The disruptive influence of tech is high on the agenda at the AMEC Virtual Global Summit on Measurement. Deepfake is the topic of  a presentation from Ori Sasson, Founder, S2T Unlocking Cyberspace, who considers the shifting role of social media and the unnerving use of influence campaigns to shape influence – often with political objectives.

 

Using AI technology, it is now relatively easily to create the impression that people are doing and saying things that they may never have done or said. Ori reveals the relative ease with which one can create voice-only deepfakes, something which has given rise to the widespread criminal practice of vishing – or voice phishing.

 

Ori paints a haunting picture of the future of Zoom calls: “In the future, we’ll see more scary applications of this, with people hacking into calls to create a fake version of one of the participants, to achieve some specific outcome.”

 

But Daniel Fountenberry, Partner, VideoLogic, shows us that deepfake technology may also have some positive outcomes for the communications industry. Daniel provides an overview of the cutting-edge applications for synthetic media, and some novel ways in which media and communications professionals can use it to create hyper-targeted content.

 

He suggests that “the public’s perception of synthetically generated media is changing, and what was once feared is now being embraced”, adding: “As media and communication professionals, it is important that we understand these technologies, what they can do and how it will change the way that we do our work.”

When Ryan Berckmans, Strategy and Engineering Consultant, Ethereum, presents to the summit, he considers the opportunities brought by blockchain, crypto tokens, and Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFTs). With such new tech now going mainstream, Ryan provides insights into what makes this technology novel and just what it is capable of – and how it could transform the work of communicators.

 

“Before crypto currency, and the invention of blockchain and bitcoin, it was not possible to have a network of computers without a certain large proportion of those computers being run by bad guys,” says Ryan. “Now it is possible, and blockchain is going to create a new era of coordination and global commons.”