Tech
Face-swap app Doublicat can deepfake GIFs in seconds
But you can only choose from a list of GIFs in pre-selected categories.
Forget boring old face swaps — what if you could put any face on any GIFs in seconds? That’s just what the app Doublicat sets out to do, and it does a pretty fantastic job at it. The app is available for both Android and iOS devices.
Doublicat’s release comes just as prominent tech companies like Facebook and Reddit ban deepfakes almost completely. Both companies have left room in their policies for parody deepfakes, though — and Doublicat’s altered GIFs will mostly fall into that cateogory.
For example, here’s me as Ashely O (of “On A Roll” fame):
Not just any GIF — There’s no search feature in Doublicat, and you can’t upload your own GIFs for deepfaking. Instead users are greeted with about 20 categories to scroll through, including everything from “hot” to “Star Wars” and “Game of Thrones.” So you can’t just find any GIF on the internet and replace it with Mark Zuckerberg’s face.
It looks good but not that good — These deepfaked GIFs aren’t really going to fool anyone. My attempts are clearly faked, and there’s a huge Doublicat watermark in the upper right, too. It would be pretty difficult to use Doublicat to make any sort of actual deepfake. These GIFs will almost all fall into the broad “parody or satire” category Reddit and Facebook are still allowing.
How does it work? — Doublicat uses the RefaceAI network to replace one face with another in seconds. RefaceAI is a generative adversarial network (GAN) that uses neural networks to swap faces without needing to use 3D models of your face. Simply snap a selfie (or a picture of another face) when you open the app and add it to any of the selected GIFs.
The best part: Doublicat promises it isn’t storing your selfies in its servers. It doesn’t need to, thanks to RefaceAI. (Looking at you, FaceApp.)
