A lot has already been said about the various potential dangers of AI, even if the worst of it may still be quite a bit into the future. AI may be powerful and game-changing, though something like a rogue machine takeover – with the current technology, at least – looks to be quite unlikely.
One application of AI, however, has advanced by a worrying amount in recent years. Deepfakes are essentially AI-generated fake animations or videos that could be edited to do anything, and by that we do mean anything. You can make a fake video of a celebrity doing something specific you want, or a nuclear-armed world leader issuing a threat to another, or literally anything else really. The possibilities are endless, which is why it’s so dangerous. The worst part? At this point, the tech is already so good that it’s impossible to tell if it’s real without some elaborate forensics.
Deepfakes have taken cybercrime cells of countries across the world by storm, owing to its various applications in crimes like revenge porn, identity theft, political coups etc. The concerns are well-founded, too, as deepfakes – and their integration with other AI applications – have come a long way in a matter of barely five years.
This is an encore of one of our previous lists, as presented by our YouTube host Simon Whistler. Read the full list!
