Deepfake: the smart way to take a holiday

Let an AI stand in for you and see if patients spot the difference.

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Doctors have been using deepfake technology to get around their inability to leave the office, it has emerged. 

Late last month it was widely reported that aphasic Emmy-award-winning Die Hard actor Bruce Willis had sold his face to a deepfake company called Deepcake.

This was later denied, but it turns out Professor Candid was way ahead of this new, not-actually-happening-after-all trend.

“I wanted to go on holiday for a couple of weeks,” Professor Candid told The Medical Republic, “but because Medicare billings are so low and because there’s such a shortage of GPs at our practice I couldn’t really afford to do it. That’s when I hit on the idea of using deepfake.” 

So Professor Candid uploaded samples of his voice and numerous images of his face to an AI company called Deepsnake based in Irkutsk.

“If one of my patients wanted to speak to me when I was away they’d think they were being put through to me for a telehealth consult when in actual fact they were being put through to an externally sourced IT help desk employee with my facial characteristics mapped on to their heads.”

It wasn’t long, however, before things began to unravel. 

“Professor Candid has been my doctor for years,” one of his patients told TMR. “He’s always been there for me, through thick and thin, even on Christmas Day. However, this time round his voice sounded a bit different and when I explained that my piles were playing up he asked me for my IP address and suggested that I switch my computer off and on again. It didn’t help.” 

“They were certalnly some teething problems to begin with,” the Professor explained. “During the first couple of weeks the software kept mapping my head on to the body of my beloved Mr Tiddles.”

Another disgruntled patient told TMR: “I arranged a video call with Prof to renew my Ramipril script but I was put through to a creature that had the head of a professor and the body of an overweight cat. I had to end the call when the cat-Prof started licking its arse on camera.” 

Other potential applications for deepfake in general practice include cover for sick days, maternity leave and carer’s leave.