Can AI Detect Deepfakes To Help Ensure Integrity of U.S. 2020 Elections?

A perfect storm arising from the world of pornography may threaten the U.S. elections in 2020 with disruptive political scandals having nothing to do with actual affairs. Instead, face-swapping "deepfake" technology that first became popular on porn websites could eventually generate convincing fake videos of politicians saying or doing things that never happened in real life--a scenario that could sow widespread chaos if such videos are not flagged and debunked in time. The thankless task of debunking fake images and videos online has generally fallen upon news reporters, fact-checking websites and some sharp-eyed good Samaritans. But the more recent rise of AI-driven deepfakes that can turn Hollywood celebrities and politicians into digital puppets may require additional fact-checking help from AI-driven detection technologies. An Amsterdam-based startup called Deeptrace Labs aims to become one of the go-to shops for such deepfake detection technologies. "We see deepfakes and similar technologies as a new wave of cybersecurity threats, with the potential of affecting every digital audiovisual communication channel," says Giorgio Patrini, CEO and chief scientist at Deeptrace Labs, a startup based out of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.