Tackling deepfakes ‘has turned into an arms race’

Louise Bruder is a super-recogniser at UK digital ID firm Yoti. Her job involves comparing photos on an identity document with an uploaded selfie. But Yoti, in common with other ID firms, faces a new threat - spotting so-called deepfakes. These are fake images created using AI-powered software.

Ben Colman is the boss of Reality Defender, a US firm that aims to provide technology to spot deepfakes. He thinks Louise may struggle soon to tell real from fake. The solution his firm offers can scan and flag AI representation in an image, video or audio. Audio-only deepfakes are growing in popularity.

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Prof Siwei Lyu is a professor at the University of Buffalo in the US. He has studied deepfakes for many years, with the ultimate goal of developing algorithms to help automatically identify and expose them. Prof Lyu thinks there needs to be a degree of urgency to solving the problem. Sigurdur Arnason runs a music creation platform in Iceland.

He was asked by the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service to create a video music skit using a deepfake of a beloved dead Icelandic comedian called Hemmi Gunn for a show that aired on New Year’s Eve. We thought it would be a fun project," Arnason says. The skit did more than amuse, though. It sent shockwaves through the whole country, says Mr Arnason.

Some family members were not happy because it was so real. Politicians started talking about AI regulation. It is important that politicians and the general public have such conversations and debates. The algorithm will figure out some artefact in the current deepfake landscape.

Then the creators will shore up their weaknesses and improve their methods. The biggest challenge, and the one I don’t have a solution for, is how to teach the general adult population," he says. Social media and online sharing platforms are taking the approach that if we’re not required to do it, we will do the bare minimum. Louise Bruder says that no matter how good AI gets at fighting deepfakes, there will always be a need for human checkers like herself.