In early November, deepfake nude photos were circulated among Singapore Sports School (SSP) students exposing the dangers malicious use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage. This sparked like wild fire in Singapore with headlines of concerns about issues including consent, privacy, gender, and cyber safety. Deepfakes technology has advanced which allows for the manipulation of images, videos, and audio, far 0surpassing traditional photo-editing software. Further, the threat escalated when 100 public servants in Singapore, including five ministers, received extortion emails featuring deepfake images as part of sextortion scheme. With high-ranking officials affected by deepfake AI, what are steps by Singapore government taking to address this growing threat?
Introduction of Deepfakes:
As the Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerged as most transformative technologies of the 21st Century, while there is demand for entertainment and media in films for recreating actors who have passed away, education and training to create lifelike visualization of historical figures, and many more applicants in healthcare and therapy, business marketing, art and creativity, security and privacy, corporate training and simulation. Although it was advance and revolutionary, while it represents as double edge sword. These technologies can be used against people for cyber harassment particularly on women, where 98% deepfakes are based on women nuke pictures and videos which are very realistic and hard to find the different between real and fake.
The extortion:
The usage of artificial intelligence and deepfake to create realistic but fabricated images, videos and audios, has been misused in multiple instances, leading to major concern. It can be targeted at any one including high profile people like Singapore officials, similarly in India an actress Rashmika Mandanna was featured in deepfake video which went viral and many labelling it as “extremely scary”. As soon Rashmika replied in tweets saying that she who actress so people understood, but she was high school kid it would been different case. She was referring the awareness of parents in deepfakes, they tend to believe the fake once ad young high schools girls get badly affected.
The prevention:
As the cases become increasing concerning the governments has been imposing laws to prevent it. In China on January 2023 they made lay down the regulations requiring deepfake content to clearly indicate of AI-generated and prohibiting of creating of deepfakes. Similarly, in European Union with EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act includes provisions for targeting deepfakes. But, unfortunately multiple countries like United States (expect California), Singapore, India lack of frameworks in addressing deepfakes, but they reply on cyber harassment law to be applied for deepfakes. There is demand for framing a solid framework to reduce the incident involving in deepfakes technology.
In conclusion, while the technology of deepfakes is revolutionary, its prone for misuse is evident. In the early days, there was scandals involving installing hidden cameras in girl’s hostel bathrooms used for blackmail, but with deepfakes this would become irrelevant, as people could consider real footage as fake. The concern would be in educating the public about deepfake technology. There is another concern that people may believe genuine videos are fake.
This situation occurred in Gabon, Africa, where President Ali Bongo Ondimba, who was suffering from stroke, was absent from public life. In January 2019, a New Year’s broadcast aimed at responding rumors about his health showed Bongo speaking, but his odd body movements led many to believe it as deepfake. This skepticism played a role in an attempted coup due to the belief that video was deepfake. Hence to prevent such issues, there is a need for forensic centers dedicated to deepfake detection, which can help verify the authenticity of videos rather than banning it completely.
