Deepfake
Also: deepfakes, synthetic media
A fake photo, video, or voice recording made by AI that looks or sounds real.
The fuller definition
A deepfake is synthetic audio, image, or video generated or altered by AI to depict events or statements that did not occur.
- Source
Real samples
- Generation
Synthetic media
- Verification
Provenance and corroboration
A simplified relationship, not a screenshot or a complete design.
A concrete example
A voice recording attributed to a party is generated from a few minutes of real audio.
The distinction that matters
Realism is not authenticity. Provenance, metadata, and corroboration are the questions, not whether it looks convincing.
Related terms
Provenance
The record of where a piece of information came from and how it got here.
FoundationsMultimodal
Able to work with more than text, such as images, audio, or video.
FoundationsGenerative AI
AI that makes content, such as text, images, or sound. What it makes may be wrong or may resemble existing work.
Where it is taught
Reading AI-assisted material from the benchSource and further reading
Anthropic · Evaluating AI agentsThe definition and example are written for this library. The link gives background, official documentation or legal authority as labelled. Legal scope depends on the jurisdiction and current text; product features depend on release and settings.