Experts: The Number of Deepfakes Online Doubles Roughly Every Six Months

The chief executive of Pinscreen, a company that uses AI to create digital avatars, said that the number of deepfakes online is doubling, “significantly every six months”, пишет Business Insider.

His remarks were borne out by a study from Sensity, a company that detects fake videos online. Experts found an exponential rise in their numbers from 49,000 in June 2020 to 85,000 in December 2020.

Experts say that as deepfakes proliferate, it will become harder to distinguish truth from fiction.

“What worries me most is not the abuse of deepfakes, but the consequences of their entry into a world where any image, video or audio can be manipulated. In this world, if something can be false, then nothing should be real, and anyone can conveniently discard inconvenient facts,” said Hany Farid, Associate Dean of the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley.

Experts say that bans on creating and distributing fakes could merely worsen the problem. As an example, they point to China, which in 2019 declared deepfakes illegal. This would free the Chinese authorities to label any inconvenient photo or video as fake, according to the experts.

“Coupled with Beijing’s control of the internet in the country, the ability to say what is real and what is not could be a very effective tool of coercion,” said Nina Shik, a deepfake expert.

Experts note that, rather than bans, a combination of legal, technological, and educational approaches is needed to combat the spread of fake photos and videos.

They also added that users should learn to be skeptical of online information themselves, especially when it is not corroborated by several reputable media outlets or other official sources.

Earlier, researchers at the University at Buffalo developed a tool, which, based on reflections of light in the cornea, can detect a deepfake photograph with 94% accuracy.

In March 2021, the United States detained a woman for distributing a deepfake video of teenage girls. In doing so, she sought to compromise her daughter’s rivals in the cheerleading squad.

In December last year, the British channel Channel 4 released a deepfake of Queen Elizabeth II as an alternative Christmas greeting.

Subscribe to ForkLog’s Telegram news: ForkLog AI — all the news from the world of AI!