‘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 the role of artificial intelligence in the conflict.

“I think the one that everyone jumps to is the AI-generated content, deepfakes, things of that nature,” Denton says on this episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast.” (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet )

“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,” Denton says. “They go around on Telegram or WhatsApp.”

“They’re taken as fact because they sound really convincing,” the Heritage researcher says. “You add some background noise, and suddenly it’s like a whole production in an audio file. 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.

“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 it 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.

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

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