How Artificial Intelligence Can Detect, and Create, Fake News

The biggest challenge, however, of using AI to detect fake news is that it puts technology in an arms race with itself. Machine learning systems are already proving spookily capable at creating what are being called "deepfakes" – photos and videos that realistically replace one person's face with another, to make it appear that, for example, a celebrity was photographed in a revealing pose or a public figure is saying things he'd never actually say. Even smartphone apps are capable of this sort of substitution – which makes this technology available to just about anyone, even without Hollywood-level video editing skills.