Starry hallucinations

Neil Diamond seemed to anticipate today's deepfake identity crisis more than 50 years ago, with his anthem about the futility of selfassertion, I Am... I Said.

- Jane Clifton

While back then no one was listening, “not even the chair”, Denmark has finally paid attention, becoming the first country to give citizens ownership and copyright over their own identities.

It's a milestone in the frontierland of artificial intelligence (AI) and increasing ingenuity with deepfake depictions of real people, but it may not be terribly practical. Fakesters can easily make themselves untraceable, even while they defraud people or cause spiteful mischief by misusing someone's image. It's pernicious because a cohort of people will always believe that even a person as rich and famous as, say, Neil Diamond is really flogging bitcoin or advocating febrile conspiracy theories.