The Evil Magic Mirror is online experimental artwork created by Obvious that aims at raising awareness on the misuses of Deepfakes.

We started from the concept of a magic mirror, which is a mirror in which oneself would find introspective answers, and sometimes foresee the future. The most common image of the Magic mirror is the one from Snow White. Today, due to online behaviour analysis and recommendation algorithms, most people find themselves in front of this type of mirror when using a computer. Comforting and entertaining content, which comforts oneself into believing in his/her convictions, or leads him/her to forgetting his flaws. But what happens when this information is false?

We decided to twist this Magic Mirror into an Evil Magic Mirror, in order to shed light on the new possibilities of misinformation, brought by AI deepfake technologies. The idea is to set the viewers in front of our magic mirror, and lead them into an experiment where they will trust, then be deceived, and ultimately learn from the artwork.

Deepfakes are a recurring theme in the dystopian view of AI, and so it is also a recurring theme in the journalistic world. However, current examples are often celebrities or politicians, too obvious to make us feel any danger. In the experience we wish to provide online and offline, we would like to show to the subject that anyone can be the recipient of a deepfake attack, and that it can happen really quickly with a devastating impact.

In this experiment we wish to raise awareness on misinformation spread by deepfakes. The subjects will be shocked to see themselves talking, and with the additional fear of seeing themselves stating conspiracy theories as facts, we hope to make them realize that misinformation can come even from someone well intentioned.

About

Obvious is a french collective of artists who works with artificial intelligence to create art. Their work is at the crossroads of research and art, with the development of creative applications to the latest discoveries in machine learning.

Website: obvious-art.com/