Making Deepfakes Gets Cheaper and Easier Thanks to A.I. – The New York Times

“The production of such fakes should be a crime with a mandatory ten-year sentence,” Mr. Peterson said in a tweet about fake videos featuring his voice. “This tech is dangerous beyond belief.”

In a statement, a spokeswoman for YouTube said the video of Mr. Rogan and Mr. Trudeau did not violate the platform’s policies because it “provides sufficient context.” (The creator had described it as a “fake video.”) The company said its misinformation policies banned content that was doctored in a misleading way.

Experts who study deepfake technology suggested that the fake ad featuring Mr. Rogan and Dr. Huberman had most likely been created with a voice-cloning program, though the exact tool used was not clear. The audio of Mr. Rogan was spliced into a real interview with Dr. Huberman discussing testosterone.

The results are not perfect. Mr. Rogan’s clip was taken from an unrelated interview posted in December with Fedor Gorst, a professional pool player. Mr. Rogan’s mouth movements are mismatched to the audio, and his voice sounds unnatural at times. If the video convinced TikTok users, it was hard to tell: It attracted far more attention after it was flagged for its impressive fakery.

TikTok’s policies prohibit digital forgeries “that mislead users by distorting the truth of events and cause significant harm to the subject of the video, other persons or society.” Several of the videos were removed after The New York Times flagged them to the company. Twitter also removed some of the videos.

A TikTok spokesman said the company used “a combination of technology and human moderation to detect and remove” manipulated videos, but declined to elaborate on its methods.

Mr. Rogan and the company featured in the fake ad did not respond to requests for comment.

Many social media companies, including Meta and Twitch, have banned deepfakes and manipulated videos that deceive users. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, ran a competition in 2021 to develop programs capable of identifying deepfakes, resulting in one tool that could spot them 83 percent of the time.