The article is here; the Introduction:
In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, a cleverly created scene has Tom Hank's character, Forrest Gump, meeting President John F. Kennedy. The newsreel voice-over begins: "President Kennedy met with the members of the all-collegiate football team today in the Oval Office." The narration is picked up by Gump: "Now the really good thing about meeting the President of the United States is the food. . . . I must have drunk me about fifteen Doctor Peppers." By the time it is his turn to meet the President, however, the sodas have taken their toll on an increasingly anxious Gump. Kennedy is seen asking most players, "How does it feel to be an All-American?" To Gump, he simply says, "How do you feel," to which Gump answers honestly, "I gotta pee." Kennedy laughs, commenting to the reporters, "I believe he said he had to go pee." This famous interaction between the fictional character and the long-dead president remains shocking in its apparent—but illusory—authenticity.
Two decades later, the technology to construct such scenes has gone from a feat of amazing cinematographic wizardry to common internet filler. Kendrick Lamar used deepfake technology to morph his image into that of "O.J. Simpson, Kanye West, Jussie Smollett, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hussle." In March 2023, a photograph of "Pope Francis wearing a big white Balenciaga-style puffer jacket" became an internet staple. Unsurprisingly, synthetic media has also been used for military disinformation. In the Russian war against Ukraine, a video depicting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordering Ukrainian troops to lay down their arms and surrender appeared both on social media and broadcast briefly on Ukrainian news. Some synthetic content has already found commercial adoptions such as the replacement of South Korean news anchor Kim Joo-Ha with a synthetic look-alike on South Korean television channel MBN, or one company's introduction of internet influencer Lil Miquela, an alleged nineteen-year-old, as their spokesperson. In reality, Miquela is an entirely artificial avatar created by AI media agency Brud. She has over 3 million Instagram followers and has participated in brand campaigns since 2016. She is expected to earn Brud in excess of $1 million in the coming year for her sponsored posts.
