Although the use of deepfakes in the recently uncovered pro-China disinformation campaign was rigged, it opens a new chapter in information warfare. In recent weeks, another video using similar artificial intelligence technology, showing fictitious people describing themselves as Americans, promoting support for the government of Burkina Faso, which is facing scrutiny for ties to Russia, has been discovered online.
The AI software, which can be easily purchased online, can create “videos in a matter of minutes, and subscriptions start at just a few dollars a month,” Stubbs said. “That makes it easier to produce content at scale.”
Graphika linked the two fake Wolf News anchors to technology made by a British artificial intelligence company called Synthesia, which is based atop a clothing store in London’s Oxford Circus.
The five-year-old startup creates software to create fake avatars. A client simply needs to write a script, which is then read by one of the digital actors created using Synthesia’s tools.
The AI avatars are “digital twins,” Synthesia said, which are based on the appearances of hired actors and can be manipulated to speak in 120 languages and accents. It offers more than 85 characters to choose from with different genders, ages, ethnicities, voice tones, and fashion options.
An AI character, named George, looks like a veteran business executive with gray hair and wears a blue jacket and collared shirt. Another, Helia, wears a hijab. Carlo, another avatar, has a helmet. Samuel wears a white lab coat like the ones doctors wear. (Customers can also use Synthesia to create their own avatars based on themselves or others who have given them permission.)
Clients primarily use the company’s software for HR and training videos, where raw production quality suffices. The software, which costs as little as $30 a month, produces videos in minutes that could otherwise take several days and would require hiring a video production team and human actors.
The entire process is “as easy as writing an email,” Synthesia said on its website.
How a character typically appears
These are examples of a Synthesia AI-generated character being used for a variety of marketing campaigns and the like.
