Via BBC
This Wednesday multiple social media sites had a fake video uploaded, showing president Zelensky asking for the Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms. Furthermore, Ukraine’s Channel 24 was hacked and the same video was streamed nationwide. This video was a deep fake, a video created by AI that allows the general public to create realistic, fake, videos.
There are many different algorithms for creating fake videos but the most commonly used process is the following: training a machine-learning algorithm to construct a particular person's face and a second algorithm to deconstruct it. Afterward, by pairing the two, images of a person can be deconstructed and reconstructed in different manners, allowing users to make a person say different things in a video or have a different pose in an image.
The technology was originally developed for Hollywood, to help create dramatic scenes, but as the public started accessing such technologies the number of malicious uses for the AI increased. The potential for this tool to be used as a political weapon is increasing rapidly, and the fact that a deep fake video was used in the Russia Ukraine conflict implies that there is likely more material to come. Thankfully the video that was used in this particular attack was noticed thanks to the information of Ukraine’s Strategic Communication center warned of this threat as well as the users of the social media sites who noticed that the president’s body proportions were off in the video. However, other attacks may pass unnoticed, spreading disinformation throughout the web.