Deepfake scams

The advancement in digital technology is really astonishing, revolutionizing how we collect data and facilitating how we can harness more information that we can use immediately and effectively.

- MARIANNE GO

The advent of artificial intelligence (Al) will make it even harder in the future to detect deepfake videos.

In the just concluded two-day conference of the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IT-BPAP), industry players said the use of Al is expected to further revolutionize the IT and business process management sector.

There was even an interesting presentation on advances in the development and creation of digital avatars using Al, something that potentially in the future could be used by bad players and would potentially be much harder to detect than the deepfake videos that are already circulating and being used by unscrupulous people.

Digital technology has developed to such an extent that ordinary people can more easily create digital content that they can upload to social media platforms. While most of the content created are meant to entertain and inform, unfortunately, there are also some bad players who are now exploiting social media platforms to spread disinformation.

We are now all aware, but still susceptible to text scams, especially if the perpetrators cleverly frame their phishing scams for us to reply and innocently reveal important information that can allow the scammers to access our digital wallets or digital bank accounts or credit cards.

We have also all encountered some form of deepfake videos that we really thought depicted real persons and events, and probably forwarded to our social media friends without verifying the veracity of the content.