Deepfake Technology: Misuse, Lessons, and Possibilities

We can all bear witness to how much technology has evolved over the years and season. Gone were the days when we didn’t even have ease of transportation or communication but now, that is a story of the past. Our lives have been made easier thanks to technology. We no more need to queue for hours just to speak to our loved one or even take hours to was when we have washing machines.

We all have benefited from technology one way or the other and these days, we all can’t do away with technology in our daily lives because if we do, we’d probably we left behind when the world is moving forward. As much as we get to experience and enjoy so many good things from the advancement of technology, there are some aspects of technology which have a negative effect on us when used the wrong way. One of these is deepfake technology which emerged very recently.

Even though deepfake technology is a recent development in my part of the world, the havoc is has been used to cause is alarming. I doubt the creators made it available to us for to be used for the wrong purposes but as human, we’d always have the bad nuts among us. I remember during our election period in Ghana, people found ways and means to create fake videos and report just to jeopardize the campaign of one political party so their party can win. Politics is a directly game but how dirty can we be? Aside this, we once had an issue of a fake sex video of a celebrity in Ghana. I didn’t understand the aim one doing such thing but do people really need a reason to act dumb? Not really.

Just recently, there have been a number of arrests in Ghana, taking in people who have scammed others an amount with over $8 million and $100 million respectively through cyber fraud. These days, cyber fraud is on a different level as these guys are able to make everything look so real you wouldn’t even think of having some doubts. And as individuals, we might one way or the other fall victim to such things no matter how we try to protect ourselves.

Amidst all the negatives, deepfake does have a good side and some of the good things it can be used for include its use in the health sector. This technology can be used to develop practical videos , imagined and diagrams for medical students, doctors and other healthcare providers to help in developing their knowledge and expertise in their field of work. In the field of entertainment, deepfake can be used to create movies, cartoons and short films for various purposes. This wouldn’t only grow the entertainment industry but also diversify us. Just yesterday I came across a short video which created by AI and this video had short scenes from a number of series which have been aired over the past few years. Watching the video took me through so many phases of happiness as I recalled all the movies and how much I enjoyed binging them. It felt very good.

These are two sides to the coin, what matters most now is whose hands the coin falls in and what that individual would use the opportunity and advantage they have for. At the end of the day, we all hope for the positives to make our world great!

all images belong to me.