Are deepfakes convincing enough to create false memories?

There is an important caveat, however, because as disconcerting as the results might be, using deepfakes to misrepresent the past did not appear to be any more effective than reading text descriptions of imaginary movies.

Participants viewed clips or descriptions of movie remakes. Some were real studio remakes (e.g. Carrie, Tomb Raider), while others were fictitious deepfakes: Brad Pitt in The Shining, Will Smith in the Matrix, Charlize Theron in Captain Marvel, Chris Pratt in Indiana Jones. pic.twitter.com/AhXnhQpaZY

— Gillian Murphy (@gillysmurf) July 13, 2023

As lead author Gillian Murphy explains, the findings consequently do not indicate a ‘uniquely powerful threat’ posed by deepfakes compared to existing forms of misinformation.

‘The current evidence suggests they’re not uniquely powerful in terms of distorting memory, but they’re just as effective as the written word, which is a powerful vehicle for misinformation as we know,’ she told The Daily Beast.

‘So our study doesn’t claim that that deepfakes can’t distort our memories, just that they’re not any more effective than existing methods.’

Additionally, a key component of the potential success of deepfakes is what’s known as ‘motivated reasoning’ – the tendency for people to unintentionally allow preconceived notions and biases to manipulate their memory.

In other words, while humans might not necessarily be swayed by deepfakes or fake news, they might be more inclined to seek out articles and opinions that affirm their worldview.

All were presented as if they were real and participants were asked if they had seen it and to rate how it compared to the original. pic.twitter.com/MYxzAJnrDy

— Gillian Murphy (@gillysmurf) July 13, 2023

Taking evidence at face value without much scrutiny this way is what’s behind the ‘Mandela Effect,’ where large groups of people collectively share a false memory.

This is what Murphy deems to be at play.

‘Our memories don’t work like video cameras – they have not evolved to perfectly preserve memories of exactly what happened,’ she finishes.

‘Instead, our memories are what we call ‘reconstructive’, where every time we recall something we build the memory in our minds. In this building process, we sometimes make errors by forgetting a piece or the event or adding in something that wasn’t there originally.’

‘While this can mean our memories are sometimes inaccurate, it often serves us very well as we can update our memories to reflect things we have learned.’