Context

That clash is between replication and authentication – the debate that will soon be (or should be) dominating our news feeds. With every step AI takes towards replicating human activity, we see a backtrack through efforts to use the internet to verify humans through digital footprints. Countries like Estonia and Brazil have made remarkable progress in that arena
Estonian citizens receive unique eleven digit numerical IDs, which allow them to conduct financial and voting activities online.
All of this sounds good. But the problem is that AI technology could get to a point where it can convincingly play the part of a human online. That’s not quite in sync with efforts to authenticate online behavior, or reap any of its benefits.
It might seem academic and impractical, but social science has in fact significantly informed efforts to replicate human behavior. Even if they don’t realize it, technology investors are drawing from it.

Voorbeelden van technologie

VoCo

VoCo is an AI-powered tool that can replicate human voices. All you need is to feed the software a 20-minutes long audio recording of someone talking. The AI will analyze it and learn how that person talks. Then, just type anything, and the computer will read your words in that person’s voice. Fundamentally, Adobe built VoCo to help sound editors easily fix audio mistakes in podcasts or movies. However, as you can guess, the announcement led to major concerns about the potential implications of the technology, from reducing trust in journalism to causing major security threats.

Face2Face

Face2Face is an AI-powered tool that can do real-time video reenactment. The process is roughly the same as VoCo: feed the software a video recording of someone talking, and it will learn the subtle ways that person’s face moves and operates. Then, using face tracking tech, you can map your face to that person’s, essentially making them do anything you want with an uncanny level of realism.

Combine VoCo and Face2Face, and you get something very powerful: the ability to manipulate a video to make someone say exactly what you want in a way that is nearly indistinguishable from reality.

It doesn’t stop here. AI is enabling many other ways to impersonate you. For instance, researchers created an AI-powered tool that can imitate any handwriting, potentially allowing to easily manipulate legal and historical documents or create false evidence to use in court. Even creepier, a startup created an AI-powered memorial chatbot: software that can learn everything about you from your chat logs, and then allow your friends to chat with your digital-self after you die.

With AI, we are heading toward a world where this will be the case with every other form of media: text, voice, video, etc.

trust nothing.

Can we overcome death trough an AI?