Identity Disrupted! The Potential Impacts of Deepfakes

Who owns your face? What about your voice? Or your natural body movements Have you ever thought about what makes you uniquely you? The recent actors’ and writers’ strikes brought the potential impacts of AI to public attention, and the actors’ guild was particularly concerned about deepfakes because an actors, voice, appearance, and body movements are part of their proprietary brand, and every time they work, what used to be their personal property is captured on film as data. The very same data that can be used to create deepfakes. If we as humans can’t “own” what makes us uniquely who we are, and instead we become the property of anyone who captures our likeness, how do we maintain our unique identity? On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz hands over the WMD hosting position to York College of Pennsylvania cybersecurity management student Allen Yang who will explore the potential benefits and harms of deepfake technology.