ENGL 1102 English Composition II - Honors (Goodling): AI / Deepfakes

Artificial intelligence video tools make it relatively easy to put one person’s face on another person’s body with few traces of manipulation. I tried it on myself. What could go wrong? (March 2018)

Technology can make it look as if anyone has said or done anything. Is it the next wave of (mis)information warfare? (November 2018)

A fake video of Mark Zuckerberg giving a sinister speech about the power of Facebook has been posted to Instagram. The company previously said it would not remove this type of video. (June 2019)

When you come to Twitter to see what’s happening in the world, we want you to have context about the content you’re seeing and engaging with. Deliberate attempts to mislead or confuse people through manipulated media undermine the integrity of the conversation. (November 2019)

AI-generated fake videos are becoming more common (and convincing). Here’s why we should be worried. (January 2020)

In 2020, AI-synthetic media started moving away from the darker corners of the internet. (December 2020)

Tom Cruise looks at the camera. “I’m going to show you some magic,” he says holding up a coin. “It’s the real thing”, the Hollywood actor insists, giving his trademark laugh and making the coin disappear. “It’s all the real thing.” Except this is not Cruise but a “deepfake” video, one of several of the actor that have garnered millions of views and shares across social media. They have led experts to warn that deepfake technology is advancing much faster than most people realise. (March 2021)

This article explains the technologies behind the creation of deep fakes and discusses four categories of deep fakes (deep fake porn, deep fakes in political campaigns, deep fakes for commercial uses and creative deep fakes). The authors of this article address ethical and regulatory aspects of each of those four categories of deep fakes. Since the first deep fakes were used for malicious and socially detrimental purposes (eg revenge porn and political campaigns), the authors highlight that these deep fakes—like many other technologies in the past—initially are confronted with fear. (January 2020)

While the use of deepfakes in advertising can be harmful to the consuming public who may be swayed under the guise of false celebrity endorsements, the ability to manipulate videos of public figures has further potentially grievous effects, particularly with regard to political influence. (January 2020)

We already use filters and emojis to alter images by consent, however, deepfakes are particularly problematic because they allow for production of videos that are highly convincing, taken to be a real video of the person depicted. Deepfakes provide for the manipulation of all manner of video, but particular risks include videos produced to incite political deception, voter manipulation, commercial fraud, and ‘revenge porn’. (July 2020)

Distorted data are nothing new. However, deepfake technology—the term is a combination of “deep learning” and “fake”— has created the ability to distort reality in new and alarming ways. This technology is capable of fabricating audio, video, and even text files that are almost indistinguishable from authentic documentation. Machine-learning capabilities are escalating the technology’s sophistication, making deepfakes ever more realistic and increasingly resistant to detection. The implications for communication, data integrity, forecasting, and decision making are vast and unequivocally grim. Our best hope for dealing with deepfakes may lie with the creative problem solving of the data-science community, sponsored and supported by corporate leadership. (October 2020)

This Note examines the First Amendment protection which may be afforded to political deepfakes. It recognizes the need for federal legislation addressing the emerging problem of maliciously deceptive deepfakes. (January 2021)