one4review | On 23, Aug 2026

DeepFake is a 15-minute immersive experience in which you become the PR agent for an AI company specialising in voice cloning, lip-syncing and face-swapping technology. You have the CEO’s ear, a dossier in your hands and a decision to make.

I threw myself into the dossier, scanning the documents with an eye for the potential profits. I’m not against AI. However, as I worked through the dossier, I gradually realised that responsibility for consent around the company’s technology was being placed entirely on the user. The company looked set to rake it in. The CEO called and, after some soft-pedalling, I recommended against moving forward.

There are three actors for every audience member—an astonishing ratio—and they are all excellent, improvising a reality that made me feel as though I were genuinely at work. They play their parts so convincingly that you feel you are speaking to real people in work.

Or are you speaking to actors at all?

What happened next blew my mind. Afterwards, I honestly am no longer sure where digital reality stops and starts.

As I left, I was handed a cheque. On the back, it explained that Scotland currently has no laws protecting people from having their face, voice or image used by AI.

I staggered out completely shell-shocked by the personal plot twist I had experienced. Anything I see on a screen, I now no longer know is real. It has genuinely shaken my entire sense of digital reality.

Will Smith eating spaghetti three years ago was obviously laughably AI. If I saw an equivalent video today, I would probably be fooled?

Were the people I spoke to even real?

This is the most powerful immersive theatre I have ever experienced. Three actors ( I think?) and 15 minutes changed my sense of what is real and what isn’t—forever.

*****

Stephen “Sharpie” Sharp
Underbelly Cowgate
Until 30 August – Various Times