Barack Obama as a Marvel superhero

There’s been a fair bit of controversy with deepfakes lately. It
has even led the state of California to issue two new bills^[1]
in a bid to curb the negative impact certain deepfakes
have. 

However, these artificially created videos or images are not
always meant to hurt the person in question; some can
even benefit^[2]
from a little added fame. 

The latter just happened this week^[3], when someone deepfaked
Barack Obama’s face onto Black Panther’s. It looks rather
convincing. 

RELATED: NEW DEEPFAKE SOFTWARE ONLY NEEDS
ONE IMAGE TO MAKE YOU SING^[4]

Barack Obama as a Marvel superhero

To give a little context, ‘deepfake^[5]‘ is a technique that
sees human image synthesis based on Artificial Intelligence. Images
of people’s faces are superimposed onto other faces to make it look
like it’s them.

If you thought that Obama was a legend as a ‘regular’ human
being — although the term ‘regular’ might not give the man enough
credit — then you’ll be even more impressed by him now. 

Some YouTubers have deepfaked the former U.S. President’s face
onto actor Chadwick Boseman’s. They’ve turned Obama into a
Marvel Comics^[6]
superhero.

Barack
Panther. Source: Sham00K/YouTube^[7]

In the video, Obama Panther — as he is dubbed — gives a moving
speech at the United Nations. You then see Obama in different
movements, outfits, and styles throughout the short clip. 

The YouTuber behind these face swaps goes by the username
‘Sham00K^[8],’ who added a
synthesized voice-over for Obama with the assistance of StableVoices^[9].

StableVoices operates independently from Sham00K and uses
AI-powered audio synthesis software to replicate famous
voices. 

#FutureSociety
#deepfake Someone
Deepfaked Barack Obama Into “Black Panther” https://t.co/s4uYvuGTeD pic.twitter.com/dNoKUyNY6j^{[10][11][12][13]}

There are a few instances where it’s a little clear that this is
a deepfake^[15]. However, this video is
further proof that deepfakes can become quite convincing and
impressively created, even by non-experts^[16]. 

See for yourself how Barack Obama turns into a famous superhero
by this video by Sham00K: