Etymology

deepfake

D2E1E1P3F4A1K5E1

Today it means: A convincingly realistic but fake image, video, or audio created with the use of artificial intelligence, especially one that imposes the face of one person onto the body of someone else. Full definition →

Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

Blend of deep learning + fake. Coined in 2017 by Redditor u/deepfakes (account created on September 26, 2017), who had created a technique which could convincingly swap someone's face in a video using deep learning. The r/deepfakes subreddit was created on November 2, 2017. The word was first used as a noun and verb around December 2017.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.