Deep fake footage

or real?

There is a story in the paper this morning of some "footage" which appears to show the former leader of one of our political parties using an illegal substance. He denies it and says it is "deep fake". An "expert" disagrees.

Who is right? It is impossible to tell. There will be plenty of people who want to believe this is real, particularly if they vote for an opposing party. Even if someone else now came out and said, "No, I made that footage to show you it can be done" there will be people who still believe it is real.

This sort of thing is incredibly dangerous. It is has the potential to seriously damage every one of us. We need never to have done anything wrong but it will still seem as if we have done something wrong and people will believe it. 

Smear campaigns are very, very nasty. I was the victim of one. It could have been stopped immediately by a simple statement in a meeting. All it would have taken was a statement, "I was wrong and I apologise" by someone else.  The person who should have taken the responsibility to do that did nothing. Who wants to admit they are wrong and have the humiliation of saying so publicly? It is apparently easier to allow others to think badly of someone who has done no wrong. Even when a story comes out in the open and is shown to be false or wrong there are people who will believe it because they want to believe it. It suits their own agenda to believe it.

Now it is easier than ever before to harm others. How old are you before you understand what "AI" is and how to use it? Put the means in front of a child who has grown up with computers, coding, social media and anything else you care to throw in and they can almost certainly produce something like that. They may get caught out on the finer details and it may not hold up to finer examination but they may well produce something good enough to fool most of us. We will get examples of AI being used to try and sway us at the next election and it won't be pretty.

Where are we going with all this? Will every part of our lives end up being controlled by this? It's possible. That frightens me.