Josh Karthikeyan Week 2 - Stealing Identity; Deepfakes Run Rampant
Stealing Identity; Deepfakes Run Rampant
In the famous movie franchise, “Mission Impossible” starring Tom Cruise, there are these really high-tech masks that can change your facial features to match that of another person. It is perfect for reconnaissance and enabled Cruise to gain intel about his opponents. However, today you do not need this fancy Hollywood prop to trick others. Deepfakes are edited pieces of media where artificial intelligence is utilized to swap in someone else’s identity. With just a phone, deepfakes allow people to replicate and even steal another person’s face and voice.
One of the most worrying incidents occurred in 2022. The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy commanded his soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender to Russia. But, this was all fake and not created by Zelenskyy. In fact, Zelenskyy later responded to the video, stating “We are defending our land, our children, our families. So we don’t plan to lay down our arms. Until our victory.” But, the damage was already done and the repercussions of the video began. Though the video was debunked as fake, it was of good enough quality to cause doubt. The next time when the actual President is on television, Ukrainian citizens may be questioning if the President is actually him or another fake. It undermines Zelenskyy’s authority and slows down action, a considerable loss especially in the middle of a war.
Now, it is also really easy to claim that the videos of the Ukrainian President are fake and make the citizens have to prove that it is real. It’s like changing from innocent until proven guilty to guilty until proven innocent. It is really hard to prove a person innocent, and how does a citizen tell a confused person that the information is truthful? As deepfake technology continues to improve, this distinction of trying to prove if information is truthful becomes harder and harder as more and more hackers try to steal people’s identity with more realistic faces and voices.
But just as new threats emerge, so do new defenses. Researchers are racing to stay ahead of this technology. For instance, the M.I.T. Media Lab hypothesizes that “the exposure of how DeepFakes look and the experience of detecting subtle computational manipulations will increase people’s ability to discern a wide-range of video manipulations in the future.” They started the website Detect Fakes and now the Kellogg School of Management continues to display high quality deepfakes for people to discern, By enabling people to see examples of fake and compare it to real images, people will get better from practice, and the worry of people being mislead will become a worry no longer.
Movies are overly dramatic but the real world can be equally dramatic. Deepfakes may blur reality with fiction, however with our brains and critical thinking skills, deepfakes are just another obstacle we can overcome in the ever-changing future.
I like how you started with a familiar reference (Mission Impossible). Personally I have never watched the movie but I really should! But then you quickly changed the topic of cool masks into fake identities which set the ground for your topic and hooked me. I especially liked your sentence, "innocent until proven guilty to guilty until proven innocent." It's a pretty known metaphor and you took the right opportunity to add that in your text. Your post made me think of the Roblox law suits going on. Apparently Roblox created a fake meeting between the CEO of Roblox and other workers. As someone who loves Roblox, this stuck with me and I made the connection instantly! Overall, your post gave me a new perspective on identity. Your identity may be yours, but it can be faked easily.
ReplyDeleteHi, Josh. I've heard so many horror stories over the years about deepfakes and how they ruined people's lives. I think it's a pretty lame thing for someone to spend their time making a deepfake of another person to purposefully cause harm; I wonder if they ever realize their stupidity in the moment. I was glad to hear about how Melania Trump was able to push the Take It Down Act, I really hope it's prevented or stopped a lot of them. However, I think it's a pretty cool tool for things like movies, the Mission Impossible mask scene always tripped me out as a kid.
ReplyDeleteSomeones identity is one of the most important things to someone. It is built on years of experiences and people being able to replicate that with modern technology is scary. Your example on how president Zelenskyy was impersonated by some random guy and it almost ruined the war efforts shows how dangerous this is.
ReplyDelete