SECAI Core · phase 11 of 15 · noun

Deep fake

The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to generate a highly-realistic video of a person. A fake video rendered using deep learning.

The Explain card

Plain English
A deep fake is a highly realistic fake video (or audio) of a person generated with deep learning. The face, voice, or both are synthesized so convincingly that viewers believe it is genuine.
Example
An employee receives a video message from the "CEO" announcing an urgent acquisition and instructing them to share confidential financials with an outside address.
Why it matters
Seeing and hearing are no longer proof. Defenders build verification steps for high-stakes requests, train staff to expect fakes, and consider content authentication tools.
Hook
A face you trust, wearing someone else's intent.

Word knowledge

How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.

In a sentence

Investigators compared lip movements with the audio track before labeling the campaign video a deep fake.

Why these words
  • deep Old English dēop, profound or extending far down links the phrase to deep learning
  • fake English slang of uncertain origin, recorded in the late 18th century serves as the head noun and marks the item as fabricated
Where it came from
Origin
English compound formed from deep learning and fake, popularized through the Reddit account name deepfakes
Entered the language
2017
What changed
It began as an online label, then entered journalism, computing, law, and security vocabulary; the closed spelling deepfake became standard.
How it is spelled
Pattern
The ee in deep is a common spelling for the long e sound.
Pattern
The final silent e in fake marks the preceding a as long.
Breaks the pattern
The supplied open form deep fake competes with the now-standard closed form deepfake.

Spelled like

  • sleep
  • keep
  • make
  • take
Broken into chunks
  • deep
    • deep learning
    • deep neural network
  • fake
    • faker
    • fakery
What it sits beside

Same subject

Same shape

  • false flag
  • fake news
  • voice clone

synthetic media terms

  • deep fake
  • voice clone
  • synthetic image

AI security threats

Where it sits in the deck

Phase 11: Threat Landscape: Attack Vectors and Adversarial Techniques

With defenses named, learn what they must defend against — the full catalog of attack techniques targeting AI systems, their inputs, outputs, training pipelines, and supply chains.

Neighbours in this phase