Are deepfakes dangerous? | Start Here

Deepfake videos are becoming more common. These AI-generated fake videos are getting easier to create and more realistic. So what are deepfakes? How are they made? And should they worry us? #AJStartHere explains with Sandra Gathmann and the help of a special guest…

#DeepFake #DarkWeb #DeepFakes

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hi everybody it’s me jennifer lopez

i’m so excited to be on start here my

absolute

favorite show let’s talk about my new

album

or we could talk about the dangers of

deep fakes

they’ve gone from look-alikes that seem

a bit off

this is a dangerous time trust in what

is genuine

and what is not to scary good videos

that have gone viral

we have now reached the state where the

impersonations

are extremely well done extremely hard

to detect

i genuinely love the process of

manipulating people online for money

the technology behind deep fakes is

getting smarter

while new apps are making it easier the

better deep fakes

become the harder it becomes to assess

what is real and what is fake

so what are deep fakes how can you spot

them

and why could something as fun as a face

swap

actually be the start of something way

more sinister

[Music]

let’s break down the word itself the

fake and deep fake is pretty

self-explanatory

while deep refers to deep learning by a

machine which is a type of artificial

intelligence

and this is used to impersonate people

into making saying things you know

they’ve never said

or acting like that they’ve acted before

probably the best way to explain it

is to show you how we did it so i’m here

with haldoon start here’s graphics

genius and he’s taken a video

of me and a video of jennifer lopez so i

used a free software online called deep

face slab

the first step is to turn your video

into hundreds of images basically the

frames

and the second step is to separate the

face

from the images so the software is

pinning my eyes

and my mouth to the center of the frame

so that it’s easier to align

with jlo’s face and then we go to the

step three which is the machine learning

i need to keep pressing p to update

because like it takes so much time i

just like put the die

on the pee and then put some weight on

and go grab coffee

[Music]

and then we have the final step

basically is adjusting the

skin tune and merging the two faces on

the final result

the whole process actually took a few

days but making deep fakes is getting

easier as the technology improves

and it’s improving fast so what can we

do with it

well there are plenty of useful creative

and harmless applications

to all this deep fakery this

anti-malaria campaign had david beckham

speaking nine languages

malaria isn’t just any disease

this documentary used deep fakes to hide

the real faces

of lgbtq people in chechnya who were

afraid to be identified

there are slightly weirder uses as well

the website myheritage reanimates photos

of your dearly departed relatives

and some people find that comforting

what all of those examples have in

common

is that they’re not about trying to

deceive people and the people involved

are all in on it the problem is when

deep fakes are made of people without

their consent

and so often that means women there are

people out there using pictures of

celebrities

and ordinary women and deep faking them

onto pornography actors

a study in the netherlands found that a

staggering 96

of the deep fakes online were

non-consensual porn

it’s women’s bodies uh identities um

and rights that are being transgressed

it’s humiliating it’s embarrassing and

particularly

with deep flex becoming so good it’s

very difficult to convince people that

that isn’t you because if it looks like

you it might as well be you

we we see big impacts on people’s mental

health uh depression anxiety

and it goes beyond the world of porn a

mother in pennsylvania has been accused

of trying to discredit

three of her daughter’s rivals on a

cheerleading squad where police said she

made deep fakes of them naked

drinking and smoking financial scammers

are using deep fake technology too

in 2019 criminals used ai software to

impersonate the voice of a businessman’s

boss

on the phone they convinced him to

transfer more than 240

000 to a bogus hungarian bank account so

the dangers of deep fakes are already

real

and they’re adding to a whole world of

misinformation

a world where it can already be hard to

know what’s true and what’s not

where actual facts are dismissed as

false conspiracy theories thrive

and powerful states run sophisticated

disinformation campaigns

most of the misinformation we see in

most of what people get affected by

is much lower tech things photos taken

out of context

things that are simple photoshop jobs

much simpler and cheaper ways of making

misinformation go

viral like this video of nancy pelosi a

senior u.s democrat who was made to look

drunk

just by slowing down the video it’s

really sad and here’s the thing

and i told this to the room it’s really

sad

here’s the thing and i told this to the

room but the power of deep fake

technology

takes it all to another level in the old

days

if you wanted to threaten the united

states you needed 10 aircraft carriers

and nuclear weapons and long-range

missiles increasingly all you need is

the ability to produce

a very realistic fake video what deep

fakes do

is create a climate of doubt to the

point where what’s

actually real can be mistaken as

something fake

that’s what happened in gabon

[Music]

back in 2019 president ali bongo hadn’t

been seen in public for months

and when the government released this

video he didn’t really look like himself

turns out the president had suffered a

stroke that changed how he looked

but some people were convinced he was

dead and that the video was a deep fake

a week later a group of soldiers

attempted a coup

whoa so how can we spot deep fakes

well there are some signs we can look

for there might be differences in

resolution

or if you see ghosting around the face

or blurring around the ears or hairline

chances are a computer made it what i

tell people is if something makes you

feel a strong emotion

either really good or really mad that’s

the time to take an extra second

and check to see if it’s real but the

reality is

that as deep fakes get better they’ll

get harder and harder to spot

researchers at universities and

companies like microsoft and facebook

are working on automated software to

find and flag them

organizations like the un europol and

the fbi

are all actively looking into how to

counter deep fakes as a threat

we’re always in this arms race of kind

of a new technology

exists people start using it for bad

things and then we kind of

adjust our understanding and move

forward there’s nothing inherently bad

about the technology

but we know the harm it can do so what

you and i can do

is be more aware don’t be fooled by the

rocks that i got

or the face that i got either

[Music]

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