Can AI generate a realistic deepfake video of a public figure speaking ?

Capability and societal harm scaled together. Detection is now a parallel arms race.

---

AI can generate realistic deepfake videos of public figures speaking, but the quality and believability of these videos vary greatly depending on the complexity of the scene, the availability of training data, and the capabilities of the algorithms used. Current state-of-the-art methods, such as those using generative adversarial networks (GANs) and deep neural networks, can produce highly convincing videos, but they often require significant computational resources and large amounts of data to train. However, detecting deepfakes is also an active area of research, and many organizations are working to develop methods to identify and mitigate the spread of fake videos. The potential for misuse of deepfake technology has raised concerns about its impact on public discourse and trust in media.

— Enriched May 9, 2026 · Source: IEEE Spectrum — https://spectrum.ieee.org-tags/deepfakes