Ls304319@ohio.edu
Truth is the core of ethical values when it comes to the journalism and media discourse communities. The press is critical to upholding and maintaining democracy, therefore, the truth is the primary priority of journalists to hold government officials accountable and report the truth to the citizens of the democracy. However, what would be at stake if society no longer had the ability to distinguish fact from fallacy? What could possibly have the capacity to undermine societies shared sense of reality on a global scale? The answer, ultimately, is deepfakes.
CNBC A comparison of an original and deepfake video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Elyse Samuels | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Deep fakes are a combination of two words, deep learning, and fake. Deep learning allows artificial intelligence to understand things about someone, for instance, their body or their face, all from promptly available pictures and videos. Deep fakes utilize Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) in which case two mechanism models are in combat with one another. Model A directs the data set and then creates the fakes while model b tries to detect the fakes. Model A continues to manufacture fakes until model b is no longer capable of recognizing them as such. The ability of deep fakes to generate is proceeding at a far more amplified rate than the ability to recognize them.
Essentially, deep fakes are fake videos that appear real and make viewers dismiss their initial caution by questioning the story as deep fakes utilize two critical senses: hearing and seeing. When seeing is believing, deep fakes are not just a threat to democracy, they are a threat to society's shared sense of reality.
Typically, human beings are known to seek out information that will support their existing beliefs while disregarding any other information that may say otherwise. Deep fakes exploit this human weakness and carry the potential to become a dangerous weapon if wielded in the wrong hands. Essentially, if something is not done to enhance technology and detect the real from the deepfakes, the world will be gaslighted, and inevitably, society will lose touch with their sense of reality.
Deep fakes carry dire consequences; they have the potential to corrupt elections and destroy political figures reputations. Government aside, deep fakes also carry the potential to destroy personal reputations, bully, destroy marriages, relationships, and deteriorate society's faith in institutions. Deepfakes also provide a scapegoat for accused criminals who are up against video evidence.
In situations such as these, all the defense attorneys will have to say is that the video is a deep fake, and without the technology to detect real from fake, the claim may very well be enough to cause reasonable doubt. Therefore, potentially allowing a legitimately guilty offender to go free. It is absolutely critical government officials and society address this issue promptly by either providing the technology to determine the authentic from the fake, or by implementing some sort of legislation to put a stop to this as it is no laughing matter.
The possible consequences of this technology are currently unforeseen. There is no doubt it will increasingly become an issue if technological progress continues at it's current rate. It becomes the ultimate denial tool for any corrupt individual caught on video as they simply need to claim it is a deepfake and incur plausible deniability. The possibilities for misuse are only as limited as the imagination of the architect.
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