How a Deepfake Almost Ruined My Political Career | Cara Hunter | TED?

Imagine you're playing a game where someone pretends to be your friend, but they’re really trying to trick you into thinking something bad happened, that’s what happened to Cara Hunter with a deepfake.

Cara is a politician who got into trouble because of a video that looked like she was saying mean things. But it wasn’t real, it was made by someone using deepfake technology, which is like Photoshop for videos. It takes parts of real videos and puts them together in a way that looks totally real.

How the Deepfake Worked

Think about when you record yourself talking on your phone. A deepfake uses lots of those recordings, maybe from different days, to make it look like Cara is saying something new, even if she never said it. It’s kind of like putting together a puzzle with pieces from different pictures.

The Big Problem

Cara had to prove that the video wasn’t real. It was confusing for people who watched it because it looked so good, just like when you see a drawing that looks like a real picture, but it's not!

In the end, Cara won her case, and people learned that even though deepfakes can look super realistic, they're not always true.

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Examples

  1. A fake video of a politician saying something embarrassing is made using deepfake technology.
  2. People use AI to make it look like someone said or did something they didn’t.
  3. A deepfake can be used in politics to trick people into believing false information.

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