Good morning. Election Day is tomorrow.

So today, we’re talking about AI fraud and a few basic ways to keep safe. The more you know, the less susceptible you’ll be.

We can no longer trust anything we see online.

— Ian Krietzberg, Editor-in-Chief, The Deep View

In today’s newsletter:

AI for Good: Asteroid (impact) prediction

As chaotic as it may be down here on the planet’s surface, there might be a bit more chaos going on up in space. 

Specifically, I’m talking about space rocks. 

NASA is tracking more than 35,000 near-Earth asteroids; 864 of these are larger than one kilometer. It’s a lot to keep track of; the space agency is using AI to do it. 

The details: In 2021, NASA launched a next-generation impact monitoring algorithm called Sentry-II to get a more accurate accounting of near-Earth impact probabilities. 

Why it matters: “Sentry-II is a fantastic advancement in finding tiny impact probabilities for a huge range of scenarios,” Steve Chesley, a senior research scientist who led the development of Sentry and collaborated on Sentry-II, said in a statement. “When the consequences of a future asteroid impact are so big, it pays to find even the smallest impact risk hiding in the data.”

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Disney launches AI team

Disney is assembling a new business unit focused on exploring artificial intelligence and mixed reality technologies, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. 

The details: The group — called The Office of Technology Enablement — will be led by current film CTO Jamie Voris, and will reportedly grow to around 100 employees.

The context: Beyond ongoing legal questions surrounding the possible copyright infringement tied to the construction and use of these models, generative AI has become a point of contention for many artists. 

A key focus of the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes last year was generative AI, with workers desperate to secure protections against replacement due to studios leveraging the tech. Despite some wins there, the studios are still exploring AI, as evidenced by Lionsgate’s new deal with Runway, and Disney’s new tech office. 

This has all coincided with mass layoffs across the creative industries, notably the video game industry, which has likewise been fighting for AI protections. 

It also comes shortly after more than 33,000 creatives — including James Patterson, Kevin Bacon, Kate McKinnon and Rosario Dawson — signed the following statement: “The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”

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Cybersecurity expert: Lots of ‘painful lessons’ ahead

With Election Day in the U.S. tomorrow, the threat of AI-generated deepfakes is no longer looming.

It’s a concern that catapulted in prevalence alongside the rise of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools; the ability to very quickly create and spread even somewhat realistic-looking images and audio of people — celebrities and politicians alike — has vast implications for both electoral and personal security. 

And it’s been happening for months. 

Perhaps the starkest example of the capabilities at hand here occurred in January, when a deepfaked robocall of President Joe Biden circulated in New Hampshire, encouraging voters not to participate in the primary election. 

And that change in perspective is one that Masha Sedova, cybersecurity expert and VP of human risk strategy at Mimecast, thinks will take a while to set in. 

“I think it's asking a lot for … us to be able to change the way that we fundamentally have to learn to trust,” Sedova told me in a recent interview. 

But she thinks that a “big pivot point will probably happen as we get much closer to elections.” 

It’s a concern shared by government officials as we near the finish line of the presidential race; dozens of states have already enacted — or are in the process of enacting — legislation that would ban or otherwise regulate the election-related deepfakes, according to Public Citizen. 

The Department of Justice, meanwhile, recently confirmed that Russia, China and Iran have been leveraging generative AI to spread election-related disinformation in the U.S., according to NBC News. And in the state of Arizona — a crucial swing state — deepfakes have become a massive concern. 

For instance, a series of hyper-targeted fake emails, news alerts and social media posts could spread a fiction that a local polling location is closed, or that voting has been rescheduled for a different day due to an attack or disaster. 

Indeed, identity verification firm AU10TIX found in a recent report that there has been a 10x increase in the volume of fraudulent social media attacks in the third quarter of 2024, notably in the lead-up to Election Day. “The global identity fraud crisis is far more severe than most realize,” CEO Dan Yerushalmi wrote.

An additional challenge, here, according to Sedova, is making clear to people just how thin the gap is between concerted, hyper-targeted election interference attempts and personalized fraud attacks against ordinary civilians. 

Americans lost billions of dollars to fraud and identity theft in 2023 alone. One of the most common scams on display here is one in which a fraudster will use generative AI to clone the voice of a relative, then ask for a wire transfer to the tune of thousands of dollars to, for instance, pay a sudden hospital bill, or post bail. 

All told, we’re looking at an environment that requires verification. And while there are certain technological solutions for the enterprise — and some for individuals — that enable verification and authentication, there’s no mandate for it. That would require regulation. 

“This is all moving so fast and and government doesn't ever lead the way in policy, nor should they,” Sedova said. “Innovation always leads policy. I think, unfortunately, we're going to have to see a lot of painful lessons learned like this.”

She added, though, that while there needs to be intelligent regulation to address this environment, there is an opportunity for corporations to productize and sell these desperately needed solutions as additional services. For instance, phone companies could offer automatic deepfake detection on incoming calls for a dollar more each year, something that would benefit everyone except the cybercriminals.  

“The best case scenario is that we have some minor catastrophes that quickly get us back on the rails,” Sedova said. “Because I think otherwise, we will have a level of arrogance around this that, taken to the extreme, we will get blindsided, especially when these technologies get interconnected.”

“I hope that we're at least walking into this with eyes wide open … I don't think we're going to avoid the pain of the mistakes. I just hope that the mistakes are forgiving enough that we can still recover from them.” 

🤔 Your thought process:

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💭 A poll before you go

Thanks for reading today’s edition of The Deep View!

We’ll see you in the next one.

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