#2, Tom Cruise, Everywhere, All At Once
How Reality Defender is preventing future crime and other Tech News
Welcome to The Future Post, where I bring you news from the frontiers of technical innovation. Each edition, I'll highlight one early-stage tech start-up working to shape tomorrow and share a curated list of top tech news from across the web.
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Startup of the Week
It’s 2035 - Sunday afternoon. You’re at Kyle’s house for the big game. Everyone is.
Fourth quarter, all tied up, fourth and ten. They decide to go for it. One last Hail Mary for a chance to secure their spot in the playoffs. It’s been years since they made it. This time it might actually happen.
Sundays have long been the only days that feel somewhat close to normal. And in this rare electric moment, everyone forgets what the world’s become.
The kids are cheering, but you’re holding your breath. Waiting.
Suddenly, a red bar starts across the bottom of the screen. The beeping commences. The whole room shifts.
“Not now.”
”We interrupt your regular programming for a breaking news update. Video footage has been retrieved from eyewitnesses of the Speaker of the House trading secret intelligence with foreign operatives - intelligence that led directly to the recent attacks on our nation. He is now in custody and will be put on trial for treason against the United State of America.”
They roll the footage. It’s exactly as they describe - or so it seems. And then it’s done.
Kyle quickly breaks the silence, “Whose ready to fire up the grill?"
“Steak sounds good,” you reply, and you all head out.
Not a word is said about the news the rest of the day. You all push it out of your minds as quickly as it came. Why talk about it what might not even be real? Of course the government will say the footage is real. And the news. But this is 2035 - you’ll never know. You all stopped caring years ago, anyway. Caring costs too much.
A bit dramatic? Maybe. But maybe not.
If you’ve been around Artificial Intellgience for any length of time you’ve encountered those who fear AI is nothing more than a one-way ticket to dystopia. And the fears aren’t completely unfounded. For every great breakthrough in artificial intelligence come both incredible opportunities and dangers.
Now before someone shouts “Skynet!,” that’s not where this is going - not this week anyway. This week’s featured startup aims to deal with a much more urgent villain than Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Tom Cruise.
The funny thing about Tom Cruise in this video is, it’s not Tom Cruise.
You just witnessed a deep fake.
For the uninitiated, a deep fake is essentially a digital mask. It allows you to film a video of yourself while appearing as a completely different person. The technology is amazing, but it raises several ethical questions, even in this video. For instance, what about Tom’s rights to his own likeness? Does he own the rights to his likeness?
Or what if someone were to use this technology to frame him? Can video still be relied on as evidence in a court of law where fakes are so easily made? How can anyone be safe from having their identity stolen in a world where deep fakes exist?
These are the problems Ben Coleman, Ali Shahriyari, and Gaurav Bharaj of Reality Defender set out to solve before “2035” ever happens, not unlike the Precrime Unit in Minority Report - minus all the bad stuff.
That’s right - when the problem is Tom Cruise, your solution is usually also Tom Cruise.
So What Is It?
Reality Defender is a deepfake detection software, used by the likes of Microsoft, Visa, and even the US Department of Homeland Security. Their detection platform enables both large enterprises and smaller entities to detect fabricated items in all user-generated media, whether video, audio, or images.
It’s unfortunate, but with every leap in technology comes risks of collateral damage as bad-actors take advantage of new opportunities (Not talking about you Tom, keep up the good work).
Malware, phishing, ransomware - these are just the tip of the iceberg.
In a recent article, Shahriyari (Reality Defender CTO) made the case that ransomware is “nowhere near as scary and intrusive as the impact and terror brought on by the use of deepfakes.”1The main reason, he explains, is that while ransomware is apparent as soon as you are locked out of your device, Deep Fakes wreak havoc in the shadows, often undetected.
“It is the social engineering aspect of deepfakes that make them infinitely more troubling than ransomware.”
Social What?
Social engineering is “the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.” 2
Yes, this poses a threat to individuals and businesses, but it goes further. Deep Fake empowered social engineering campaigns could have national and global implications, threatening democracy itself as misinformation is spread across the web under the guise of familiar and trusted faces.
As this technology advances, it will be incumbent upon responsible citizens and businesses to take preventative measures to make sure we don’t end up the Renee Zellweger to the Fake Tom Cruises of the world.
Coleman, Shahriyari, and Bharaj are just a few good men on a mission to make that fate impossible.3
We need more entrepreneurs and businesses who will follow suit and run alongside the rapid advances in AI, creating the safety measures needed to ensure the effects of these great technological strides are a net-positive.
Anything less than our fullest vigilance is risky business.
Future News
AI Has Suddenly Evolved to Achieve Theory of Mind | Popular Mechanics
The ChatGPT-fueled battle for search is bigger than Microsoft or Google | MIT
Roblox Is Bringing Generative AI to Its Gaming Universe | Wired
Straumann Group is transforming dentistry with data, AI | CIO
Will ChatGPT make coding tests for engineers obsolete? | Venture Beat
AI is dreaming up drugs that no one has ever seen. Now we’ve got to see if they work. | MIT
How enterprises can use ChatGPT and GPT-3 | ComputerWorld
Deploying a multidisciplinary strategy with embedded responsible AI | MIT
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https://realitydefender.com/learn/why-deepfakes-are-more-dangerous-than-ransomware
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(security)
Soooo many puns.