Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing an august gathering of titans from the IT industry at the AI Action Summit in Paris as co-host, highlighted the immense potential of artificial intelligence for transforming lives, but at the same time cautioned about the inherent risks involved.
Modi said AI can transform the lives of millions through improvement in health, education and agriculture. At the same time, he said, “We must address concerns related to cybersecurity, disinformation and deepfakes, and we must also ensure that technology is rooted in local ecosystems for it to be effective and useful.”
Prime Minister Modi is right. There are immense possibilities with AI, and at the same time, AI has some major negative side-effects as well. AI is being misused to make deepfake videos to misguide people by superimposing images and voices of celebrities. The aim of such people engaged in nefarious activities is to market spurious products and services and mint money using the face and voice of celebrities.
I am myself a victim of deepfakes. I had to obtain court orders to remove my deepfake videos from all social media platforms. In some videos, I was shown selling medicines to cure diabetes, and in some others, I was shown giving investment advice to people.
By the time these deepfake videos are removed from the social media ecosystem, the harm is done and millions of people get duped. Every now and then, new deepfake videos, superimposing my images and voice emerge on social media. Even today, I got two such deepfake videos deleted.
Artificial Intelligence is also misused to make deepfake videos to malign political rivals too and mislead gullible viewers. This is not a problem in India alone. Almost every major country is a victim of deepfake videos. I hope, the Paris AI Action Summit will evolve a solution soon to tackle the scourge of AI-generated deepfake videos.
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