Deepfake is a portmanteau word combining “deep learning” and “fake.” Using powerful techniques from machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), deepfakes can create convincing, but entirely fictional disinformation — images or audio — by mimicking and learning from given materials. Deepfake video and audio can appear so real as to be indistinguishable from the original.
A Taiwanese YouTuber was arrested on Monday last week for allegedly creating and selling deepfake porn videos featuring celebrities. The Criminal Investigation Bureau confirmed that it was Taiwan’s first case of a new type of crime that involves deepfakes employing AI algorithms.
For several years, deepfake technology has been a topic of heated debate in Western nations. There have been many deepfake videos of celebrities, such as former US president Barack Obama and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and deepfakes have become weapons for parties interested in information warfare, not to mention that hundreds of actresses worldwide have become victims of synthetic porn.
The scary thing is that deepfakes can be used to fake bad things that a person has not done, as well as good things that a person did not do. There are many tools available for creating deepfakes — people do not have to be an information engineer to make them.
However, society’s deepest fear is that the technology used to generate deepfake porn not only hurts the victims, but could also be used to create deepfake video and audio files of presidents, government officials and political party leaders — thus disturbing law and order, undermining elections, causing political turmoil and the polarization of popular opinion. The social impact of deepfakes on public order should not be underestimated.
Presently, although some European and US law enforcement agencies and tech firms, such as Google and Microsoft, have invested in the development of deepfake detection software, to verify whether images have been modified or synthesized, these countermeasures are not enough to stop deepfake videos from circulating online and spreading disinformation.
Taiwan has so far not enacted laws and penalties that would regulate deepfake videos. The authorities should refer to international practices as soon as possible to bridge the gap.
The government should improve the accountability of online platforms so that they monitor users’ content; it should consider the manipulation of faces in video to be a crime; and it should enact regulations that clearly delineate the criminal, civil and administrative liabilities to deter crimes that employ new technology.
Wei Shih-chang is an information engineer.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US