10-18-2018, 11:45 PM
Earlier this year (Feb.) Robert Chesney (UTexas Law School) and Danielle Citron (UMaryland Law School) raised an interesting issue which some others have followed up on--the potential for political mischief posed by DEEP FAKES, especially in video form. Recent advances in recording technology have made it easy to construct almost undetectable fake videos of people saying or doing things they normally would not.
The first examples, apparently, came as celebrity pornography (Gal Gadot, Emma Watson), movie stars faces imposed upon porn actors and actress with a high level or realism. Chesney and Citron raise the issue of what happens when, given the ubiquity of the technology now, people turn this new version of DEEP FAKE NEWS to politics. Imagine a video appearing 18 hrs before the upcoming midterm elections begin depicting Trump ordering a hit on a Democrat or calling the wives of prominent Evangelical pastors "horseface," and going viral on social media. The fake would be detected eventually, but not before the damage was done.
Worse still, imagine the effect in foreign policy of Trump preparing to nuke NK or Iran, or giving orders to assassinate a foreign leader. Well, I'll just present their list.
Deep Fakes: A Looming Crisis for National Security, Democracy and Privacy?
https://www.lawfareblog.com/deep-fakes-looming-crisis-national-security-democracy-and-privacy
Fake videos could feature public officials taking bribes, uttering racial epithets, or engaging in adultery.
Politicians and other government officials could appear in locations where they were not, saying or doing horrific things that they did not.
Fake videos could place them in meetings with spies or criminals, launching public outrage, criminal investigations, or both.
Soldiers could be shown murdering innocent civilians in a war zone, precipitating waves of violence and even strategic harms to a war effort.
A deep fake might falsely depict a white police officer shooting an unarmed black man while shouting racial epithets.
A fake audio clip might “reveal” criminal behavior by a candidate on the eve of an election.
A fake video might portray an Israeli official doing or saying something so inflammatory as to cause riots in neighboring countries, potentially disrupting diplomatic ties or even motivating a wave of violence.
False audio might convincingly depict U.S. officials privately “admitting” a plan to commit this or that outrage overseas, exquisitely timed to disrupt an important diplomatic initiative.
A fake video might depict emergency officials “announcing” an impending missile strike on Los Angeles or an emergent pandemic in New York, provoking panic and worse.
The very existence of the technology poses a long-term threat to voter confidence in democratic institutions as well.
The spread of deep fakes will threaten to erode the trust necessary for democracy to function effectively, for two reasons. First, and most obviously, the marketplace of ideas will be injected with a particularly-dangerous form of falsehood. Second, and more subtly, the public may become more willing to disbelieve true but uncomfortable facts. Cognitive biases already encourage resistance to such facts, but awareness of ubiquitous deep fakes may enhance that tendency, providing a ready excuse to disregard unwelcome evidence. At a minimum, as fake videos become widespread, the public may have difficulty believing what their eyes (or ears) are telling them—even when the information is quite real.
There's a fuller account in this rough draft paper
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=655065026069100010000066113008107074103013032009049037108065092108066110024098076076020005033013022048034025081025127001070123047041028055048118086109095107122030086058084016096087127012028074024093015029113067008098112001109024028077074079083103003&EXT=pdf
More below--
The first examples, apparently, came as celebrity pornography (Gal Gadot, Emma Watson), movie stars faces imposed upon porn actors and actress with a high level or realism. Chesney and Citron raise the issue of what happens when, given the ubiquity of the technology now, people turn this new version of DEEP FAKE NEWS to politics. Imagine a video appearing 18 hrs before the upcoming midterm elections begin depicting Trump ordering a hit on a Democrat or calling the wives of prominent Evangelical pastors "horseface," and going viral on social media. The fake would be detected eventually, but not before the damage was done.
Worse still, imagine the effect in foreign policy of Trump preparing to nuke NK or Iran, or giving orders to assassinate a foreign leader. Well, I'll just present their list.
Deep Fakes: A Looming Crisis for National Security, Democracy and Privacy?
https://www.lawfareblog.com/deep-fakes-looming-crisis-national-security-democracy-and-privacy
Fake videos could feature public officials taking bribes, uttering racial epithets, or engaging in adultery.
Politicians and other government officials could appear in locations where they were not, saying or doing horrific things that they did not.
Fake videos could place them in meetings with spies or criminals, launching public outrage, criminal investigations, or both.
Soldiers could be shown murdering innocent civilians in a war zone, precipitating waves of violence and even strategic harms to a war effort.
A deep fake might falsely depict a white police officer shooting an unarmed black man while shouting racial epithets.
A fake audio clip might “reveal” criminal behavior by a candidate on the eve of an election.
A fake video might portray an Israeli official doing or saying something so inflammatory as to cause riots in neighboring countries, potentially disrupting diplomatic ties or even motivating a wave of violence.
False audio might convincingly depict U.S. officials privately “admitting” a plan to commit this or that outrage overseas, exquisitely timed to disrupt an important diplomatic initiative.
A fake video might depict emergency officials “announcing” an impending missile strike on Los Angeles or an emergent pandemic in New York, provoking panic and worse.
The very existence of the technology poses a long-term threat to voter confidence in democratic institutions as well.
The spread of deep fakes will threaten to erode the trust necessary for democracy to function effectively, for two reasons. First, and most obviously, the marketplace of ideas will be injected with a particularly-dangerous form of falsehood. Second, and more subtly, the public may become more willing to disbelieve true but uncomfortable facts. Cognitive biases already encourage resistance to such facts, but awareness of ubiquitous deep fakes may enhance that tendency, providing a ready excuse to disregard unwelcome evidence. At a minimum, as fake videos become widespread, the public may have difficulty believing what their eyes (or ears) are telling them—even when the information is quite real.
There's a fuller account in this rough draft paper
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=655065026069100010000066113008107074103013032009049037108065092108066110024098076076020005033013022048034025081025127001070123047041028055048118086109095107122030086058084016096087127012028074024093015029113067008098112001109024028077074079083103003&EXT=pdf
More below--
![[Image: 4CV0TeR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/4CV0TeR.png)
