Deepfakes are getting scarily good.
Elvis is back, Simon Cowell is performing opera, and my Twitter has been completely divided over the AGT deepfake technology act. Deepfakes are getting scarily good.
Simon Cowell went as far to call it “the best act ever” on America’s Got Talent. Many agree that this marks a new era in both entertainment and social interaction. Others argue that this should be served as a stark warning that we need deepfake regulations in place … ASAP.
Two years ago, most deepfake software couldn’t create a convincing likeness of someone without huge amounts of images — which is why photos of celebrities were often used. It took a lot of post production to get the details right (particularly around the mouth, eyes and jaw) and the AI models couldn’t be run fast enough to produce it reliably.
Today, this is not the case. Believable deepfakes are now be deployed on a live video transmission.
They have become harder to spot, and there have been instances where they are being used to supercharge fraud.
-People using live deepfakes on Zoom calls for financial crime and political disinformation.
-Recently, a top executive of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance said that fraudsters had used a sophisticated deepfake “hologram” of him to scam several cryptocurrency projects.
-In July, the FBI warned that people could use deepfakes in job interviews conducted over video conferencing software.
-Several European mayors said they were initially fooled by a deepfake video call purporting to be with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
But, like most new innovations, there are also many reasons to get excited about this tech. It will enable entirely new types of content and democratise access to creation tools that have, until now, been either too expensive or too complicated to use for the average person. And who knows — the ability to use AI to create realistic simulations might even be a positive thing for humanity.
Thoughts?
