Why was Bill Gates crossing the road?
We aren't sure, but we can assure you that the Microsoft () - founder did not have breast implants.
'In Other Fact Check News,' says a scientist.
As he crosses a street in New York, a digitally altered video has been released on social media.
The video video, which after being published online last year, sparked worries about Gates' "transitioning" or receiving breast implants.
By comparing the clip to unpublished footage that was published on YouTube by entertainment site Gossip Bae, the video was declared altered.
When it was posted on Twitter, the announcement on April 25 was greeted with a certain sarcasm.
"Holy sh*t, did you know that game of thrones wasn't real too?" said one expert, including a CGI-free video from the popular HBO series.
"In other fact check reports, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were not real and were in fact a mix of CGI and animatronic artworks," said one person.
'An Inflection Point'
Other commentators have defended Tesla's title, namely CEO Elon Musk, who is buying Twitter () for private use.
"Enjoy your last days of relevance on this app," says the narrator. "For you will be a relic of social media once Elon purchases Twitter."
"I prayed that when I buy Twitter, we must see less of these ridiculous 'fact checks' of nonsensical stuff," another person said. "The sky is blue, and the image of it being red has been digitally altered."
The video does a well-known feature of deepfakes, which refers to the use of artificial intelligence to create synthetic media image, audio, and video in someone else's similarity.
"While we have been hearing about deepfakes for a number of years, we are now at an inflection point where the technology is at anyone's disposal, and it is only a matter of time before each individual of us is a victim of deepfake technology," said a professor at the Wharton School of Pennsylvania.
Last month, a fake video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promising to instruct his troops to lay down their arms and surrender the fight against Russia was circulated on social media.
Disinformation in the escalating world
A secret video of Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared on social media a short time later, depicting the former KGB-agent declaring Russia's surrender and telling soldiers to "go home while you're alive."
According to Pattison, the actor was a recent target of a deepfake TikTok account. He has said that he does not have any social media accounts.
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Deepfakes can create illusions of an individual's presence and activities that were not made in reality, said a professor of computer science and engineering and the director of the UB Media Forensic Lab at the University of Buffalo.
Deepfakes are able to increase the scale and possibility of online deception, which is because they can be extremely dangerous.
According to a recent study, the number of deep-fake videos on the Internet doubles every six months.
"I believe this is an underestimate, and there will be even more in the coming years," he said.
Hosanagar said the technology may be of interest to films such as "Forrest Gump," where the character of Tom Hanks meets JFK.
"But despite these positive use cases, the technology will most likely be in the news owing to its ability to stir political and civil conflict, weaken the reputations of individuals, and prevent financial fraud. "Every one of these potential scenarios has already been played out, and we are just at the start."
The problem must be addressed in technology.
Hosanagar "technology has to address the problem it has helped create," says the author.
"First, we need authentication systems that can verify the origins of images and videos," he said.
Microsoft has developed a prototype of AMP: Authentication of Media via Provenance, which allows media content providers to create and assign a certificate of authenticity to their content.
"What this means for end users is that assurance concerning the authenticity of text they are viewing may be as simple as an icon (similar to the browser padlock icon), indicating that the media being consumed has not been tampered with," he said.
"While the creation of such authentication and provenance systems is a good first step, for these systems to be effective in practice they must be adopted large by content creators, which will take time."
According to Hosanagar, the legal system might provide additional deterrents to alleviate the potential flaws caused by deepfakes.
'All Hands on Deck!'
He said a number of policies are being proposed and implemented at the state and federal levels, and he pointed out Virginia, which recently criminalized the non-consensual sharing of deepfake pornography by expanding a revenge porn legislation.
Another possibility is to demand that information be authenticated on their platforms by internet media, according to the author.
"Overall, we need the adoption of these kinds of laws, combined with the adoption of authentication and provenance technologies amongst consumers and businesses," Hosanagar said.
Lyu was defying his deepfakes, declaring, "[fighting deepfakes] is a communal effort."
He said that this includes enacting more effective detection algorithms, using stricter screening and improving the tagging of fake media by social platforms.
A task to get rid of deepfakes requires a legislative action against the most widespread types of deepfakes, prompt reaction and fact-checking by the public media, and due diligence among internet users.
"All hands on deck!" he said.
