deepfake

noun

deep·​fake ˈdēp-ˌfāk How to pronounce deepfake (audio)
plural deepfakes
: an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said
Two artists and an advertising company created a deepfake of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg saying things he never said, and uploaded it to Instagram.Samantha Cole
No law regulates deepfakes, though some legal and technical experts have recommended adapting current laws covering libel, defamation, identity fraud or impersonating a government official. But concerns of overregulation abound: The dividing line between a parody protected by the First Amendment and deepfake political propaganda may not always be clear-cut.Drew Harwell
With Mueller warning of future election meddling, [Representative Adam] Schiff said that one of his biggest concerns for future campaigns was the development of deepfake technology—the ability to manipulate videos or audio to change what a person appears to have said. 'How do we prepare against the late distribution of a fraudulent video?' Schiff said.Elias Groll and Amy Mackinnon

Did you know?

The old maxim "things aren’t always as they seem" seems more true than ever in the age of deepfakes. A deepfake is an image, or a video or audio recording, that has been edited using an algorithm to replace the person in the original with someone else (especially a public figure) in a way that makes it look authentic. The fake in deepfake is transparent: deepfakes are not real. The deep is less self-explanatory: this half of the term is specifically influenced by deep learning—that is, machine learning using artificial neural networks with multiple layers of algorithms.

Examples of deepfake in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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As bad actors exploit affordable and easy-to-use generative AI tools to create deepfakes to defraud financial institutions and unsuspecting customers, fraud losses will likely only continue to climb. Theodora Lau, Forbes.com, 9 May 2025 Staying Safe in the Age of Criminal AI Unsurprisingly, much of the work to protect against criminal AI, such as detecting deepfakes and fraudulent e-mails, has been done for companies. Deni Ellis Béchard, Scientific American, 7 May 2025 Forums on the site allowed users to buy and sell custom nonconsensual deepfake content, as well as discuss practices for making deepfakes. Layla Ferris, CBS News, 5 May 2025 Scammers are using live deepfakes in video calls, changing their race, gender, and voice in real time. Jia Tolentino, New Yorker, 3 May 2025 See All Example Sentences for deepfake

Word History

First Known Use

2018, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of deepfake was in 2018

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Cite this Entry

“Deepfake.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deepfake. Accessed 21 May. 2025.

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