Artificial Intelligence Experts Urge More Strict Regulations For Deepfakes

Yoshua Bengio, one of the pioneers of deepfake technology. (photo: x @DevinAshtonB)

JAKARTA - A number of experts on artificial intelligence and industry executives, including one of the pioneers of the technology, Yoshua Bengio, have signed an open letter calling for stricter regulations regarding the creation of deepfakes. This refers to the potential risk for the community.

"This dewasa, deepfake often involves sexual image, fraud, or political disinformation. Because artificial intelligence is growing rapidly and makes deepfakes much easier to make, protection is needed," the group said in the letter, compiled by Andrew Critch, an artificial intelligence researcher at UC Berkeley.

Deepfakes are realistic but fabricated images, audio, and videos created by artificial intelligence algorithms, and the latest advances in the technology make it increasingly difficult for them to distinguish from content made by humans.

The letter entitled "Disrupting Deepfake Supply Chain" provides recommendations on how to manage deepfakes, including full criminalization of deepfake child pornography, criminal penalties for individuals who intentionally create or facilitate the spread of harmful deepfakes, and require artificial intelligence companies to prevent their products from creating harmful deepfakes.

On Wednesday morning, February 21, more than 400 individuals from various industries including academics, entertainment, and politics signed the letter.

Among those who signed were Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology from Harvard, Joy Buolamiwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, two former Estonian presidents, researchers at Google, DeepMind, and a researcher from OpenAI.

Ensuring that artificial intelligence systems do not harm the public has become a priority for regulators since OpenAI revealed ChatGPT at the end of 2022, which impressed users by communicating like humans and doing other tasks.

There has been some warning from leading individuals about the risk of artificial intelligence, especially a letter signed by Elon Musk last year calling for a six-month delay in developing a system more powerful than OpenAI's GPT-4 artificial intelligence model.