NEW YORK (AP) — In a video from a Jan. 25 news report, President Joe Biden talks about tanks. But a doctored version of the video has amassed hundred of…
Digital forensics experts say the video was created using a new generation of artificial intelligence tools, which allow anyone to quickly generate audio simulating a person’s voice with a few clicks of a button. And while the Biden clip on social media may have failed to fool most users this time, the clip shows how easy it now is for people to generate hateful and disinformation-filled “deepfake” videos that could do real-world harm.
Social media users quickly began sharing an AI-generated audio sample of Hillary Clinton reading the same transphobic text featured in the Biden clip, along with fake audio clips of Bill Gates supposedly saying that the COVID-19 vaccine causes AIDS and actress Emma Watson purportedly reading Hitler’s manifesto “Mein Kampf.”
Free and open-source software with the same capabilities have also emerged online, meaning paywalls on commercial tools aren’t an impediment. Using one free online model, the AP generated audio samples to sound like actors Daniel Craig and Jennifer Lawrence in just a few minutes.Article content