A South Korean Youtuber ‘RuiCovery’ revealed herself to be a ‘virtual human’. She is a real and normal human except for her face.
She digitally rendered her face using deep fake technology. This shocking revelation to her fans feels surreal since they felt nothing was out of the ordinary. However, there were debates on the use of said technology and the possibilities of misuse.
Rui explained her decision to digitally altering her online appearance. With South Korea’s emphasis on physical appearance and the extremely high beauty standards, Rui felt pressured to adapt to those levels. However, plastic surgery is not an option for her despite it being the norm in the country. Instead of going under the knife or caking her face with makeup, she turned to technology.
The Youtuber made a name for herself on YouTube by doing song covers and shooting the occasional vlog and gained much success. Some of her fans expressed that they felt cheated by her. But Rui has no regrets. She knew that her real appearance wouldn’t have gained her much popularity considering the demographic she’s in. And most of us agree.
RuiCovery’s impressively realistic appearance is the creation of a company called DOB Studio, which actually specializes in creating these deepfake personas for people wanting to leverage perfect looks to make it on social media.
DOB Studio is currently in the closed beta stage. However, they promised to provide their services to the public once they’re ready. I guess the future of deepfakes and AI means more fake appearances online.
However, DOB claimed that their technology is not actually ‘deepfake’. Standard ‘deepfake’ tech combines features of the actual person with those of someone else. While DOB Studio’s system creates a whole new face from scratch, making it almost impossible to detect as fake by the human eye.
Source: Oddity Central, RuiCovery