philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

As DNC hits Chicago, Microsoft warns of deepfake artificial-intelligence attacks

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Badanes says one of the most troubling political deepfake attacks worldwide happened in October in Slovakia just two days before the election for a seat in parliament in the central European country. AI technology was used to create a fake recording of a top political candidate bragging about rigging the election. It went viral. And the candidate lost by a slim margin.

AI also turned up in last year’s Chicago mayoral election. Candidate Paul Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools chief, was the target of an audio deepfake posted on the social media platform X. In the clip, an artificial but realistic voice purporting to be that of Vallas endorsed rampant police violence, saying: “These days, people will accuse a cop of being bad if they kill one person that was running away. Back in my day, cops would kill, say, 17 or 18 civilians in their career, and nobody would bat an eye.” ...

She says Microsoft’s event at The Drake, 140 E. Walton Place, will be geared toward women, whom she says are disproportionately targeted by deepfakes and also online harassment. The training will focus on spotting deceptive AI content and providing tools to protect against illicit uses of the technology — including how to report a deepfake and how to check whether an image is bogus.

Badanes also will be part of a panel discussion Aug. 21 at the Erie Cafe, 536 W. Erie St., on the intersection of AI and politics, with a focus on regulations to combat deepfakes. ...

“We have a free tool,” Badanes says. “We encourage political campaigns to tag all of their official images and videos with this content-integrity marker.” ...

“There are real-world harms that are happening due to this technology,” Badanes says. “What I’m focusing on at the [DNC] is around the impact it has on elections, but we’re thinking about these harms in a much broader sense.” ...

See the full story here: https://chicago.suntimes.com/the-watchdogs/2024/08/18/deepfake-microsoft-ai-artificial-intelligence-ginny-badanes-content-integrity-marker-slovakia-iran-trump-kamala-harris