Wombo, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered lip-sync app, has been downloaded millions of times in just a matter of weeks since it went live on the Apple and Google app stores. The app turns still photos of individuals into videos of them singing and dancing along to well-known tracks. Needless to say, users have given the Wombo treatment to all manner of pictures, including world leaders, celebrities, and even animals.
Although Wombo is purely for entertainment and the videos it creates are so unbelievable that it adds to their amusement value, there is a serious aspect to the technology involved. Wombo maps user photos over videos of people singing and dancing along to the songs it features, which is the same process that other deepfake videos use. The concerns about deepfake videos more generally, though, are that they could be used to wrongly make people think someone has done something problematic that they have not or to manipulate or bribe people with videos that make it appear as though they have. It's hoped in some quarters that the explosive early success of Wombo could help to raise the profile of this technology so that people become familiar with it and may be able to identify such videos in the future.
For the time being, though, users can enjoy Wombo for just what it is — silly, fun, and endlessly entertaining. The app lets users take a selfie of themselves to be put through its AI lip-syncing machine, but it's the ability for users to upload photos from the gallery on their device that is causing the most entertainment. Indeed, as well as user videos of well-known figures, Wombo has been producing its own as part of its marketing drive.
The Best Wombo Videos
Where better to start than newly-elected US President Joe Biden and this remarkable rendition of Günther's Ding Dong Song. Few would have had the oldest person to be elected to president down as being a fan of the Swedish singer-songwriter and his fruity brand of Eurodance.
Biden's not the only world leader to have had the Wombo treatment, though. This sassy performance of El Chombo's Dame Tu Cosita by Vladimir Putin will surely surprise a few people with its snappy moves and expressive facial expressions.
Bringing together one of the world's most memeable tech leaders and one of the internet's most enduring viral hits, meanwhile, seems like a perfect fit and it has to be said that Elon Musk does a great job of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up.
Few, however, would have put Arnie together with O-Zone's Numa Numa. More's the pity, because this flamboyant turn is everything.
Adam Driver's cover of Cascada's Everytime We Touch is similarly uplifting and shows the actor in a different light to some of his more serious big screen roles.
Driver's not the only member of the Star Wars cast to have been Wombo-fied and, given his minimal grasp of the English language, one has to commend Chewbacca on this rendition of James Brown's I feel Good.
Indeed, Wombo performances have extended well beyond just human singers. This little doggo knocks out a meritable version of Michael Jackson's Thriller.
And even works of art are getting in on the act. Anyone would be hard-pressed to have had the Mona Lisa's Lisa Gherardini pegged as a fan of the Pussycat Dolls, but she shows a side of herself few have ever seen with this performance of Don't Cha.
Source: Wombo