misinformation Archives

Microsoft: China plans to disrupt elections with AI-generated disinformation

Beijing is expected to ramp up sophisticated AI-generated disinformation campaigns to influence several high-profile elections in 2024, according to Microsoft's threat intelligence team.

Microsoft warned that state-backed Chinese cyber groups – with assistance from North Korean actors – "are likely to target" the presidential and legislative elections in countries such as the US, South Korea, and India this year. Their primary tactic is projected to be the creation and...

5 April 2024 | Artificial Intelligence

UK Home Secretary sounds alarm over deepfakes ahead of elections

Criminals and hostile state actors could hijack Britain's democratic process by deploying AI-generated "deepfakes" to mislead voters, UK Home Secretary James Cleverly cautioned in remarks ahead of meetings with major tech companies.

Speaking to The Times, Cleverly emphasised the rapid advancement of AI technology and its potential to undermine elections not just in the UK but globally. He warned that malign actors working on behalf of nations like Russia and Iran could generate...

26 February 2024 | Applications

President Zelenskyy deepfake asks Ukrainians to ‘lay down arms’

A deepfake of President Zelenskyy calling on citizens to “lay down arms” was posted to a hacked Ukrainian news website and shared across social networks.

The deepfake purports to show Zelenskyy declaring that Ukraine has “decided to return Donbas” to Russia and that his nation’s efforts had failed.

Following an alleged hack, the deepfake was first posted to a Ukrainian news site for TV24. The deepfake was then shared across social networks, including Facebook...

17 March 2022 | Deep & Reinforcement Learning

Deepfakes are being used to push anti-Ukraine disinformation

Influence operations with ties to Russia and Belarus have been found using deepfakes to push anti-Ukraine disinformation.

Last week, AI News reported on the release of a study that found humans can generally no longer distinguish between real and AI-generated “deepfake” faces.

As humans, we’re somewhat trained to believe what we see with our eyes. Many believed that it was only a matter of time before Russia took advantage of deepfakes and our human psychology to...

1 March 2022 | Deep & Reinforcement Learning

James Cameron warns of the dangers of deepfakes

Legendary director James Cameron has warned of the dangers that deepfakes pose to society.

Deepfakes leverage machine learning and AI techniques to convincingly manipulate or generate visual and audio content. Their high potential to deceive makes them a powerful tool for spreading disinformation, committing fraud, trolling, and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaq4sWFvnAY

“Every time we improve these tools, we're actually in a sense building a toolset to...

24 January 2022 | Ethics & Society

Social media algorithms are still failing to counter misleading content

As the Afghanistan crisis continues to unfold, it’s clear that social media algorithms are unable to counter enough misleading and/or fake content.

While it’s unreasonable to expect that no disingenuous content will slip through the net, the sheer amount that continues to plague social networks shows that platform-holders still have little grip on the issue.

When content is removed, it should either be prevented from being reuploaded or at least flagged as...