Bollywood star in lycra or deepfake? AI on social media takes toll

There was the Bollywood star in skin-tight lycra, the Bangladeshi politician filmed in a bikini and the young Pakistani woman snapped with a man. None were real, but all three images were credible enough to unleash lust, vitriol, and even allegedly a murder, underlining the sophistication of generative artificial intelligence and the threats it poses to women across Asia. The two videos and the photo were deepfakes, and went viral in a vibrant social mediascape struggling to come to grips with technology that has the power to create convincing copies and can upend real lives.