A lot of the training was done on a publicly available database of more than 7,000 images of celebrities, called VoxCeleb, plus a huge number of videos of people talking to the camera. The system works by training itself on a series of landmark facial features that can then be manipulated.

'Such ability has practical applications for telepresence, including videoconferencing and multi-player games, as well as the special effects industry,' write the researchers in their paper.

Not only can the new model work from a smaller initial database of pictures, it can also produce computer-generated videos in a shorter time, according to the researchers behind it.Īnd while there are all kinds of cool applications that the technology could be used for – such as putting an ultra-realistic version of yourself in virtual reality – it's also worrying that completely fake video footage can be produced from as little as one picture. The new algorithms, developed by a team from the Samsung AI Center and the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, both in Moscow work best with a variety of sample images taken at different angles – but they can be quite effective with just one picture to work from, even a painting.

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