‘Fog of War’ Intensified by AI and Social Media, Tech Policy Expert Says

As the war between Israel and Hamas rages on, Jake Denton, research associate for The Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, breaks down what the role of artificial intelligence has been in the conflict. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“I think the one that everyone jumps to is the [artificial intelligence]-generated content, deepfakes, things of that nature,” Denton says. 

“There’s a few stories of synthetic audio recordings of a general saying that an attack’s coming or those types of things that we’ve even seen in the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” Denon says. “They go around on Telegram or WhatsApp.”

“They’re taken as fact because they sound really convincing. You add some background noise, and suddenly it’s like a whole production in an audio file,” Denton adds. “And typically, what you’re picking up on in a video is like the lips don’t sync, and so you know the audio is fake. When it’s an audio file, how do you even tell?”

Denton also highlights social media platforms such as the Chinese-owned app, TikTok. 

“And so, what you’re seeing right now, especially on platforms like TikTok, is they’re just promoting things that are either fake or actual real synthetic media, like a true deepfake from the ground up and altered video, altered audio, all these things are getting promoted,” Denton says, adding: 

And kids, at no fault of their own, are consuming this stuff, and they’re taking as fact. It’s what you do.You see a person with a million followers that has 12 million likes and you’re like, “This is a real video.” You don’t really expect these kids to fact-check.

Denton joins today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast” to also discuss President Joe Biden‘s executive order on artificial intelligence, what he views as social media companies’ roles in monitoring artificial intelligence and combating fake images and videos, and how people can equip themselves to identify fake images and videos online.

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