Big tech tackles deep fakes

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – Nearly two dozen tech companies are promising to combat AI generated deep fakes designed to trick voters online but with the 2024 presidential election around the corner pro regulation advocates and some lawmakers are pushing for more.

Professor Neil Johnson, a data scientist, warns we are now in uncharted territory thanks to AI generated deepfakes.

“We’ve already seen it I mean the robocalls for Biden…it’s already been used in the Indonesian elections,” Johnson said.

Deep fakes are designed to look real.

The world’s top tech companies have promised to clamp down on fake images imitating politicians but Robert Weissman, the president of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen says that’s not enough.

“It’s a positive step that they’re going to do the best they can, but the best they can do right now is not good enough,” Weissman said.

Johnson says more than 3 billion people are going to vote in elections globally and for the pledge to be effective many more companies must follow suit.

“There are upwards of 100 platforms and most of them are small and don’t have the resources if they wanted to police the use of AI,” says Johnson. “A hundred platforms outweighs anything happening on big platforms. META and X, they’re just the receivers of a lot of this AI.”

About two dozen companies including Google Meta, X and TikTok promised at an international security conference last week to adopt “reasonable precautions to detect and label political deepfakes” and to ban or remove content.

“A strategy that relies on big tech to self-police is not strategy,” Weissman said.

Weissman and Public Citizen are calling for federal action to ban political deep fakes.

Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) agrees Congress needs to step up before democracy pays the price.

“I continue to worry we may be looking at foreign interference in our elections,” said Warner.

The White House is promising to roll out its own tool to flag deep fakes online.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to Queen City News.