House Intel to take first major deep dive into threat of 'deepfakes'

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/448278-house-intel-to-take-first-major-deep-dive-into-threat-of-deepfakes

House Intel to take first major deep dive into threat of 'deepfakes'

By Olivia Beavers - 06/13/19 06:00 AM EDT

The House Intelligence Committee is gearing up to host one of the first congressional hearings specifically focused on examining the threat of so-called deepfake videos manipulated by artificial intelligence to appear strikingly real. The hearing, slated for Thursday morning and featuring academics and other experts, comes amid warnings that such technology poses a major disinformation threat ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

“I think we all have to be much more skeptical consumers of what we see online,” House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told The Hill. “By the time you can tell that it's a fake, the damage has already been done. So we want to try to inform the public about this so that if it does occur, when it does occur, they'll have some background about the product.”

Fear about disinformation threats follow the 2016 presidential election, when Russia created fake accounts on social media aimed at sowing divisions and stirring tensions.

As other actors seek to follow the Kremlin’s playbook, deepfake technology is growing more sophisticated and prevalent. It’s possible an average internet user by the 2020 election could create doctored videos so realistic forensic experts will have to verify whether the content is real.
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