WHEN SEEING IS NO LONGER BELIEVING

The misuse of artificial intelligence and cost of deepfakes in a post-truth era.

- TIANA CLINE

IN THE BEGINNING, IT WAS A LOT OF FUN. Anyone could create a deepfake video to merge their face with that of a celebrity. At first, these videos were shared across social media as a parody and everyone laughed. What could be better than becoming the star of your favorite streaming series? But now the technology has evolved. It has become more sophisticated to the point where it’s not as easy to tell what is real or not. From misinformation to identity theft, deepfake porn and copyright infringements, the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) is far from entertaining – it’s an epidemic.

“As technology’s power increases, so the ability to cause harm increases exponentially,” says Professor Johan Steyn, a Research Fellow at the School of Data Science and Computational Thinking at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and Adjunct Professor at the School of Business at Woxsen University in India.

“From both a legal and a government ethics point of view, it’s a massive problem and I don’t know how it is going to be regulated. How do you present evidence to a court of law when you cannot confirm if a video or voice is authentic? There’s almost no way of proving deepfakes are authentic.”

There are currently over 80 different deepfake software apps, many of which are free and allow anyone to take advantage of the advancement of AI. Deepfakes use artificial neural networks – data pattern-recognition systems that are trained to identify (and reconstruct) patterns. The technology is mind-blowing.

It gained Miles Fisher – a Tom Cruise lookalike and AI entrepreneur – nearly four million followers on social media. His TikTok account, ‘deeptomcruise’, has unofficially made him the poster child of the deepfake movement.