate existing real-world media to alter appearances | entirely computer-generated from the ground up |
Applications | often used in media manipulation, entertainment, and potentially malicious activities like misinformation | used in virtual environments, customer service, gaming, and film production where creating a realistic human-like character is needed |
Control | limited by the quality and nature of the source media | offer greater control over their appearance, behavior, and capabilities as they are designed and animated digitally |
Conclusion
While both deepfakes and AI digital human leverage advanced AI and computer graphics technologies, they serve different purposes and have distinct creation processes. Deepfakes manipulate real-world media to create synthetic alterations, often raising ethical concerns. Digital humans, on the other hand, are fully synthetic creations designed for a wide range of applications in entertainment and beyond. Understanding these differences is crucial as these technologies continue to evolve and impact various aspects of society.
We hope that this little tour helped to uncover some difficulties and considerations in the modern digital sphere. The experts from DigiMate excel at creating digital humans, so we’re ready to answer your questions and help to leverage your online projects from games to business tasks. Contact us to create your own metahuman 3D avatar!