Future of Fake News
Perhaps 10 years ago the world of news-media was struggling with the problem of paid news. Readers couldn’t decipher fact from opinion, and people with power could essentially ‘buy’ editorials in newspapers and channels to say what they wanted to be said.
5 years ago, this spiraled into fake news. With most of people’s news consumption happening online, social media platforms made it very easy to publish made up news stories designed to influence people’s opinions.
Today, and in the very near future, this problem will morph into the dangerous issue of Deepfakes — Videos or voice messages that are entirely fake and can be spreading ideas that the speaker never actually uttered.
This podcast from Radiolab looks at how this technology evolved into what it is, and what dangerous consequences it can have.
How it started with editing photos on photoshop, to editing audio and then to video, and then synthesizing words and expressions out of thin air.
Add to that, the fact that the tech to identify Deepfakes is still very slow and in its nascent stage, and we have very little regulation to deal with problems that it can cause. Its enough to send shivers down one’s spine.
Scientists build technologies to solve a problem, but there are always two sides to a coin, and soon enough nefarious forces rise up to exploit the other side.
We have seen it since the dawn of time, right from the invention of fire, to the proliferation of nuclear energy. And we will see that with Deepfake technology as well. Now its up to us how we learn to deal with it.
Checkout the podcast —
Breaking News
(52 mins)
Read notes and transcripts here
Also checkout this deepfake video of ex US president Barack Obama, made by comedian Jordan Peele.
And this video of BJP leader Manoj Tiwari. Spreading his propaganda in multiple languages with the help of deepfake video generated by his own marketing team. This was used in the recently concluded Delhi elections.
That’s dystopia of another level.
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