That moment my aunt believed a deepfake of me and it got awkward fast

So last month I sent my aunt a video of me talking about some family history stuff for a project. She calls me 10 minutes later freaking out because she saw a different video of me online saying I quit my job and moved to Mexico. I had to explain deepfakes to a 60 year old over the phone it took forever. She still doesn't fully trust any video I send now which is weird because she used to believe everything. Has anyone else had someone close to you get fooled by a fake video and then question everything you share?

3 comments

3 Comments

ivan77415d ago

You know I gotta be honest with you I see this a little different. Me and my buddies mess around with AI voice stuff all the time just for laughs and my mom caught on pretty quick. I think your aunt might still be getting used to the idea that videos can be fake and that's not really her fault. She probably spent 60 years trusting what she saw on a screen and now that trust got broken overnight. Give her some time maybe show her how those fakes work step by step and she'll come around.

james_bell15d ago

Little late to this but I gotta push back a tiny bit on the "she'll come around" part. My dad was an engineer who built satellite stuff for 40 years and he still falls for deepfake stuff sometimes. It's not always about lack of technical understanding. Some people just process visual information differently. Like my dad can look at a blurry image of a bush and tell you what species of shrub it is from the leaf pattern, but put a clearly fake video of a politician in front of him and he'll believe it without question. Brains are weird like that.

moore.beth15d ago

You know your aunt spent 60 years trusting what she saw on a screen" is the part that really got me thinking. Nobody is talking about how maybe it's not just about getting used to fakes, but about grieving a whole way of understanding the world that just vanished. She lost something real, her trust in what her own eyes tell her, and that's a loss most people aren't ready for.