A view of a trio of NUVILAB AI Food Scanner 3.0 compatible devices, on display during the 2024 International CES, at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2024. Hundreds of experts are calling on policymakers to harness deepfake content, created by AI. File Photo by James Atoa/UPI |
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Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Experts in the fields of technology, artificial intelligence and child safety in the entertainment industry called on officials to combat the growing dangers of deepfake content, which is becoming commonplace in politics.
Some 300 experts in various fields issued an open letter calling on governments, lawmakers and political leaders to take deepfake content -- which can often contain sexual content, outright fraud or political disinformation -- head on as the 2024 presidential campaign season heats up.
Existing laws do not target the production or dissemination of deepfake content, nor do they punish people who make it, the so-called supply chain.
The letter, titled "Disrupting the Deepfake Supply Chain," supports legislative efforts to address the content and its makers, and calls on policymakers to criminalize deepfake child pornography, even in cases where only fictional children are depicted; establish criminal penalties for anyone who knowingly creates or facilitates the spread of harmful deepfakes; and require software developers to prevent their products from creating deepfakes, among a list of other measures.
"Deepfakes are a huge threat to human society and are already causing growing harm to individuals, communities, and the functioning of democracy," said Andrew Critch, AI researcher at UC Berkeley in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and lead author on the letter. "We need immediate action to combat the proliferation of deepfakes, and my colleagues and I created this letter as a way for people around the world to show their support for law-making efforts to stop deepfakes."
"It's increasingly clear that anyone, anywhere could be the target of harmful deep fakes -- including our children," said Sarah Gardner, chief executive officer of the Heat Initiative.
"Lawmakers work for us, and they have a moral imperative to protect our kids by acting quickly to hold accountable the platforms and bad actors that are allowing the proliferation of child sexual abuse material."
The letter also encourages device manufacturers, software developers and media companies to work together to popularize content authentication methods, such as the implementation of tamper-proof digital seals on authentic media using cryptographic signature techniques similar to website certificates and login credentials.
Deepfakes are AI-generated synthetic media that mimic real human voices, images and videos, in ways that a reasonable person would mistake as real. From 2019 to 2023, there was a 400% increase in deepfake creation, with deepfake pornography alone comprising 98% of all deepfake videos online, almost all of them targeting women, according to bandeepfakes.org.
