The president blamed AI and embraced doing so. Is it becoming the new 'fake news'?
By Laurie Kellman
Artificial intelligence, apparently, is the new “fake news...”
President Donald Trump endorsed the practice of blaming AI. Asked about viral footage showing someone tossing something out an upper-story White House window, the president replied, “No, that's probably AI” — after his press team had indicated to reporters that the video was real.
Digital forensics expert Hany Farid warned for years about the growing capabilities of AI “deepfake” images, voices and video to aid in fraud or political disinformation campaigns, but there was always a deeper problem.
“I’ve always contended that the larger issue is that when you enter this world where anything can be fake, then nothing has to be real,” said Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “You get to deny any reality because all you have to say is, ‘It’s a deepfake.’”
That wasn't so a decade or two ago, he noted. Trump issued a rare apology ("if anyone was offended") in 2016 for his comments about touching women without their consent on the notorious “Access Hollywood" tape. His opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, said she was wrong to call some of his supporters “a basket of deplorables...”
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley.
