WEBVTT - Truth to Power 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:12.960 Sleepwalkers is a production of I Heart Radio and Unusual Productions. Hey, 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.680 how are you doing? Are you in a curious situation? 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:24.120 But not really? Where are you? Can you say where 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:30.080 you are? You sound like you can't talk. Yeah, okay, 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:36.320 I've been working on Sleepwalkers so much. Yeah, so I 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:40.360 know what you're thinking. Kara isn't normally that distracted? But 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.200 the truth is that wasn't her speaking. We're playing prerecorded 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.239 fakes of her voice to her cousin, created by AI. 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.720 Are you sleeping today? Wake you? I feel so tired. 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.800 I'm sorry. I wanted to talk to you about huh. 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:00.400 I stupidly left my wallet at home and I need 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:02.880 to order tickets to the screening before it sells out? 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:09.720 What's screening? I'm not? Are you you know? Could you 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.360 read me a card number real fast or text me 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.640 a pick up your card? I'll then you back. Are 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:23.440 you you talking to me? Your cousin Leslie? Right? Hello? Yeah? 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.959 I think we're crossing paths here. You're not answering me 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:36.920 in a weird You're answering me in a weird way. 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.959 So what was it like hearing Leslie respond to robot Carol? Well, 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:44.880 it reminded me that it's very easy to prank people 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:47.920 when they have no context for what you're doing. It 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.680 took her like a full minute to be like, Okay, 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:53.040 I's tired, not like that's not car you know, it's 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:54.680 always like cool my dad, And I'll say to him 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:59.200 after a minute, Dad, are you playing internet chess? Well, 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.840 there is what they all there's tech brain, which is 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.480 when someone's texting and talking to you, they're like and 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:07.160 that's sort of what it sounds like. She was like, 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:11.200 are you having another conversation? Has she forgiven you? She's 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.880 forgiven robo ka, I'm still not off the hook. Sorry. 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:19.480 Fake audio and fake video can be a lot of 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.480 fun for pranks, and there are some life changing the 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.720 positive uses for synthetic media that we hear about later. 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.600 But just how much trouble could deep fakes get us into? 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:32.200 And as they get easier to make, how can we 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:34.359 keep them out of the hands of the wrong people. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:52.519 I'm as Velochen, Welcome to Sleepwalkers. The plan originally was 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.880 to get cousin Leslie's credit card detail that failed. Yeah, 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.160 Julian had the idea of having Kara Ai asked for 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.960 credit card information basically to prove how easy it is 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.600 to get somebody's credit card information. You can imagine if 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.560 it was a little bit better and you were talking 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.239 to someone and they were like, oh my god, my grandchild, 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:14.320 you know, needs money. Oh my god, my grandchild is 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.080 in trouble, that they would say, Okay, hold on a minute, 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:18.840 I'll get you the credit card number, you know what 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:20.920 I mean. Yeah, And I think that's what's so frightening 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.880 about this technology. We're going to dive later into how 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:28.040 you synthesized your voice, but it's the same technological underpinning 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:30.720 of the video that many people have seen of Jordan 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:35.480 Peel basically speaking in Barack Obama's mouth. We're entering an 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:37.680 era in which our enemies can make it look like 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.080 anyone is saying anything at any point in time, even 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:44.240 if they would never say those things. For instance, they 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.280 could have me say things like President Trump is a 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.520 total and complete dipshit. So that was a computer neural 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:55.520 network faking Barack Obama's facial features and mouth movement to 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:57.920 literally look like he was speaking the words that Jordan 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.600 Peele said, and that actually makes it even more persuasive 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.040 than the fake audio we just heard. Of your voice, 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.000 because when you see something, you tend to believe it. 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.840 That's why the phrases seeing is believing. Thanks. We're got 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.200 to come back to deep fakes, but before we get there, 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.240 we're going to take a look at some other online 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.800 trickery because the scariest part is that fakes actually don't 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.719 have to be as sophisticated as you'll call to cousin 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:26.479 Leslie Toreak Havoc. This is particularly true on Facebook. So 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.400 we went to their headquarters in Palo Alto to meet 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.719 Nathaniel Glica. He's the head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.440 and he told me about an incident last summer that 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.400 creates the true dilemma for him and his team. In July, 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.200 we conducted a takedown of a fairly small network of 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.320 pages that were operating in the US. Showed links back 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.360 to Russian actors, and what they were doing was, among 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:54.000 other things, creating events where they were inviting Americans to 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.039 come to protests, and in particular this was around the 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.360 Unite the Right two movement, which happened in It was 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:04.080 the anniversary of the bloody clashes in Charlottesville in seventeen, 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.720 and the far right wanted to gather again. This time 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.000 Russia was watching, and there was an event that popped 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.760 up which was the No Unite the Right to movement. 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.359 This was a counter protest. There were authentic counter protests 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.159 being planned, but this one was being convened by a 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.120 group of inauthentic pages and accounts which were linked back 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.120 to Russia that were clearly attempting to sort of bring 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.080 Americans together in a space where they would go into 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.720 physical conflict. Immediately after creating the event, they then went 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:37.400 out and invited legitimate, unwitting activists to co host the 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.680 event with them. Let's pause for a moment. This is 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:44.400 Russia we're talking about, and they're creating a Facebook event 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.920 to appeal to liberal activists, designed to draw them into 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.159 physical conflict with the far right and create the kind 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.440 of scenes that tear at our social fabric. But the 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.120 people co hosting it are not Russian agitators, their u 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:01.560 S citizens acting in good faith. What we saw in 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.440 that case, and what we're increasingly seeing, is these actors 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.520 trying to lure their behavior with domestic actors to force 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:10.880 not just the platforms but all of us to ask, 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.480 how do you separate these Ultimately, Facebook had to make 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:19.279 a decision. We removed that event from Facebook because it 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.520 was created by inauthentic actors. If someone else had created it, 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.159 that event would have been fine. So we removed the event. 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:27.919 But then we reached out to the co hosts, the 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.360 authentic hosts, and we explained to them what had happened, 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.400 and we made clear if you want to host your 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.599 own event, you should do that. We just want to 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:36.680 make sure that we everyone understands what's happening and what 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:38.799 did they say, and what was their reaction to realize 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.279 that the free will had been manipulated in that way. 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:43.920 If you look at reactions, it's a range of sort 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:46.920 of disbelief, Right, I don't think this was what you're 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:50.599 saying it was, too, I can't believe this happened. To Okay, 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:52.520 that happened, but I strongly believe in this, and I'm 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:54.520 gonna go and I'm going to advocate for my issues 0:06:54.560 --> 0:07:00.600 somewhere else. That spectrum of difficulty is exactly clear why 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:05.160 we see actors use these techniques, because there are no 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.320 easy answers here. My assumption going into this was that 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:12.560 detecting misinformation would be the biggest challenge for Facebook, but 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.680 that's the easy part. It's after you identify the fakes 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.560 that the really tough questions begin. We know that, particularly 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.720 the government actors in this space, part of their information 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.480 dominance strategy is to make themselves appear bigger and more 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.240 powerful than they are. They want to seem like they're everywhere, 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.760 and it's really easy to see foreign government manipulation under 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.040 every rock. I think it's really important not to play 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:41.120 into the hands of these actors and sort of overplay 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.760 their own influence. This is attention we struggle with. Whatever 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.920 we conduct a takedown for some of these operations, the 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.480 most attention it gets is when we take it down. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.040 The entire situation puts Facebook in a catch twenty two. 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.200 If they leave the content up, they're helping to promote 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.840 a foreign government's nefarious agenda. If they take it down, 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.760 the foreign government gets all this attention for being more 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.800 powerful and cleverer than they actually are. These decisions are 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:12.640 incredibly hard. Think of Charlottesville, Think of pizza Gate. Think 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.800 of Lane Davis, who stabbed his own father after an 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:20.600 argument over the conspiracy theory about liberal pedophiles. Face can kill. 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.240 And Facebook has recognized this for a start, they hired 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.120 Nathaniel a former cyber crimes prosecutor in the U s 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.680 Department of Justice, and in March of this year, Mark 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:35.320 Zuckerberg announced a company wide pivot towards privacy and encrypted messaging, 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:40.520 including services like WhatsApp, which they own. But David Kirkpatrick, 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:44.520 founder of Tachonomy, notes that the pivot carries its own problems. 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.400 If you look at South Asia where there's a lot 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:54.400 of ethnic discord political violence, notably in India, Indonesia, Me 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:59.080 and mar Sri Lanka. One of the primary ways that 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.480 that spreads is in group messages in WhatsApp. People in 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.640 the US don't typically use what'sapp for group messages, but 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.959 in places like India and Indonesia they do. And these 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.240 groups on five or six people, your your parents, and 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.880 your brother and city. These are like you subscribe to 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:19.560 a political leader or a religious zealot. So this is 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.640 more like the dear leader being piped into your home right. 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:26.560 So the problem has been almost more severe in those 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:31.400 systems than on Facebook itself of fake news and ethnic 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:38.120 hatred being disseminated. Because WhatsApp is a encrypted service, so 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.360 the service itself can't even see what the messages are 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.400 that are being distributed. What's scary is it doesn't take 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.840 any technical sophistication or knowledge on the part of people 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:53.240 writing these messages spreading this misinformation. They're just using WhatsApp. Yeah, 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.559 and these are just messaging apps and social media platforms. 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:58.959 But what they mean is that a single message can 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.839 spread like wild And of course the history of new 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:05.240 communication technology tends to go hand in hand with violence. 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.000 When the printing press I books came to Europe, they 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.439 at least religious wars, but they also made the world literate. 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.200 And we've mentioned this before. Technology is usually dual use, 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.160 which relates back to deep fikes. Mostly when you read 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.080 about deep fakes, probably thanks in part to the fact 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:24.320 they're called deep fakes, the coverage is not very positive. 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.520 There have been more and more stories though about positive 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.920 uses for deep fakes. So when we come back, I'm 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:31.559 gonna tell you more about how I faked my own 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:33.440 voice and also some of the things that I learned 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:44.360 in the process. We started this conversation a few weeks ago, 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.080 and then you asked those to create these artificial voice 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:52.040 based on your identity. That's Jose's to tell out, the 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.839 co founder of liar Bird. They're the company who made 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.880 robot Kara and helped me prank my cousin, and they've 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:01.479 published a version of their tools online at liarbird dot ai. 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.640 Here's how it works. I know it might sound a 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.240 bit like magic, but in reality, the way that our 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.160 algorithms work is basically they are just a pattern matching algorithms, 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:17.880 and so it's trying to figure out how to identify 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.559 the patents in your voice by comparing it against thousands 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:23.840 of other voices I should have tens of thousands of 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:27.040 other voices, and trying to figure out what is it 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.520 that makes your voice unique. Once Jose's algorithms identified what 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.880 was unique about my voice, obviously everything they had the 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.640 building blocks they needed to make a fake. Then we 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:39.199 sent Jose a set of sentences we wanted robot care 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.040 to say, and he used another set of algorithms to 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.440 turn the text into what we heard. The way they 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.199 do this is they use it's called a generative adversarial 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:51.600 network again, which is a system where one neural net 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.559 tries to trick another one a thousand times per second. 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.040 So each time the second network to tacks of fake, 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.880 the first one tries again It basically learns from its mistakes, 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.680 and once it tricks its adversary, it's ready to show 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:08.360 its results. In our case, liar Bird pits my fake 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.199 voice against my real voice until it sounds like this 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:17.199 sub dog Scara. As this technology becomes more widely available, 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:20.920 so does the potential for abuse. And while Liarbird develops 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.439 the technology, they don't take the ethics lightly. But Jose 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:28.360 has an entirely different fear. We believe that the biggest 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.760 risk of this kind of technology comes from the fact 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.120 that not a lot of people know about it. I 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.640 believe that society is not ready for what's going to 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:42.440 happen when this technology becomes widespread, and so I really 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:46.959 want to make my best effort in trying to showcase 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.440 it to the public so that they are at least 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.120 prepare for what's coming. When people know a scheme exists, 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.559 they're less likely to be tricked by it. But if 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.000 you don't know deep fakes are possible, you're much more 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.800 likely to fall for them. Leslie might been better equipped 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.760 to call my bluff had she known it was even possible. 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.240 But here's the thing, Well, there are inevitable misuses of 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.400 deep fix both behind US and on the horizon. There 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.360 are a number of extraordinary benefits of this technology, which 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:15.760 is why Jose is working on it. When people are 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.040 diagnosed with a LIST, it's because they start to lose 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.480 their movement skills seemed, let's say, their hands or their feet, 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.240 and so they go to the doctor and then the 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.679 doctor tells them like, you know what, this can be 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.559 als and this gets progressively worse. This was the case 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:36.040 for Pat Quinn, the co founder of the Ice Bucket Challenge, 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:41.319 creating a real fight within the a LS community. This 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:46.760 is a public battle now. Pat was diagnosed with a 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.320 l S and it ultimately took his ability to speak, 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.560 walk and use his hands. During this time. Since they're 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.120 diagnosed until they lose their voice, they have some time, 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.240 and so the idea is that during this time they 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:03.199 will be able to record themselves, ideally in a really 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.559 high quality setting. Then based on these recordings, we will 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:08.920 be able to create an artificial copy of their voice 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.120 which they will be able to continue using for the 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.000 rest of their life. Liar Bird has partnered with the 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:19.000 a l S Foundation to create Project Revoice. Just imagine 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.840 how it would feel for them, to, let's say, not 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:25.760 be able to tell their husband or their wife I 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.560 love you anymore, to tell this to their kids. And 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:33.080 so using this technology, they are able to keep this 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:37.080 really important part of their identities. Using the exact same 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:40.200 technology I used to create my deep fake liar bird 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.640 was able to give Path the ability to preserve his 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.120 voice for the rest of his life. It's a strange 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:49.680 feeling saying the first words at the second time. It's 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:55.080 like you don't realize how powerful, how personally I her 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.640 voice really is until it stay them from you. My 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.440 voice is how I back against a very disease. Take 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:08.400 it for me, say something, Listen to it. No voice. 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:13.840 Since revoicing pat Lierbard has received a number of emails 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.640 from als patients asking if it's possible for them to 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.720 do the same thing, preserve this part of themselves which 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.440 they know they're going to lose, and Jose has heard 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.480 from people who have lost family in other ways. For instance, 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:28.680 we have received that quite a lot, actually very emotional 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:33.200 emails about people telling some variation of this. My wife 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:38.080 died three months ago, and I have two children, age 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.720 four and six, and I would really really love to 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.200 be able to tell them a good night story in 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.480 the voice of their mother, or to tell them that, 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.680 in the mother's voice, I love you, I am proud 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:53.560 of you, be happy. The tools on lierbrard AI are 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.080 intentionally less advanced and meant to just spread awareness, but 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.440 Liarbrard's more bespoke tools open amazing possibilities for changing how 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:03.960 we deal with loss and grief. I would like to 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.080 ask you just one question, which is like, how would 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.400 you feel, let's say, about recording the voice of your 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.200 parents and keeping them What do you think would you 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:14.720 like to the lease or or how do you feel 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.480 about that? It was interesting when jose asked me because 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:19.880 I had actually thought about it ever since I learned 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:25.840 about Liar Bird when I was fifteen. So fourteen years ago, 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:31.160 my dad died in a fatal car accident, and nobody 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.000 prepares for accidents, you know. One minute my dad walked 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.080 out the door, and forty five minutes later the police 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.280 showed up at the same door to tell us what happened, 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.960 and so I never got to see or speak to 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:49.280 my dad ever again. Sometimes my therapist will ask me 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:51.600 if I think about what I would talk about with 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.160 my dad if he was still alive, and I always 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:56.280 say that, you know, I don't. I don't think about 0:16:56.320 --> 0:17:00.160 that too much because it's sad to think about at 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.640 that because he's not actually around, and because I know 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.639 I can't talk about him. But it's also hard to 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.560 conceive of. You know, I can't recall off the top 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.280 of my head what he sounds like, and sometimes I'll 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.359 hear his voice when we watch home movies and it 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.800 always spooks me out. So the idea of having his 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.520 disembodied voice asked me things like how do you like 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:24.720 working on this podcast? Or what's the most amazing thing 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.119 you've learned, or even saying things like I'm so proud 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.040 of you. Do you know that? I'm not sure how 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:35.600 I'd react to his voice like that. Regardless, the thought 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.280 of it is something in the realm of possibility is 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:43.760 equal parts chilling and exciting. I actually think, given the chance, 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:51.400 I might do it. This is not the science fiction 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.640 thing or something that will exist years from now. It's 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.600 something that exists already to the people can even go on. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.359 And as my cousin Leslie learned, these deep fakes are 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:06.560 already good enough to use on unassuming family members suburb 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:12.920 This isn't Kara, this is artificial terra. Oh my God, 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:26.120 my voice right now, it's AI. This is awful. When 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.280 we started reporting on deep fakes, I never anticipated how 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:32.199 moving the technology could be. I was more focused on 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.560 the dangers, and they are worth considering too. One person 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.000 who is out in front bringing awareness to the potential 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.639 harms of fake media is Danielle Citron. She's a legal 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.159 professor at the University of Maryland and the author of 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:48.360 Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. Machine learning technology and neural networks 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:52.720 can learn from your photo and voice that's taken from 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:57.560 recordings of your voice, can sufficiently learn enough about your 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:00.760 face and the way it moves and you or voice 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:05.120 so that it can create really incredibly difficult to debunk 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:09.000 videos of you doing and saying things you never did. 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.960 Now we all know how dangerous the simple recent word 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:17.320 can be. Danielle got interested in how fake video could 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:21.400 increase the forces of hate exponentially. There was a whole 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:25.200 Reddit thread devoted to deep fake sex videos of celebrities, 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.919 female celebrities like Emma Watson and Hathaway and others. If 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.440 you went through the thread, which I did, you can 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:35.280 see the conversation moving beyond Emma Watson to my bitch 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.080 girlfriend or that woman I hated in high school, and 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.439 it was it was all the conversation about women, you 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:42.959 know what I thought was like the evil Cyberus stocking 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:46.399 was all based on Crewe doctored photos of someone naked, 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:48.400 but if you worked at it, you could figure it out. 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:52.439 Now we can put people into pornography in ways that 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.520 are devastate their careers. So, Kara, I do think it 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.280 says something that this new technology is being used to 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.320 target women. And a lot of these conversations are happening 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:04.600 on the same forums on Reddit where the in cell 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.359 movement was born, right, So I think this is especially 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.400 important when we talk about famous women and their likeness. 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:13.760 A lot of men on the Internet want to see 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.359 their favorite actresses in positions that they wouldn't be able 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:22.240 to see those actresses in, and so with this technology, 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.080 it's quite easy to put someone's face on somebody else's 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.040 body without the consent of the actual actress and actually sag. 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:32.440 The Screen Actors Guild held a panel a few weeks 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.840 ago to bring this up that like, yes, we we're 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.480 talking about this in terms of democracy and our political 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:39.679 system and the upcoming election, but we also have to 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.560 talk about this in terms of the livelihood of women 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.919 who make money on their likeness and whose likeness is 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.840 now being misappropriated. Yeah, because it can destroy their careers 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:53.200 and silence them. There's actually a case in India where 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:57.159 people attempt to use deep fate pornography to intimidate and 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.920 silence a journalist called run ayub and I spoke about 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:05.600 that case with Danielle the Indian journalist who had been 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:09.960 very critical of Hindu politics, nationalist politics, and a deep 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:13.639 fake sex video sort of was spread basically to discredit 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:19.040 her um and spread through texting networks and went viral, 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.000 and she basically was devastated and went offline, stopped writing 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.320 for like three weeks. She's a journalist, this is what 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.320 she does for a living, right, So imagine that kind 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.720 of granular individual harm um and compare it with harm 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:36.199 to CEOs the night before an I p O. A 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:39.159 deep fake is release that shows this person taking a 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.320 bribe or doing drugs or whatever. I'm making it up, 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:45.000 but that tanks the I p O. Right. This kind 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.240 of video manipulation used to be confined to places like Disney, 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.320 and the output was blockbuster movies that are fictional but 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.240 not fake. Now AI is being consumerized, and the tools 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:59.000 to create convincing video are spreading, and that means creating 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.359 the kind of chaos Danielle describes is also more and 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:06.920 more accessible. That threatens all of us. One person working 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.040 on the issue is Hani for Reed of Dartmouth University, 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:14.000 who has been called the father of digital forensics. I'm 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:18.000 concerned that once we know you can create fake content, 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.119 there is nothing stopping anybody from saying that any video 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:26.040 is fake. Everybody has plausible the liability. So rewind two 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.600 years ago when the Access Hollywood tape came out of 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:33.040 President Trump saying what he does to women. The response 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.639 from the campaign was not this is fake. It was 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:39.160 we apologized, this was locker room talk. They found ways 0:22:39.200 --> 0:22:43.840 of trying to excuse it. If that was today, guaranteed 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:45.640 he would have said it was fake. And in fact, 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:47.960 a year ago, after having apologized for the for the 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.160 audio recording, he said it was fake. And so now 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:55.400 politicians have plausible deniability, and at a time when our 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.600 US president is demonizing the press and telling everybody that 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:02.440 you can't believe anything, that credible deniability holds some weight. 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:05.800 And so I'm extremely concerned. Now, how do we distinguish 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:08.040 what's what, and that I think for a democracy is 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:11.960 going to be incredibly challenging. So when nothing is believable, 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:15.680 the mischief doer can say it's a lie. Do you 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:17.359 know what I'm saying? Like the person who commits the 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:21.720 crime or does something and says something incriminatory can say, 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:24.520 that's a fake. So the more you educate you both 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:29.280 but deep fix the evil doers can leverage that and say, well, 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:34.520 you can't believe anything, right. Danielle calls this the liar's dividend. 0:23:35.160 --> 0:23:38.080 In a world where nothing can be trusted, everything can 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:42.080 be denied, and even documented bad deeds can be explained away. 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:44.400 This kind of thing is accelerated by deep fakes, though, 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:46.919 which is why I think there are some attempts to 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:50.040 correct it with law, with law like the Anti Deep 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:54.880 Fakes Law, very similar the Malicious Deep Fake Prohibition Act 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:58.280 of eighteen, which was introduced by this Republican center from 0:23:58.320 --> 0:24:01.879