On November 17, 2023, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi at the BJP’s Diwali Milan Programme at the party headquarters in New Delhi said that deep fakes are the biggest threats the Indian system is facing at the moment and added that they could cause serious chaos in the society. The Prime Minister also urged the media to educate the public about these threats. The Prime Minister said that both citizens and media need to be very careful and vigilant when it comes to the misuse of artificial intelligence from deepfakes.
What are Deepfakes?
Deepfakes refer to manipulated digital content such as images and videos created with the help and misuse of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques. They appear to be so convincing that it is difficult for people to distinguish between real and imaginary content. Mostly, Deepfakes are associated with negative perceptions and activities and are generally used for disinformation campaigns, false propaganda manipulation of public opinion.
The most powerful use of deepfakes is impersonation. The deepfake content can show political leaders, personnel and other reputed figures in the strategic domain and fields about saying, impersonating, and doing such actions which they have never ever performed actually. Deepfakes can be used to create fake news stories and footage which can be detrimental to a person’s reputation and well-being in the society. The life cycle of a deepfake can be divided into three parts namely: creation, dissemination, and detection.
They also pose a serious threat to the integrity of electoral democracy especially in the ongoing assembly elections making it hard to distinguish between fake and real clips. It may also include doctored images, fake video clips, and artificial voiceovers, targeting politicians and other people of repute.
Examples of Deepfakes
PM Narendra Modi also cited a deepfake video of him doing garba on a song called Maadi which he discussed during his address at the party headquarters. Calling the video very real he added that he has not played Garba since he was young. The video went viral on social media and in the video, a lookalike of PM Modi was seen dancing with some women. The person impersonating PM Modi is an actor called Vikas Mahante.
A user on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) also shared a screenshot of Mahante’s Instagram story. Mahante had shared the video on November 7, 2023, announcing that he was invited as thr chief guest at a Diwali Mela in London. At one point in the video, he can be seen standing on the same Garba stage as the deepfake and his attire was the same. Other examples of people who fell prey to deepfakes include cases of Bollywood actresses such as Kajol, Katrina Kaif and Rashmika Mandanna.
How to counter Deepfakes?
The easiest way to counter deepfakes is the use of adding watermarks to the AI generated videos. Watermarks reveal the content, origin, and ownership. Watermarks should be “visible ones” making it clear that content can be traced back to its source. Developing and the Improvement of Deepfake detection technologies such as sophisticated algorithms must be used.
Lessons can be learned from other countries too. For example, in China, regulation is to require providers of deepfake technologies to obtain consent of those in their videos, verify the identities of users, and offer recourse to them. In order to prevent harm from deepfakes, the Canadian government has included mass public awareness campaigns and possible legislation that would make creating and distributing deepfakes with malicious intent illegal
