Deep-fake is Here

One day after the country discussed the increasing impact of artificial intelligence on media and the possible challenges, it was the turn of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn the country of the threats posed by deep-fakes in new-age digital media content and the possibility of using deep-fakes to purposefully spread false information or have malicious intent behind their use. He gave a personal experience and example of increased use of deepfakes as part of the increasing misuse of Artificial Intelligence and pointed at an online video clip recently in circulation where he is seen singing a Garba song. He had never ever taken part in any such song, the Prime Minister said, pointing out that deepfakes can be designed to harass, intimidate, demean, and undermine people. It is for the media to generate awareness and educate the people about the negative effects of using Artificial Intelligence to spread harmful content, the Prime Minister said, expressing fear that such misuse of Artificial Intelligence can become a great concern and can create a lot of problems for all. Deep-fakes are the 21st century answer to Photoshopping, which uses a form of Artificial Intelligence called deep learning to make images of fake events, hence the nomenclature “deep-fake.” Through it, one can not only put new words in a person’s mouth but can also show a person any kind of activity that he or she has never indulged in. Using the mapped faces of celebrities on porn stars has already become very common in the West, with researchers pointing out that deep-fake technology is being increasingly weaponized against women. Deep-fakes have led to the generation of blackmail materials to falsely incriminate people across the world, and as it is very difficult to recover from these videos and audio recordings, the negative impact on reputation can be difficult to recover from, even when verified as a deep-fake. The big news is that the government is working on constituting a commission to exclusively handle the menace of Artificial Intelligence misuse. Existing laws anyway carry a penalty of one lakh rupees and three years imprisonment for the creation and circulation of deepfakes.