More and more deepfake AI content being spread online
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What deepfake video did Taoiseach Micheal Martin address?
But first, the Taoiseach Micheál Martin posted online last night calling out a deepfake video purporting to show him plugging an investment product. Here is the video along with the Taoiseach's response. See if you can hear the difference.
I've proven that anyone can earn 40,000 euros at any age with just a phone and 250 euros. This evening, you'll see your first 1,000 euro profit in your account or I'll personally refund you 10,000 euros.
So this is clearly very false material pertaining to myself, illustrative of the kind of manipulation and distortion that can take place on social media and a reminder to us all to be vigilant on social media and to take care and for the platforms also to make sure that such material never gets online and that it's taken offline as soon as it's identified.
That's the real Michal Martin there. And earlier you heard the deep fake. They didn't quite get the accent right, did they? But there's more and more of this AI content. It's being spread online. So will we ever get a handle on it? Will we always be vulnerable and just have to be cautious? I'm joined by psychologist and cognitive scientist, Dr. John Francis Leader. You're welcome to the show, John.
How can we identify deepfake content effectively?
Hi, Clare. I hope you're well.
Thank you for being with us. Now, is it sensible for the Taoiseach to push back in the way that he did and to highlight this video and warn people about it?
It is, and really what we need is to develop a set of tools that I suppose happen on a few different levels. One is providers themselves that are having appropriate systems, but also the regulatory systems because it may not happen just to the goodness of people's hearts. But the other thing I think that's really important is the Council of Europe just three weeks ago had an initiative on digital citizenship education. And this is this idea really of empowering people to not just be users of technology, but to be able to mindfully and critically engage with it. So I think actually having this kind of conversation, it's part of that, but we need to follow it up with even more tangible ways of really developing the skills to determine what are we perceiving and is it real?
I mean, that deepfake video, which I saw this morning, it was OK. I mean, it wasn't great. You probably wouldn't be fooled into thinking it was Micheál Martin. But are we getting to that point where the AI systems are being perfected and in time it will be really difficult to tell the difference?
They absolutely are. And there's sort of two problems.
What tools are needed to combat deepfake misinformation?
One is believing information that isn't true. But the reverse also happens because you play just before that segment in your previous segment, you played another clip of me on Martin. And even though I'm a specialist in this area, I found myself saying, now, is that one real? You know, and that question is good. You know, we want to be asking yourself that question, but we got to be careful with that as well, because we could end up not believing factual information sometimes in times that it matters.
And you do this with your students, don't you? You ask them to try and figure out what's real and what's not.
Yeah, it's part of what we do, and part of what we're trying to encourage more and more is, rather than not talk about this, or rather than theoretically talk about it, is literally bring in content and say, is this real? Is this not real? Now, sometimes it's going to be specific things you can spot. So, Neil Martin's accent was a definite tell for anybody who knows him for that last segment. But sometimes it's a bit more subtle than that. It's a little bit like if you're buying an antique. You know, is this something real and authentic that's been around a while or did somebody just make it yesterday? So it's almost developing that skill set to be able to determine it.
How is digital citizenship education relevant to deepfakes?
And part of the thing that I think that we're really missing is if you had your snake oil salesperson, you know, 100 years ago come into the town square. You may or may not believe them, but at least some of your neighbour will come up and say, hold on a minute, I'm not sure about that.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What deepfake video did Taoiseach Micheal Martin address?
0:01–1:11
2
How can we identify deepfake content effectively?
1:11–2:24
3
What tools are needed to combat deepfake misinformation?
2:24–3:30
4
How is digital citizenship education relevant to deepfakes?
3:30–4:49
5
What challenges do we face in verifying online content?
4:49–5:49
6
How can blockchain technology help with content verification?
5:49–7:04
7
What legal actions are being taken against deepfake misuse?
7:04–8:03