In Nina Schick's book "Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse", the origins and implications of deepfake technology are explored. As this technology advances, it can enable harmful activities like non-consensual AI pornography and distortion of historical events for advertising purposes. Furthermore, synthetic media, defined as manipulated or altered media from its original source, has far-reaching societal implications. By examining the history of media manipulation, the authors aim to shed light on how deepfakes and synthetic media can shape our collective reality and potentially contribute to detrimental effects in areas like geopolitics.

Yet even with these implications regarding capturing reality as real and authentic, historically, photography has been used to dismay reality and facilitate propaganda and the rewriting of history. This is especially evident in the case of Joseph Stalin, who was known for his historical manipulation of photography as " his creed became synonymous with the rewriting of history, including of the visual record( pg.19)." Looking through this historical lens of photo manipulation, it allows for us as a society now to see how Deepfakes will inevitably facilitate societal detriments. This is corroborated by the historical fact that "By 1990, as the Soviet Empire was breathing its last, photographic manipulation had started to become available to the masses through Photoshop, a commercial tool that democratized and improved one the manual work of the Soviet craftsmen and women under Stalin (pg.21)." Despite these historical facts recognizing that non-human mediums of capturing reality such as photography and film might not always be real because of manipulation, physiologically we as humans are "wired to want to believe audiovisual material that "looks" or sounds" right(...) we tend to believe that video and audio footage captures what we would have seen with our own eyes or heard with our owns ears, so they function as an extension of our perception (pg.22)." This is especially harmful for everyone involved in our current information age as " audio and video are developing at a time when these media are becoming the most important form of human communication- not only for the digitally savvy but for everyone( pg.22)." Thus as a result there will be a divide among everyone when coming across audiovisual content as how can one truly know what they are seeing is real, or a byproduct of manipulation and corrupt synthesis? Due to how massive our current information age is, " we are not only mass consumers of audiovisual media, but also its produces( pg.22)." Thus, the implications of audiovisual manipulation will affect not only us consumers but also creators of the content that many if not all will have trouble analyzing whether it is real. Currently, our collective perception of reality is through what we see and hear, but what happens if what we see and hear are not real but byproducts of mass corruption in the information age? This affects the idea and the circulation of Deepfake technology and its interactions with a human-based market tenfold. 

Before Deepfakes became a part of mainstream society, special effect technologies long existed in the art of cinema through the usage of SFX and CCGI systems. This was especially prevalent in the making of The Irishman as the director used these technologies to 'de-age; his cast, however, that effect did not translate on camera or cinema. However, when a YouTuber by the name of "iFake" used free AI software to replicate and advance the image the director of the movie was trying to portray, they did an excellent job of de-aging the characters. However, as stated by the author, the YouTuber's attempt at using AI to artificially manipulate the faces of people became "an early indicator of the power of synthetic media (pg. 23.)." This is ultimately scary because synthetic media is now a manifestation of the once "exclusive domain of science-fiction (pg. 24)." Thus through the advancement of AI technologies it will become harder for people to ascertain what is real and what is not.

The AI revolution of deep learning and neural networks transformed face recognition and face swapping to create the software that helped establish the atrocity that Deepfakes are today. Deep learning for computative AI is largely based on neural networks and the modeling of human brains in a technical sphere. This is especially concerning when drawing back from our previous readings regarding the objectivity of human biases in automotive computer software and the atrocities they lead to. The origins of a Deepfake stem from the emerging AI of "face swap," where a computer replaces or swaps "someone's likeness into an existing video(pg.25)" As the technology for face-swap began to develop more and more, so did the internet rules regarding Deepfakes began. Among these rules, there began "almost universal acceptance of Rule#34: 'There is porn of it. No exceptions." And so it goes that there is pron when it comes to AI video creation (pg.25)." This is especially concerning as Deep Fakes evolved into the social atrocities that they are today with AI non-consensual pron. Before AI intervention in non-consensual porn, there was already a market for this devious craft, but albeit was not as stark, was the "circulation of fake ( and leaked celebrity porn... (pg.25)." However, in comparison to Deepfake AI porn, the previous versions of photoshopping a picture were not as dangerous as the new inventions of AI pron as in AI porn individuals who are victims of this "moved, smiled, winced, and fucked (pg.25)." Thus, marking its distinction and advancement in societal detriments when regarding faked, manipulated, and ultimately nonconsenual pron. These proved to be especially devious as there was a Reddit group facilitating the creation of Deeepfake pron of celebrities, whose creator of the forum ultimately ended up sharing the code of how to partake in this devious craft before the forum got shut down for " involuntary pornography (pg.27)." This is especially concerning because there are now many individuals with access to this code wreaking havoc on innocent individuals who are victims to this type of sexual and cyberviolence. An interesting fact regarding this these deepfakes is that "Deepfake porn is an undeniably gendered phenomenon (pg.28)". This is especially concerning given the already catastrophic results of gender-based cyber and sexual violence that occurs now and with the advancement and propagation of Deepfake technologies, this fact will only become increasingly more prevalent and true. This proves to be especially distressing regarding the act of taking down these Deepfake porn websites is that every country has different laws regulating image creation and circulation. For example, "Every country has its own legalese regarding the right to your own image. So while you may be able to take down sites in the U.S. that are using your face, the same rules might not apply in Germany (pg.29)." 

Yet the AI revolution did not just expand with face-swapping, but the general creation of Human-like faces on automotive computer sets, such as GAN, the first generative adversarial network, which "generated human faces that were better than anything AI had made before (pg.30.)." Due to this, close to perfect synthetic images were made to imitate human faces. This has helped the expansion of Synthetic media in games like FIFA and other advertising sources like the ESPN commercial featuring Michael Jordan during the Chicago Bulls 1990s winning streak, where they manipulate an interview to foreshadow the documentary they are trying to promote( pg.31). Thus this showcases the effect these emerging technologies regarding Deep fakes will have on our society as through pushing out commercial entities like cinema or product placement for media games like FIFA what will the effect be on humans and those who regulate themselves in this Information age?