Deep Fake video of Biden in drag promoting Bud Light goes viral, as experts warn of tech’s risks

Deep fake videos of President Joe Biden and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump show how the 2024 presidential race could be the first serious test of American democracy’s resilience to artificial intelligence.

Videos of Biden dressed as trans star Dylan Mulvaney promoting Bud Light and Trump teaching tax evasion in a quiet Albuquerque nail salon show that even the country’s most powerful figures are not safe from AI identity theft.

Experts say that while it is relatively easy to spot these counterfeits today, it will be impossible in the coming years because technology is evolving so quickly.

There have already been glimpses of the real harm of AI. Earlier this week, an AI-crafted image of black smoke emanating from the Pentagon sent shockwaves through the stock market before media fact-checkers were finally able to correct the record.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to identify disinformation, especially sophisticated AI-generated Deep Fake,” said Cayce Myers, a professor at Virginia Tech’s School of Communication.

“To detect this disinformation, users need to be more media literate and more adept at researching the truth of any claim,” says Professor Myers, who has studied Deep Fake technology and its increasing prevalence.

“The cost barrier for generative AI is also so low that now almost anyone with a computer and the internet has access to AI,” said Myers.

Myers emphasized the role both tech companies and the average citizen will have to play to prevent these waves of creepy, believable counterfeits from overwhelming American democracy in 2024.

“Surveying sources, understanding the warning signs of disinformation, and being diligent about what we share online is a personal way to combat the spread of disinformation,” Myers said. “But that won’t be enough.”

“Companies producing AI content and social media companies where disinformation is being spread will need to implement some level of guardrails to prevent the spread of widespread disinformation.”

There are fears that videos of politicians heralding words they never said could be used as a powerful disinformation tool to influence voters.

Notorious troll farms in Russia and other parts of the world hostile to the US are being used to sow dissent on social media.

It’s been five years since BuzzFeed and director and comedian Jordan Peele produced a creepy Deep Fake satire of former President Barack Obama to draw attention to the technology’s alarming potential.

“They could make me say things like, I don’t know, [Marvel supervillain] “Killmonger was right,” or “Ben Carson is in the sunken place,” Peele said in his expert Obama impression.

Or, how about this: “Simply put, President Trump is a total and complete jerk.”

But it’s not just academics, comedians and news outlets making these claims.

Leading policy experts have reiterated their concerns in recent years with increasing urgency.

“A well-timed and thoughtfully scripted deepfake or series of deepfakes could influence an election,” experts wrote for the Council on Foreign Relations in 2019.

The group also warned that Deep Fakes could soon “provoke violence in a city primed for civil unrest, amplify insurgent narratives of an enemy’s alleged atrocities, or exacerbate political divisions in a society.”

While Virginia Tech’s Myers acknowledges that programs like Photoshop have been capable of similar lifelike fakes for years, he says the difference is in the disinformation AI that can be mass-created with ever-increasing sophistication. “

“Photoshop allows fake images,” said Myers, “but AI can create modified videos that are very compelling. Since disinformation is now a widespread source of online content, this kind of fake news content can reach a much wider audience, especially if the content goes viral.”

Just like the “Better Call Trump” and Biden videos have Bud Light.

Myers has argued that in the near future we will see much more disinformation, both visual and written, serious and comedic.

But help — in the form of government regulation of any kind — doesn’t seem to be on the way.

This Wednesday, former Google CEO Erich Schmidt, a longtime White House adviser who recently co-chaired the US National Security Commission on AI, said he doubts the US will appoint a new regulatory body to reign in AI. .

“The problem is lawmakers don’t want to make a new law regulating AI before we know where the technology is going,” Myers said.