Google has quietly banned deepfake projects from its Colaboratory (Colab) service, which stops a lot of people from using the platform’s resources for this purpose. BleepingComputer spotted the updated terms of use over the weekend, noting that the ban took place earlier this month, with Google Research quietly adding deepfakes to the list of disallowed projects.
Colab spun out of a Google Research project in late 2017. It allows anyone to write and execute Python code through a web browser, especially for machine learning, education, and data analysis. Google gives free and paying Colab users access to GPUs and AI-accelerating tensor processing units (TPUs).
Colab is the de-facto platform for AI demos. Researchers who’ve built code often post links to Colab sites in GitHub repositories. Google hasn’t been extremely restrictive with Colab content, which could open the way for unscrupulous individuals.
Last week, DeepFaceLab users received an error notice when trying to execute the program in Colab. “You may be executing code that is disallowed, and this may restrict your ability to use Colab in the future. Please note the prohibited actions specified in our FAQ.”
The warning isn’t always triggered. A reporter ran one of the popular deepfake Colab experiments without difficulty, and Reddit users said FaceSwap is still working. This means enforcement is blacklist-based rather than keyword-based, and the Colab community must report violating code.
Google amended Colab rules in mid-May, according to Archive.org. The prior prohibitions on denial-of-service attacks, password cracking, and torrent downloads remained.
Deepfakes take various shapes, but one of the most prevalent is a person’s visage superimposed over another’s. Deepfakes can replicate a person’s body movements, microexpressions, and skin tones better than Hollywood-produced CGI.
Viral videos prove that deepfakes can be innocuous and enjoyable. Hackers use them to extort and swindle social media users. They’ve also been used to produce fake movies of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy giving a speech about the war.
