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It’s almost impossible to tell what’s real online anymore
The trouble is that technology has democratised deception.
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The line between fact and fiction is not so much blurring as becoming invisible, says the writer.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Anjana Ahuja
Whether it is cloned voices being used to empty bank accounts or AI-generated videos of politicians behaving badly, the digital world has long harboured fakery, falsehood and fraud.
But Professor Hany Farid from the University of California, Berkeley, specialising in digital forensics, recently advanced two opinions that suggest a darkening picture. The first came in a podcast in January, when he was asked to grade the threat to society from deepfakes on a scale of one to 10. His reply? Twelve.
