Irish teenager wins national award for 'deepfake' video detector

A teenage student in Ireland has won a national science competition for developing technology that can more easily detect "deepfake" videos online. Greg Tarr, from County Cork, was declared the winner of the 2021 BT Young Scientist & Technologist of the Year award last week for his project, "Towards Deepfake Detection". The picture or audio of deepfake videos is altered by artificial intelligence (AI) to make it appear as though someone has said or done something they have not. The viral spread of deepfake videos has caused international concern, in an age of digital news consumption, and social media companies have come under renewed scrutiny on how to tackle the spread of this misinformation. An altered video, claiming to show US President-elect Joe Biden falling asleep during a television interview, was widely shared before November's election.