In a new study, deepfake video clips of movie remakes that don't actually exist prompted participants to falsely remember the films—but simple text descriptions of the fake movies prompted similar false memory rates. Gillian Murphy of University College Cork, Ireland, and Lero, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software, and colleagues presented these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
  • Deep fake videos can evoke false memories of the movies.
  • The study was conducted with the participation of 436 people.
  • Participants watched fake remake videos and text descriptions.
  • On average, 49% of participants believed that each fake remake was real.
  • The frequency of false memories from textual descriptions was just as high.
  • Deep forgery technology is no more effective than other memory corruption tools.
  • Participants expressed concern about the use of deep forgery technology.
  • Research shows that non-technical means can be effective in distorting memory.