Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif has become the latest victim of deepfake technology — a morphed photo of her towel scene in the Diwali 2023 release Tiger 3 has gone viral on social media. This has come just a couple of days after actress Rashmika Mandanna’s deepfake photo surfaced, showing her in a lift, wearing workout clothes with a plunging neckline.
In the original scene of Tiger 3, as seen in the trailer, a towel-clad Katrina is engaged in a fight with Hollywood actress Michelle Lee. In the now-viral deepfake photo, the same scene has Katrina in a different outfit: a white bikini top with a deep neckline and a matching bottom.
“Deepfake” refers to a type of synthetic media, typically a video, photo or audio recording, that has been manipulated or generated using Artificial Intelligence techniques. The algorithms are used to superimpose or replace the likeness of a person in an existing video or audio clip with someone else’s likeness. This can be done in a highly convincing manner, making it appear as if the manipulated content is real.
Yesterday, Rashmika strongly reacted to her deepfake video, which went viral on social media. “Today, as a woman and as an actor, I am thankful for my family, friends and well-wishers who are my protection and support system. But if this happened to me when I was in school or college, I genuinely can’t imagine how could I ever tackle this. We need to address this as a community and with urgency before more of us are affected by such identity theft,” a part of her note read.
In the viral video, it can be seen that a woman with Rashmika’s face is entering a lift wearing a black exercise unitard. The video quickly went viral and several social media users came forward to confirm that it was a deepfake.
(The article is published under a mutual content partnership arrangement between The Free Press Journal and Connected to India)