Sadiq Khan victim of "AI faked audio" .....

[Saracen999]

I wonder if MPs are going to get off their overpaid rears and put serious penalties in place for this? Quickly.

I noticed the (now two, apprently) Labour candidates in Rochdale apparently and allegedly making .... ummm, 'provocative' and seemingly anti-semtic remarks in the run up to the by-election.

It crossed my mind a while bac that it would be long before one ot t'other, or both, of these situations occured :-

- someone puts out a fake audio, or video, of some famous or politically prominent individual saying something incendiary at a particulary awkward moment, OR

- alternatively, someone actually saying something provocative in that way, then claiming it was all an AI-generated deep fake?

I don't just mean something to embarrass or annoy some Hollywood or musical A-lister, but something to create real trouble that could cuse riots etc or, sooner or later, result in dead bodies.

If it hasn't already happened (and no, I don't watch much news these days, on account of it nearly always being thoroughly depressing), so yes, it's probably already happened somewhere, and if not .... the clock is ticking.

[ik9000]

An article on it made the beeb today. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67518511 It's already happening in other elections apparently.

[DanceswithUnix]

It hit the US recently with automated phone calls giving a fake message from Biden telling supporters not to vote: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...e-not-to-vote/

Not sure how you police or deter something so easily done.

[Saracen999]

...

Not sure how you police or deter something so easily done.

There are steps that could be taken, but nothing guaranteed to e 100$ effective (that I know of). One potential step would be VERY harsh penalties (like a substantial fine and a mandatory prison sentence) for anyone convicted. Then, publicise it, a LOT. Make it clear to those thinking of doing it what the upshot will be (highly unpleasant) if they get caught.,

Another step would be being mature enough for all parties, or at least all major ones, to agree in advance to work together to denounce such tricks. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath on that, either.

But I can almost hear some of the objections .... it's only a video/audio, or freedom of speech, blah blah, etc. And those may be true but it's also seeking to disrupt or destroy the very basis of our democracy, which is a pretty shaky concept even without someone messing with it.

Nor are those steps always going to work. The obvious flaw in the 'harsh penalty' route is if the culprit either isn't even in the UK, or is a foreign nation state (or its proxies). I'd be surprised if some of those didn't seek to disrupt elections .... and party cooperation at denouncing those would be especially important there, not least because no party, regardess of political orientation, is immune.

As for me, I think I'll hurry back into my cave, and work even harder to utterly ignore anything looking vaguely like a political comment or statement, including but not limited to party-political broadcasts (which I've been avoidig for decades). That way, hopefully, I can avoid seeing any deep fakes, and even more important, hopefully avoid anything genuinely from politicians. After all, the biggest single flaw with democracy is that whoever we vote for, we end up with a bleeping politician in power.

[cptwhite_uk]

Faked audio and images are going to be least of our problems about 18 months from now:

[Saracen999]

Well, damn. Marques nailed it .... "Simultaneously really impressive and really frightening, at the same time".

And watching those, knowing they're AI generated but then thinking about how I'd take them if I didnt know that. And it's still very early days indeed. In, say, 5 or 10 years .... ????

[cptwhite_uk]

In, say, 5 or 10 years .... ????

I think that's optimistic, in the sense that this kind of stuff will be progressing at a much faster rate than you imagine.

[Saracen999]

Oh, I think it'll be fast, alright. But given the change in the last year or two, what does that imply for 5 or 10 years? I suspect it'll be virtually impossible to tell apart from reality, if not utterly impossible .... and we'll be doing it on desktop tools .... or a mobile phone. That said, it can't keep this ace of change up indefinitely. Like digital cameras, printers, etc, it levels out after a while because they get so good that (except maybe very specialist use cases) even ho-hum models are good enough. It's true of pretty much any technology, though the exact time scale varies a bit. The process seems to be getting faster, and the time from first innovation to stable, large scale product ever shorter.