Plato feared the artist.
The ancient Greek philosopher, the original source of the notion that art imitates life, found imagery, at best, an entertaining illusion — a worst, at dangerous deception.
In her book, “Plato’s Fear,” Ajit Maan writes, “Neither reality, nor reason holds the power that artists do, because artists don’t just reproduce reality; artists provide a new way to view reality.”
Maan is a professor of practice in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. As an expert on a defense and security strategy focused on narrative warfare, especially in large-scale conflicts, Maan provides a distinct lens through which to view the rising threat of deepfakes.
Thanks to technology powered by artificial intelligence, or AI, harnessing the power of art to imitate real people, real settings and real life is easier and cheaper than ever.
Deepfakes are a new power, the latest form of what Maan describes as a representational force, a communication mechanism that can be wielded and weaponized.
Deepfakes and deep deception
Deepfakes are fake images, videos or voice recordings. These have become so convincing that an international financial worker was recently tricked into making a $25 million payment to a cybercriminal posing as a company executive during a falsified, live video call.
While the ability to create fake images and video has been around for a while, Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor of computer science and engineering in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU, explains that advancements in AI have made this technology cheap and fast, placing it within easy grasp of scammers. Using tools that harness a type of AI called machine learning, involving banks of computers that can take in images and recordings of an intended target and combine them with datasets about human behavior, bad actors can quickly create realistic mimics of a person’s likeness.
As a thought leader on the principled use and ethical development of AI and a fellow in the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Kambhampati has long been working to raise awareness of this technology. Media outlets such as the New York Times often ask for his perspective on news involving AI, he frequently speaks at conferences and events and has been asked to advise the Arizona Supreme Court on the intersection of AI and the law.
“The world is in a period of great change,” Kambhampati says.
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