A news anchor called “Alex” critiques the US over its failure to control gun violence, while another female anchor stresses the importance of “great power cooperation” between China and the United States.
At the outset, both seem completely normal. Except that both the anchors appear to promote the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.
However, this is not the striking feature of both of them. The fact that they are AI-generated deepfakes created to disseminate Chinese propaganda in first-of-their-kind videos has alarmed experts over the implications of AI in the near future.
The videos of these so-called “anchors”, who work for a fictitious news outlet called Wolf News, recently flooded social media in China.
A US-based research firm, Graphika, which analysed the video, said in its report that the two Wolf News anchors were certainly created using technology provided by the London-based AI startup Synthesia.
The website of Synthesia advertises software for creating deepfake avatars “based on video footage of real actors” reports AFP news agency.
The think tank said that it found these deepfakes on platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube while tracking pro-China disinformation operations known as “spamouflage”.
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Spamouflage is a pro-Chinese operation that amplifies low-quality political spam videos, according to Jack Stubbs, vice president of intelligence at Graphika.
“This is the first time we’ve seen a state-aligned operation use AI-generated video footage of a fictitious person to create deceptive political content,” Stubbs told AFP.
“Despite using some sophisticated technology, these latest videos are much the same. This shows the limitations of using deepfakes in influence operations – they are just one tool in an increasingly advanced toolbox,” he added.
The concern over the use of artificial intelligence (AI) comes at a time when the major tech companies are racing to take control of the AI race.
It has also stoked global alarm over the technology’s potential use for disinformation and misuse.
Last year, Facebook had to take down a deepfake video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging citizens to lay down their weapons and surrender to Russia.
(With inputs from agencies)
