The Destabilizing Effects of Even Low-Quality Deepfakes

Since the weeks leading up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, warnings have been circulating that Russia might use deepfake videos--convincing fake videos created with artificial intelligence-- in the surrounding information war. Perhaps they would use deepfakes to fabricate a pretext for the invasion, or to have Ukrainian President Zelensky issue an order to surrender. With bated breath we waited, but no sign of deepfakery occurred. Then finally, on March 16--20 days into the invasion and 13 days after Ukraine warned this exact scenario might happen--a deepfake of Zelensky surrendering indeed appeared, and it was … unconvincing and obvious. The video editing was low-quality, and the voice was noticeably off; few people seem to have been fooled by it.