The privacy policy includes a clause which says that its developer gets a “free, irrevocable, permanent, transferable, and relicense-able” license to all user-generated content, according to Bloomberg. The Zao app lists the developer as Changsha Shenduronghe Network Technology, which Bloomberg notes is a wholly owned subsidiary of Momo, a Chinese company that owns a live-streaming and dating service. Zao’s privacy policy generated an almost-immediate backlash from users, who bombarded its App Store listing with thousands of negative reviews. Nevertheless, it demonstrates how quickly the underlying technology has evolved: what once required hundreds of images to create a rather convincing deepfake video now requires just a single image with better results.Īn almost-immediate backlash from users over privacy The difference here is that Zao is inserting your likeness into an existing video, rather than animating a photo of you directly. The technology looks similar to what we’ve seen recently from researchers at London’s Imperial College, who showed off technology that’s able to turn a single photo into a singing portrait. The app cannot map your face onto any video clip of your choosing. The app’s developer has likely trained their algorithms on each of these clips to easily re-map a user’s face onto them, as Xia speculates. Here's an example of me as DiCaprio (generated in under 8 secs from that one photo in the thumbnail) /1RpnJJ3wgT- Allan Xia September 1, 2019Īccording to Xia, the app only offers a limited number of clips for you to insert your face into.
Best application of 'Deepfake'-style AI facial replacement I've ever seen. In case you haven't heard, #ZAO is a Chinese app which completely blew up since Friday.