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This Week in Gal Gadot: Real Searches, Fake Porn

Someone just used artificial intelligence to make a fake adult video starring Gadot, and the implications are terrifying

by
Liel Leibovitz
December 14, 2017
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for GQ
Gal Gadot attends the 2017 GQ Men of the Year party at Chateau Marmont on December 7, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for GQ
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for GQ
Gal Gadot attends the 2017 GQ Men of the Year party at Chateau Marmont on December 7, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for GQ

We’ll start with the good news: Google released its lists of top searches for 2017 earlier this week, and when it comes to actors and actresses, there are no surprises. Meghan Markle—now technically more of a princess than an actress—is number one. Kevin Spacey—now technically more of a defendant than an actor—is number two. And at number three? Cue the Wonder Woman theme music: It’s Gal Gadot, two places before that wannabe Meryl Streep. Hallelujah.

Now that we’ve had our fun, it’s time for the week’s darker Gadot-themed news. A pornographic video went viral this week, purporting to show the actress having intercourse with her brother. Look closely, though, and you’ll see that, as one reporter put it, “it’s not really Gadot’s body, and it’s barely her own face.” Instead, the video was produced using an artificial intelligence algorithm, using open source code that’s easily accessible online and that can capture a video of anyone’s face and paste it to anyone else’s body. The result, for now, is poor, with the fake Gadot suffering from pixelation and other unnatural tells.

The noxious video’s creator, a Reddit user who goes by the name deepfakes and whose real identity is not known, said that he used a host of sources, from Google images to YouTube videos, and then trained his algorithm to study porn videos and Gadot’s face until it could automatically generate a cross-over video that looked convincing. That this can happen so easily and without consent or consequence is terrifying. Welcome to 2018. Only Wonder Woman can save us now.

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.