Fake video threatens to rewrite history. Here's how to protect it

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https://www.fastcompany.com/90549441/how-to-prevent-deepfakes

10-03-20

Fake video threatens to rewrite history. Here’s how to protect it

AI-generated deepfakes aren’t just a problem for politics and other current affairs. Unless we act now, they could also tamper with our record of the past.

BY BENJ EDWARDS

Since deepfakes burst onto the scene a few years ago, many have worried that they represent a grave threat to our social fabric. Creators of deepfakes use artificial intelligence-based neural network algorithms to craft increasingly convincing forgeries of video, audio, and photography almost as if by magic. But this new technology doesn’t just threaten our present discourse. Soon, AI-generated synthetic media may reach into the past and sow doubt into the authenticity of historical events, potentially destroying the credibility of records left behind in our present digital era.

In an age of very little institutional trust, without a firm historical context that future historians and the public can rely on to authenticate digital media events of the past, we may be looking at the dawn of a new era of civilization: post-history. We need to act now to ensure the continuity of history without stifling the creative potential of these new AI tools.

Imagine that it’s the year 2030. You load Facebook on your smartphone, and you’re confronted with a video that shows you drunk and deranged, sitting in your living room saying racist things while waving a gun. Typical AI-assisted character attack, you think. No biggie.

You scroll down the page. There’s a 1970s interview video of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on The Dick Cavett Show declaring, “We never made it to the moon. We had to abort. The radiation belt was too strong.” 500,000 likes.

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[pepperbear]

1. Orwell never imagined it would be this easy.