Deepfake President Trump looses itself in Eminem’s raps
In a couple of years time you won't be able to tell what's fake from what's real.
Cite or link to this article
Griffin, M. (2019) 'Deepfake President Trump looses itself in Eminem’s raps', 311 Institute, 18 May. Available at: https://www.311institute.com/deepfake-president-trump-looses-itself-in-eminems-raps/ (Accessed: 1 October 2026).
We all love DeepFakes – unless that is you’re a celebrity, a news corporation, or a fan of democracy. But all that asides if you look past the trail of devastation they’re already leaving in their wake it seems inevitable that the destroyer of reputations and tarnisher of news will replace meme’s as the internets favourite past time. And here’s an example - after all, why bother with overlaying a text meme on Donald Trump’s face when you can make him sing Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” – something that was recently uploaded to YouTube, instead?
And, of course, all of this is just a small slice of the technology’s future potential that will one day see it creating high def movies, good ones, not ones like this one which was awful, even better fake news, like this piece from President Obama, music, and much more besides.
Great start, but give it up now Deepfake Trump
Thankfully though, and back to Trump’s rapping, the unholy song is the work of a neural network - an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm trained on Trump’s voice and patterns of speech and tasked with churning out this cursed musical tribute.
The algorithm isn’t perfect though, yet, because the video description says the algorithm didn’t have enough training data to replicate all of the lyrics.
As a result, some words are missing, and others are mispronounced - Trumpinem sings that “his palms are sweety” instead of “sweaty,” for instance. Also, the nature of making Trump’s voice keep to Eminem’s cadence means words get stretched or compressed, the audio equivalent of Trump rapping from the bottom of a well.
The cursed track comes courtesy of research published last year by Google’s AI labs, in which the researchers figured out how to train AI to generate speech using a revolutionary audio technology called WaveNet that sounds like an actual person’s voice.
Playful audio tracks aside, the AI technology could be, sorry, will be, inevitably misused to make it seem as though people have said things they never did – and despite the funny shenanigans and the new meme’s we’re all going to have forced into our newsfeeds it also sets a very worrying precedent that, as usual, the world isn’t ready for. Ouch on all fronts.
FAQ
Why does this matter?
In a couple of years time you won't be able to tell what's fake from what's real.
About the author
Matthew Griffin Founder, 311 Institute
Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath."
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Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.
An award-winning YouTube creator with over a million followers, with an unrivalled global reach and impact, Matthew is a highly sought-after international keynote speaker, lecturer, and mentor who collaborates with global leaders through the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to shape pivotal initiatives such as the UN’s AI for Humanity program, the United Nations Conference of the Parties (UN COP), and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
As the former Global Head of Cloud, National Security, and Enterprise Sales for companies including Atos, Dell-EMC, and IBM, Matthew has a proven track record of building multi-billion dollar business units and turning failing divisions into market leaders. His ability to identify, analyse, and communicate the implications of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends is unparalleled, and his insights are trusted by many of the world’s most respected organisations, including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi, Coca-Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Dow Jones, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, Siemens AG and Siemens Energy, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, Walmart, Workday, Worldpay and many others.
Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.
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Sources and further reading
- others are mispronounced theguardian.com
- research published last year arxiv.org
Source: first published by the 311 Institute on 18 May 2019. Cite as: Griffin, M. (2019). Deepfake President Trump looses itself in Eminem’s raps. 311 Institute. https://www.311institute.com/deepfake-president-trump-looses-itself-in-eminems-raps/
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