Deepfake
Etymology
A blend of "deep learning," the AI technique that produces the forgeries, and "fake." The word originated around 2017 from a Reddit user named "deepfakes" who posted such videos. The term spread with the technology and now covers AI-generated impersonation broadly.
noun · /DEEP-fayk/
A synthetic image, video, or audio clip generated by AI to convincingly depict a real person saying or doing something they never did.
What it names
A specific and growing threat to shared reality — the collapse of "seeing is believing" — making it essential vocabulary for thinking about evidence, trust, and manipulation in a synthetic-media age.
Example
The "leaked" clip was a deepfake, exposed only when analysts spotted the impossible blinking.
Related idea
Catfishing uses a false identity to deceive a particular person; a deepfake fabricates convincing media of a real, identifiable one.