Tom Cruise looks at the camera. “I’m going to show you some magic,” he says holding up a coin. “It’s the real thing”, the Hollywood actor insists, giving his trademark laugh and making the coin disappear. “It’s all the real thing.”
Millions have watched the video on TikTok, with many initially wondering if the 58-year-old Mission: Impossible star had joined the video-sharing platform beloved of teenagers.
Except this is not Cruise but a “deepfake” video, one of several of the actor that have garnered millions of views and shares across social media. They have led experts to warn that deepfake technology is advancing much faster than most people realise.
The three videos first appeared on TikTok and have been created by an account called “deeptomcruise”. They show the Top Gun actor apparently performing a magic trick, playing golf before bending to talk to the camera, and falling over in a fashionable clothes store before telling an anecdote about Mikhail Gorbachev.
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“It’s all the real thing,” Tom Cruise insists, looking into the camera.
Except the viral TikTok videos of him are not real: they’re “deepfakes”. But what is a “deepfake”, and why are they so worrying? https://t.co/3Gyovahnwi
— The Times (@thetimes) March 1, 2021