Worried About Deepfakes? Don't Forget "Cheapfakes"

Over the summer, a political action committee (PAC) supporting Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis uploaded a video of former president Donald Trump on YouTube in which he appeared to attack Iowa governor Kim Reynolds. It wasn't exactly real--though the text was taken from one of Trump's tweets, the voice used in the ad was AI-generated. The video was subsequently removed, but it has spurred questions about the role generative AI will play in the 2024 elections in the US and around the world. While platforms and politicians are focusing on deepfakes--AI-generated content that might depict a real person saying something they didn't or an entirely fake person--experts told WIRED there's a lot more at stake. Long before generative AI became widely available, people were making "cheapfakes" or "shallowfakes."