In this episode of Sci-Tech, we explore the rapid resurgence of deepfakes, driven by advances in generative AI.
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00:00Many of us have received dodgy emails asking for money, promising things too good to be true.
00:09Now artificial intelligence could be used to try and dupe us.
00:13A deepfake is an AI-produced copy of a human being, and this technology makes fraud of a new kind very, very possible.
00:22One bank is fighting deepfakes with deepfakes.
00:27For scammers, it is a powerful tool they can use to steal your money.
00:35Welcome to this edition of SciTech from London, where we're delving into the rise of deepfakes.
00:40Video, audio and pictures that appear to be real, but are not.
00:44Just like that introduction there, that wasn't me. In fact, it was my avatar, created using artificial intelligence.
00:52Would you be able to tell the difference?
00:56My avatar was made with my consent through a platform run by Synthesia.
01:01It produces AI-generated content for legitimate purposes, like training videos, marketing and customer service, with strict safeguards in place.
01:13We would never generate an avatar of someone without their explicit consent.
01:16The other one is control. We apply content moderation on the videos that are created.
01:21And the third is around collaboration, so working with industry groups, working with governments and policymakers to make sure that this technology is developed and used responsibly.
01:32Deepfakes that have malicious intent copy the image of real people from photos, videos and audio to misrepresent them or an organization.
01:43Professor Michael Woodridge, an AI expert at the University of Oxford, says the technology is rapidly improving.
01:52If you can take it to the point where you can be in a call with somebody that you think is your boss, looking at somebody's video, and it's an AI-produced video on the other end, then it starts to become very difficult to know what is real and what is fake.
02:08In a survey published in July, just over 40% of respondents aged 16 plus said they'd seen a deepfake in the last six months, but less than 1 in 10 were confident in their ability to spot one.
02:24One bank has now launched a campaign, deploying its own deepfake content to raise awareness of the dangers.
02:32As you might have guessed, this isn't me, this is a deepfake created to warn you about deepfakes.
02:38Technology companies are also tackling deepfakes.
02:42This new phone feature pits AI against AI, helping users to spot what's real and what's not.
02:51The on-device AI carries out a facial scan of a person in an image or a video.
02:55The algorithm analyzes things like the composition, whether or not there are any pixel imperfections, or whether or not there are any anomalies to the facial features of the person in that image or video.
03:05And crucially, it allows the user to see in real time whether that person is real.
03:10Let's take a look at an example specifically.
03:12So if we have a look at this lady, what are your thoughts here? Real or fake?
03:17It's difficult to tell, isn't it? I'm not sure I would know whether that was a deepfake or not.
03:22Let's have a look. If I click on the magic capsule here, you can see right away that the on-device AI is doing its work.
03:27It's carrying out a facial scan to determine if this person is real.
03:31And within seconds we have an answer. Here we can see that a suspected face swap has been detected, and the likelihood of this person not being real is 93%.
03:39And this alerts the user that firstly the person is not real, but secondly, and crucially, they could be at risk of being caught up in some sort of scam or fraud.
03:48So basically now you're a technology company fighting technology.
03:52Well ultimately for us this is about ensuring the privacy and security of our users.
03:56I think we all know that technology has been developing at quite a pace for some years now, thanks in part to AI.
04:02And inevitably there will be people who are determined to exploit that through the creation of so-called deepfakes.
04:06And at an industry level, I think there's an onus on all of the key players to play their part in stemming the rise of deepfakes moving forward.
04:14Fraud is not the only concern. Deepfakes are also fueling intimate image abuse online.
04:21One victim whose real identity is protected by this avatar was deepfaked by a former friend.
04:28I felt confused and taken aback.
04:30A documentary about this kind of deepfake abuse spawned a campaign group now demanding tougher regulations to block publishing sites.
04:40I have spoken to over 30 survivors of this and in every single case their lives have shrunk.
04:48It has had an impact on their job, on their career, on their sense of their body, on their sense of their identity.
04:53The stakes could not be higher.
05:00For more UN videos visit www.un.org