MIT Technology Review has chosen not to name the service, which we will call Y, or use any direct quotes and screenshots of its contents, to avoid driving traffic to the site. All it requires is the picture and the push of a button. Above it, the tag line boldly proclaims the purpose: turn anyone into a porn star by using deepfake technology to swap the person’s face into an adult video. Below the button, four AI-generated faces allow you to test the service. Against a white backdrop, a giant blue button invites visitors to upload a picture of a face. The website is eye-catching for its simplicity. We will continue to monitor the site for more changes. The future of deepfakes will definitely be memeified.Update: As of September 14, a day after this story published, Y posted a new notice saying it is now unavailable. But it’s the latest example of what will be an ever-more prominent trend, as deepfake apps become the latest meme templates, allowing users to mash together favorite characters, trending songs, choreographed dances, public figures, and so much more. Wombo is far from the first app to use machine learning to create quick and fun deepfakes. “It gives them this new viral marketing tool.” “It’s going to give a completely new way of engaging audiences,” he says. Wombo has already been approached by artists wanting to get their music on the app, says Benkhin, and it’s likely this could offer a revenue stream in addition to the current premium tier (which pays for priority processing and no in-app ads). When asked whether the app has the proper licenses for the music it uses, he demures to answer but says the team is working on it.Īs with TikTok, though, it seems the reach offered by Wombo could help ameliorate license-holders’ worries about rights. Have this cursed abomination I made using the Wombo app before I go to sleep /YrRyJKSkj3- Starolu Platichu March 11, 2021Ĭurrently, Wombo offers just 14 short clips of songs to lip-sync with, but Benkhin says he plans to expand these options soon.
AI DEEPFAKE APP DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE
Benkhin notes that the software is built “on top of existing work” but with subsequent tweaks and improvements that make it “our own proprietary model.” The app is also an example of the fast-paced world of AI research, where new techniques can become consumer products in a matter of weeks. “We steal the motions from their face and apply it to your photo,” he says. He and his team shot the base video for each song in his studio (“which is really just a room in my apartment”) and then use these to animate each image. “I did some digging into ,” says Benkhin, “and apparently there was some pizza place that started all this, where they would put a shit-ton of toppings on all their pizza and call it a Wombo Combo.”īenkhin says the app works by morphing faces using predefined choreography. True to these origins, Wombo has proved particularly popular with gamers who’ve used it to animate characters from titles like League of Legends, Fallout: New Vegas, and Dragon Age. “If a player lands like a crazy combination then the casters will start yelling ‘Wombo Combo! Wombo Combo!’” says Benkhin. In the short term, at least, deepfakes are going to be obviously fabricated and instant meme-bait.Ī post shared by fleshman app’s name comes from esports slang, specifically Super Smash Bros. One-click fakes that can be created with zero effort and expertise, by comparison, still look like those made by the Wombo app and will continue to do so for the immediate future.
The realistic Tom Cruise deepfakes that went viral on TikTok, for example, required an experienced VFX artist, a top-flight impersonator, and weeks of preparation to pull off. It’s certainly getting quicker and easier to make AI-generated fakes, but the more convincing they are, the more work is needed. They’re stupid, fun, and offer a useful look at the current state of deepfakes.
Maybe it was Ryu from Street Fighter singing the “Witch Doctor” or the last three heads of the US Federal Reserve miming in unison to Rick Astley’s “Never Going to Give You Up.” Each clip features exaggerated facial expressions and uncanny, sometimes nightmarish animation. You’ve probably already seen a Wombo video floating around your social media.