Bobbi Althoff Ai Video: How Easy It Is to Create a Deepfake Video

Last Wednesday, out of nowhere, a super realistic AI-generated face-swap video exploded on both X and TikTok. When people realized that even Bobbi Althoff, the podcaster with millions of followers, could be so accurately faked, the comments section went totally wild. I mean, the Bobbi Althoff in the video looked completely real – how could you tell if it was true or not? And why hadn't she come out with a statement yet?

The incredibly realistic AI video of Bobbi Althoff that went viral online was truly shocking. It really made you think about how much AI can do and how easily it can fool most people. It started one morning—a completely normal day—when people started chatting about it on some pretty small online forums. Then, some anonymous person posted that deepfake video on X, and boom – it blew up! In just nine hours, that fake video had racked up more than 4.5 million views. Crazy, right? The comment sections were flooded with people who were totally confused and honestly, pretty freaked out.

The video showed Althoff doing something intensely private – something you'd only do behind closed doors, definitely not post online. But it looked so real that even her most dedicated fans were scratching their heads, wondering if it was legit.

Althoff later said, "At first, I thought it was just a podcast episode of mine that was getting a lot of attention." She didn't realize how serious it was until her public relations team called her at 6 a.m. the next day to explain the whole situation. Nobody wants to see their private life splattered all over the internet, even if the video's fake. What if people thought it was real?

Social media's knack for spreading things doesn't care about anyone's feelings. The number of posts went from dozens per hour to tens of thousands per hour, even into the evening the number of posts was doubling and ultimately reached 4.5 million. Before Althoff released her own statement, there were several verified accounts that helped to share it.

The cost of making these fake short videos is surprisingly low, and the people making them don't need any real technical skills. People in the comment sections of the trending video were quick to figure out how it happened. The forgers could simply buy a tool that's less than $100, and that allows them to capture someone's face all the way through to mixing their own actions – this is made simple thanks to the combination of GANs and deep neural networks. It's now as easy as taking 10 minutes to get through five steps. It used to be that these videos would have weird tics, like blinking or audio not lining up. Now, they are ridiculously realistic! Here is a picture that breaks down how a deep fake is made, or check out this link to find out more: [https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/blog/how-easy-is-it-to-make-and-detect-a-deepfake/]

Image: The Deepfake Process

It took Althoff around 30 hours after the video first showed up for her to finally post a response on her Instagram story. Even though the platform makes a lot of claims about having strong rules about AI content, its moderation system just couldn't handle the rate at which this video was spreading. This whole thing really highlights that a good lie can spread way faster than the truth on social media.

The story doesn't end there, though. The UK just passed a law that makes deepfakes illegal, but AI model traders on the dark web are already figuring out how to get around it. Also, it's worth pointing out that almost all victims of deepfakes are women, which is a huge issue. This kind of tech is becoming a new way to abuse women online. It really makes you wonder: if AI can now create fake images that are more believable than reality, and if everyone can become a victim, how much control do we even have over our own online lives?

The Althoff thing is likely just the tip of the iceberg. According to Dignify, a digital rights organization for women, nine out of ten deepfake cases target women. Everyone has a similar experience in this situation, but the impact is far from being personal. As an example, 16% of female members of US Congress have had deepfake videos spread about them, which has had some impact on their personal politics, but the result is still the same: those images were deleted in bulk and are no longer available to spread.

Deepfake videos are showing us that the future will be chaos; people will need to be able to figure out what’s real and what’s not. What you see is not always the truth and clicking on something could help spread fake videos. However, it is not all bad news! New AI detection tools are getting better at spotting these fakes and people are starting to use blockchain to protect their original content.