AUTHOR’S NAME : Jeevals
UNIVERSITY - Calicut University Government Law College Kozhikode
We today stand in an era which is driven by AI-driven technological advancements. As we navigate through the challenges of developing AI technologies the troubles that came along with demanded quick attention from both the world of technology and legislation. In this article, we discuss legal and ethical turbulences surrounding one of the very powerful tools of AI the deep fake technology, from existing legal frameworks, including copyright, defamation, and privacy laws, the discussion highlights their limitations in effectively combating the nuanced challenges presented by deepfake content. The technological advancements to our luck are also available to aid us in mitigating the trouble presented by it. Detecting and identifying creators is one of the very important requirements in the process of curbing the misuse of deepfake technology. The use of AI-based software is a viable solution for such a procedure. Apart from this, there is a need for legislative efforts to create a secure cyberspace as well as to uphold the trust and safety of people. The role of legislation is often scrutinized for its role in shaping a comprehensive legal response to deepfake threats, acknowledging the delicate balance between free expression and protecting against harm.Apart from legislative and technological efforts, it is necessary to educate the users to create a mature audience to decrease the effects of the spreading of fake content online, from tips to analyze content to promoting safe sources for information such effort has immense importance in creating a positive cuber culture. Similarly, corporate entities are encouraged to put in similar efforts to collaborate in developing policies and technological developments by cooperating with other industry leaders. A call for international cooperation is emphasized, recognizing the borderless nature of deepfake challenges and the need for a unified global response.Looking forward, the evolving landscape of deepfake technology necessitates ongoing innovation in detection methods and international collaboration to preserve information integrity, uphold privacy rights, and foster societal trust in the digital era. This exploration underscores the collective responsibility of individuals, businesses, governments, and the global community to navigate the intricate legal ramifications of deepfake technology for a secure and trustworthy digital future.
INTRODUCTION
The arrival of AI(Artificial intelligence) in our lives has undoubtedly been an exciting scientific and tech endeavour. Today’s development in AI and technology has opened the door to a new future for us. Today we can witness multiple forms of AI in the tech industry that can be used to automate almost any activity, including research limited only to the knowledge we can provide. From tech to space and maths AI has expressed its capability in improving research not only with speed and accuracy but also in its capability to discover.
Undoubtedly, AI introduced Pandora’s box of technological advancements in front of humans but also brought a world of troubles of its own kind. This brings our attention to one of the of most spoken of tech of AI, deep synthesis technology also known as deep fake technology. For the past few months, Deep Fake has entertained audiences around the globe with videos, photographs and even audio entirely created by AI. Such astonishing capabilities of AI thrilled and entertained people although everything went south it didn’t take long before the darker side of this technology revealed itself.
As mentioned above the technology has extensive capabilities and this has introduced new challenges to the world around us calling for immediate attention from the regulatory bodies. Deepfake technology has raised several legal issues, including intellectual property rights, personal data protection rights, and criminal penalties for non-consensual distribution of deepfakes. As the world of the internet weaves our world together the challenges brought up by the emerging technology demand global attention and effort from governments and tech companies from around the world. In this article, we shall delve into the world of AI and its capabilities that seek attention from regulatory bodies in order to keep the powerful tool in check.
UNDERSTANDING DEEPFAKE TECHNOLOGY
Before the arrival of deep fake into the picture ‘photoshop’ ruled the world of activities such as morphing documents pictures etc. There existed technologies to work on videos as well but the possibilities were minimal and the fraud could be identified in most cases. A deepfake is an artificial image or video generated by a special kind of machine learning called “deep” learning (hence the name), the technologies that create deepfakes include Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and machine learning (ML). Machine learning is a field of AI technology concerned with developing and studying statistical algorithms that can learn from data and use that data to generate favourable results with limited need for explicit instructions. GANs are a type of machine learning algorithm that uses two neural networks—a generator and a discriminator—to learn and create data that looks real or human rather than AI-generated. Deep learning imitates a human-like learning system. Humans learn from experience and memories similarly in deep learning the system studies data analyzes and calculates multiple outcomes and generates unique and favourable outcomes all independently. Throughout the years deep fake technology has evolved along with other technological advancements, the development of AI in the tech industry boosted the growth of the deepfake technology exponentially.
DEEPFAKES AND PRIVACY RIGHTS
The legal challenges surrounding deep fake technology primarily exist around the area of privacy. The CEO of a British energy firm was tricked out of $243,000 by a voice Deepfake of the head of his parent company requesting an emergency transfer of funds. The CEO only became suspicious when his ‘boss’ requested another transfer. This time, alarm bells rang – but it was too late to get back the funds he’d already transferred. Deep Fake today is infamous for mimicking celebs and VIPs around the world, this clearly shows how easily it can trespass someone’s privacy. These raises concerns surrounding data protection and data privacy because there is always a possibility that such private data can be misused and in this case, the data is facial data, voice etc which can be used to manipulate the given data to create a photo or video posing them in a compromising situation explicitly states the immense threat deep fake’s capability pose to today’s society.
Deepfakes have the potential to violate individuals’ privacy rights by fabricating content that portrays them in compromising or false situations. This raises concerns about the unauthorised use of someone’s likeness for malicious purposes, impacting their reputation and causing emotional distress.
CONSENT AND AUTHENTICITY:
The issue of consent has become crucial in the era of AI. now the fight to create data privacy is not a new thing. Technology such as the internet being decades old the legal and technical efforts to create safety around data privacy and consent have been active. The world of AI introduces yet a more challenging atmosphere to the areas concerning consent and authenticity. There is an immense need to educate people about privacy policies, their rights etc because people blindly accepting even a simple click-wrap agreements can cause them to be neck-deep in content they never agreed to participate in. The issue of consent becomes crucial in the era of deepfakes. The capability of deep-fake tech technology to manipulate content to create false narratives introduces an immense concern for the authenticity of content online. Furthermore, it increases the complexity of crucial legal proceedings and fact-checking processes.
DEEPFAKES AND BUSINESS IMPLICATIONS:
The development of deepfake has a deep business-oriented backing. The market for such capable software is innumerable. One of the most eye-catching advancements deep fake technology brought into the business field is in marketing. Deepfake assisted in creating more engaging and creative marketing strategies however this also brought in the other side coin as malicious actors could use the same technology to damage a brand’s reputation.
Deepfake also extended its capabilities in influencing the world of customer care. Deepfake-powered avatars are posed as readily available customer service agents offering efficient and round-the-clock services on the other hand there exist ethical concerns as the customers are never aware of the fact that they are not engaging with human representatives.
Training services also gained its share of benefits from the deepfake technology. Industries such as aviation, hotel management and health care services gained an advanced life-like simulation with the help of deep fake to help train people.
These circumstances provide us with a narrow yet powerful impact the deepfake technology can bring to the modern business world. The same technology poses a threat to much of the business world as fraud and misrepresentation get a great level of assistance. This hinders the development of a new business environment. As technology such as Deepfake outpaces law and current security regulatory systems it is high time that companies and organizations put greater effort into framing more robust legal frameworks as well as developing better security systems.
LEGAL FRAMEWORKS ADDRESSING DEEPFAKES
Countries are catching up with the rapidly growing AI industry and the legislative bodies are on high alert as deep fake has left a space for threat and risk for businesses as well as socio-political matters. The Indian government has expressed concerns about the potential misuse of deep fakes, particularly the capability of deep fake to create convincingly realistic content that creates room for misinformation and poses an immense threat to the security and safety of any Nation. The absence of specific laws to tackle such issues has come to the attention of lawmakers, and there is a recognition of the need for a flexible and adaptive legal framework capable of addressing the challenges posed by deepfakes. In India, although specific laws addressing deep fakes are absent now, the existing law provides some sort of basic protection to the privacy of individuals. The Information Technology Act of 2000 stands as a principal legislative instrument in this realm. Sections 66E and 66D of the IT Act hold relevance when dealing with deepfake-related offences. Section 66E pertains to instances where individuals capture, publish, or transmit someone’s images through mass media channels, infringing upon their privacy. Such actions, when utilizing deepfake technology to manipulate or misrepresent an individual’s likeness, fall under the purview of this section. Violations of Section 66E can result in penalties of imprisonment for up to three years or fines up to Rs 2 lakh, providing a deterrent against privacy infringements facilitated by deepfakes.
OTHER WAYS TO ADDRESS DEEPFAKE THREATS
One of the advantages we have is the same technology can be used to curb the threats and challenges that it poses. Governments and companies have to work hand in hand to create a new digital security atmosphere, apart from that is an imminent need to educate the masses regarding information shared online. Recently TN conferred a social harmony award to fact-checker Zubair, similar efforts could help society perceive more reliable content and help governments maintain harmony. Creating a responsible atmosphere within the internet shall help more than anything. Today social media issue warnings when certain content online contains sensitive information. This was actively seen during COVID-19 to prevent the spreading of false information related to it, even to this already existing system deepfake poses a challenge therefore it is apparent that there is a need for technological development to detect deep fake AI content. Cyber-security companies are coming up with more and better software to detect deepfake content. These analyze the video image and spot the tiny distortions which are created in the ‘faking’ process. Deepfakes are still at large and some basic tricks we could use to identify them by ourselves are focused on these points:
- Jerky movement
- Shifts in lighting from one frame to the next
- Shifts in skin tone
- Strange blinking or no blinking at all
- Lips poorly synched with speech
- Digital artifacts in the image
But as Deepfakes get better, you’ll get less help from your own eyes and more from a good cyber-security program. Creating a system of digital watermarking system could prove to be pivotal in the fight against deepfake-assisted fraud. Digital watermarks embed digital markers in content to verify its authenticity. Yet another solution could be using water-tight blockchain technology to authenticate and verify content. A decentralized deepfake detection blockchain network can be developed using dynamic algorithm management, advanced deep learning algorithms, and smart contracts for dynamic algorithm management and token-based incentives. Similar technological advancements is vital to create a secure cyberspace in the upcoming world of socio-technological world.
CONCLUSION
The world put forward by the very amazing capabilities of deepfake technology opens up immense possibilities for an evolution in trade, commerce, entertainment and more. The developments in the area of AI have stretched a tantalizing future ahead, therefore it is an indispensable fact that irrespective of the setbacks that come along with the novel technology we need to move forward to exploit its benefits. The legal landscape, anchored in existing frameworks such as defamation, and privacy laws, is in a state of flux as it grapples with the unique challenges posed by deepfakes. While these laws provide a foundation for addressing certain aspects of deepfake threats, the rapidly advancing technology necessitates continual legal evolution.
The technological solutions to the problems put forward by the deep fake are a positive step towards a brighter future, especially the AI-driven software that helps detect artificial content offers a positive avenue for the development of secure cyberspace. The governments and corporate entities must play hand in hand in developing such security solutions. Internal policies, employee training programs, and collaboration with technological partners are integral components of a robust defense strategy.
On a global scale, there is a need for joint efforts to foster a culture of awareness and preparedness, with which businesses can mitigate the potential damage to their brand image and operational integrity. Observing the global trend we can observe legislative and technological efforts put forward to achieve a common goal of taming deep fake technology and this shows the need for collaborative global effort.
The continuous evolution and advancement of deep fake technology is not expected to decelerate instead, it will bring in novel trends and challenges. As algorithms evolve the efficacy of detection methods will fade demanding innovation and development. International cooperation will no doubt influence the journey through the treacherous world of AI and lead us to greater goals of preserving the integrity of information, upholding privacy rights, and fostering societal trust in the digital era.
In essence, protecting against the legal ramifications of deepfake technology is not merely a legal or technological imperative but a collective responsibility. It calls for a harmonized effort from individuals, businesses, governments, and the global community to navigate the intricate landscape of deepfakes and ensure a secure and trustworthy digital future.