Medical Deepfakes Are the Real Deal

In the popular imagination, synthetically generated digital images and videos, known colloquially as “deepfakes,” are usually considered negatively. Fake images of politicians saying things their real-world counterparts never did to engender voter outrage, or superimposing a celebrity’s face on a compromising video, are just some of the examples of the illegitimate uses of deepfakes.

Healthcare, however, has shown itself to be an area in which deepfakes can be beneficial. For instance, trying to train a digital system to recognize tumors or other abnormalities in an image can be hindered by the fact that such abnormalities are relatively rare when compared to benign samples.