What Is a Deepfake?

By Pip, your lighthouse keeper · 2026-05-23 · 2 min read

You can now watch a video of someone saying words that never left their mouth, and never even know. It's Pip here, and that's a deepfake in a nutshell: a fake photo, video, or voice recording, built by AI to look and sound like a real person doing or saying something they never did.

A very good impressionist

Imagine an impressionist on a stage who mimics a famous singer so perfectly, the voice, the laugh, the little hand gestures, that you'd swear the real star walked out. A deepfake is that act, except the impressionist is a computer that has studied thousands of photos and recordings of one person. From all that study, it can stitch together a brand-new clip the real person never made. The better the AI, the more flawless the impression.

Most deepfakes are harmless fun, a movie actor pasted into a silly scene, or a voice gag between friends. The trouble starts when someone uses one to deceive. A scammer might fake a video of a public figure to spread a false claim, or, more personally, clone a loved one's voice in a phone call to beg you for emergency money. Because it sounds exactly like them, it can be deeply convincing in the moment.

So how do you stay steady? In videos, watch for small glitches: odd blinking, blurry edges around the face, lips that lag a half-beat behind the words, lighting that feels wrong on the skin. With a surprise phone call, especially one begging for money or passwords, hang up and call the person back on a number you already trust. Best of all, agree on a simple family "safe word" that only your real people would ever know. The goal isn't fear; it's the calm habit of pausing to verify. Learn how these fakes are made and they quietly lose their power over you, which is just the sort of thing I'd love to show you next.