In today’s digital society, information is available worldwide at the click of a button. However, the spread of disinformation online, combined with the pace of technological advancements creates new challenges for policymakers who will need to tackle them at a transnational level. One of these challenges are deepfake videos, which should be on everyone’s agenda before it is too late.

Deepfakes, in contrast to cheapfakes, are hyper-realistic videos, where a deep-learning algorithm can manipulate (virtual) reality to depict people saying/doing something that never happened in real life. Deepfakes can be produced by legitimate actors, for business purposes (e.g. movies, video games), but they can also be used by political players (non-state actors or foreign governments) for nefarious reasons.

The AI Act proposed by the European Commission in April, aims to harmonise the rules on AI and to position Europe as a leading player on the global stage. However, when it comes to deepfakes, regulations could control actors which are inside the EU, but they would leave the door open for foreign interventions.

How will deepfakes affect our democracies in a couple of years? What impact will the use of AI, chatbots, face-swapping technologies have on our privacy? Should social media platforms insert deepfake content moderation / removal policies? Would this be enough to protect ourselves against the upcoming storm?

Join us on Thursday for this real (not deepfake) webinar from ELF’s On the Agenda series.