With the phenomenon of deepfakes escalating and threatening fundamental democratic processes (e.g. elections) as well as citizens’ digital security , the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has issued a call for immediate action. At its annual “AI for Good” Summit in Geneva, the ITU published a report that highlights the need for advanced tools to detect and curb disinformation , in an era where artificial intelligence creates convincing fake audiovisual content with alarming ease.
Deepfakes: The dark side of generative AI
Deepfakes – images, videos and sounds created or modified by AI to realistically mimic real people– are now a serious tool for manipulating public opinion. As Bilel Jamoussi, head of the ITU’s Study Groups Department, noted, citizens’ trust in social media has been deeply shaken, as “they cannot distinguish what is real from what is fake.”
See also: Deepfake scam – USA: Unknown person impersonates Marco Rubio
The rapid development of Generative AI, which allows the mass creation of realistic but false content, makes fraud much more dangerous on a political, social and economic level.
Need for international standards and transparency in the origin of content
The ITU is calling on technology companies and social media to adopt strong digital verification, such as origin watermarks on images and videos, as well as technologies that incorporate metadata, such as timestamps and creator information. It is already working on developing such a global standard.
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Adobe 's Leonard Rosenthol emphasizes that identifying the origin of a file is crucial for the end user to assess its trustworthiness . " The places where users consume their content should display this information... When you scroll through your feeds, you want to know: 'I can trust this image, this video, '" he said.
Need for a global approach
According to Dr. Farzaneh Badiei, founder of Digital Medusa, the lack of a single global oversight body makes the effort to curb deepfakes extremely difficult. “If we have a patchwork of standards and solutions, then harmful deepfakes can be more effective,” she told Reuters.
Role of the private sector and need for digital education
Tomaz Levak, founder of Swiss-based Umanitek, emphasizes that the solution lies not only in technology, but also in user education. As he characteristically said: “Artificial Intelligence will become increasingly powerful, faster or smarter… We will need to upgrade people’s skills to make sure they don’t fall victim to the systems.”
See also: Instagram's 'BMO' ads use deepfakes
The preventive implementation of measures by technology companies, social networking platforms, and media outlets is now considered imperative, as the speed of spreading fake news with deepfake material surpasses all precedents.
Combating deepfakes is not just a technological challenge – it is a cultural and institutional necessity. The ITU is setting the framework for a global system of transparency and detection of fake content, but without the cooperation of governments, companies and citizens, the fight against disinformation may be lost.
The digital age requires new trust mechanisms. And the time to build them is now.
Source: Reuters
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