To: Prof. Rigolino

From: Dalia Paredes

Date: September 12, 2021

Subject Line: Ethical dilemma of audio deepfakes

Deepfakes are a new type of synthetic technology where people can manipulate your face into completely change what you are saying, what you look like and even videos of your actions. This is a huge ethical dilemma that is rapidly growing, people are developing and abusing the technology increasingly. Deepfakes are not only limited to physically changing your face but now people can change your voice and what you are saying in audio clips, this is an extremely dangerous and deceiving weapon.

Although extremely unusual, in August 2019 there was a case where someone used this synthetic technology to replicate and manipulate someone’s voice to create a new audio where they demanded that the CEO from a company in the UK to send money to a Hungarian supplier, the voice said that it was urgent. The CEO thought that they were speaking with their boss but turns out it was made through artificial intelligence, they had perfectly copied the boss’ voice. According to the Wall Street Journal, the criminals had matched the boss’ accent and his specific tone. The money that the CEO had transferred came to a total of $243,000. This poses a huge threat to absolutely anyone who uses phone calls, especially to those to make money transactions through the phone. It is easy for someone to get access to a recording of your voice then manipulate it into saying something completely different. This was not a one-time case either, Forbes says that they have come across 3 more audio deepfake cases since September 2019. Not only has this problem been seen in a business setting but in a custody case. A mother and a father were in a battle of getting custody for their child and the mother used an audio deepfake of the father making threats towards her to get the judge to side with her. This technology is advancing, and it is hard to detect what is real and what is false.

I am planning to write my letter to the CEO of Amber Video, Shamir Alibhai, who believes that fighting against deepfakes is a “losing battle.” The company he works for, Amber Video, focuses on detecting harmful synthetic media such as deepfakes. Deepfakes, audio and visual, can be a threat to anyone whether they own a company or not. Audio deepfakes are even more difficult to detect than visual deepfakes because audio is not always crystal clear which has the creators at an advantage. This issue concerns anyone with so much as a phone because even a small clip of a video with their voice on it can be transformed into something very different. I think everyone should be extra careful of what they decide to post because these things can put many things at stake.

Respectfully,

Dalia Paredes