With the recent explosion of AI, dazzling images, videos, audio and texts can now be easily generated by anyone with just a few simple inputs. While this technology offers many astonishing benefits, it also poses significant dangers. 

Among the most pernicious of these is the creation of deepfakes – highly realistic yet manipulated or fabricated content that falsely depicts real people doing or saying things they never did. Our ability to discern fact from fiction, along with democracy itself, are in the crosshairs.

In recent months, deepfakes have entered the mainstream like never before. In February, ads on Facebook and Instagram were discovered using AI videos falsely depicting Piers Morgan, Oprah Winfrey, and other celebrities endorsing pseudo-scientific self-help courses. 

In January, Taylor Swift was the victim of deepfake pornography, as fake explicit images of the pop star flooded Twitter/X, garnering millions of views. 

AI-GENERATED PORN, INCLUDING CELEBRITY FAKE NUDES, PERSIST ON ETSY AS DEEPFAKE LAWS ‘LAG BEHIND’

Celebrities are far from the only victims. Regular people, especially women and girls, are increasingly targeted. A study reported by MIT Technology found that 96% of deepfake videos online were pornographic and nonconsensual, nearly all targeting women. 

NBC News recently reported that middle school students in Beverly Hills, California, were found creating and circulating deepfake nude photos of their classmates. Similar incidents are occurring in high schools across the country.

As this tech rapidly improves, Oren Etzioni, a computer science professor at the University of Washington who researches deepfake detection, said, "We are going to see a tsunami of these AI-generated explicit images." 

Deepfakes are putting democracy itself at risk. The U.S., U.K. and about 70 nations encompassing almost half the global population have national elections this year. 

AMERICANS WORRY THESE ‘CREEPY’ DEEPFAKES WILL MANIPULATE PEOPLE IN 2024 ELECTION, ‘DISTURBINGLY FALSE’

These will be the first elections in which sophisticated deepfake tech is readily accessible not just to government entities and nefarious actors, but to anyone in the world with a phone or laptop.

We’ve seen previews of deepfake interference in the political arena. A viral deepfake video in 2022 falsely depicted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proclaiming to surrender. In 2023, AI-generated videos promoting the Chinese Communist Party were shared by pro-China bot accounts across Facebook and Twitter/X.

Here at home, the U.S. presidential election is already being disrupted. In January, AI-generated images shared on social media falsely depicted former President Trump with young girls on Jeffrey Epstein's plane. 

Last month, days before New Hampshire’s presidential primary, thousands of calls were made, dissuading recipients from voting with the message, "Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday." This message, mimicking President Biden’s voice, was generated by AI. The perpetrator who created the fake audio said it took him just 20 minutes and cost $1.

HOW DEEPFAKES ARE ON THE VERGE OF DESTROYING POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Nina Jankowicz, former executive director of the Homeland Security's disinformation task force, recently warned that the Russian government has employed deepfake pornography to tarnish the reputations of female politicians in Ukraine and Georgia. She warned that similar strategies are likely to be deployed against female leaders in the West.

Deepfakes also undermine trust in authentic media. Renée DiResta, from the Stanford Internet Observatory, highlighted how claims of AI are now used to discredit legitimate content, citing denials of real videos of Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7 as an example.

So far, remedies are either nonexistent or simply not effective. Several states have enacted patchworks of laws mandating the labeling of deepfakes or prohibiting those that falsely depict candidates. A few federal bills have been proposed, but nothing has been enacted.

Social media giants including Meta and YouTube have implemented rules against manipulated media that’s deliberately misleading, including deepfakes. The effectiveness of these policies has been far from perfect. Often, by the time these deepfakes are reported, they have already reached millions of users. In early February, Meta’s own oversight board criticized the company’s regulations as "incoherent." 

WISCONSIN LEGISLATURE PASSES LAWS RESTRICTING AI-PRODUCED DEEPFAKE CAMPAIGN MATERIALS

The surge in AI deepfakes comes at a time when many social media companies, particularly Twitter/X, are rolling back efforts to moderate controversial content, especially related to politics. Katie Harbath, a former public policy director at Facebook, noted that companies increasingly want to avoid controversy for over-moderating, stating, "A lot of them have been more like, ‘It’s probably better for us to be as hands-off as possible.’"

What can be done right now? Where do we start?

First, helpful AI can be used as a tool against harmful AI. It’s a learning mechanism. AI can be instructed to become a mastermind detector of deepfakes, identifying subtle patterns humans might not notice. 

Recently, some large social media and AI companies including Meta, Google, and OpenAI have begun partnering to watermark and label AI-generated content. This kind of cross-platform collaboration is critical and must be strengthened and expanded.

PENTAGON TURNS TO AI TO HELP DETECT DEEPFAKES

Second, the prospect of legal penalties and fines for disseminating deepfakes would serve as a significant deterrent. The vast majority of Americans are in favor of federal measures, with 84% supporting legislation that would outlaw non-consensual deepfake pornography, according to the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute. 

There must be strong federal laws established that explicitly protect victims of deepfakes. Even preliminary federal rules and fines could significantly reduce the spread. 

Third, social media companies must be held accountable for promoting deepfake content. Currently, Section 230 shields Web companies from liability for user-generated content. 

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An effective reform would be to hold companies liable for deepfake content that they play an active role in spreading. This includes via targeted ads or algorithmic boosting, where the content is served to users who otherwise wouldn’t have seen it. 

Currently, the large social networks benefit from controversial deepfake content going viral. It increases user engagement and ad revenue, which leads to laissez-faire enforcement.

Fourth, improved media literacy is urgently needed. Studies show that education on these topics can significantly diminish the overall persuasiveness of deepfakes and other online manipulations. 

The MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality is a good example that provides online media literacy courses for college students and educators. Similar initiatives can help improve media literacy and critical thinking skills downstream with middle school and high school students.  

A united front combining technological, legislative and educational efforts is required. This includes increased collaboration among social media and AI companies, policymakers, educators and users alike. The stakes couldn’t be higher. 

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On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee grilled former Special Counsel Robert Hur about his investigation and report into President Biden’s mishandling of classified information. 

As expected, both Republicans and Democrats using Hur and his report to score political points. Democrats tried to turn Tuesday’s hearing into a show trial directed at former President Donald Trump for hiding classified information at his Mar-a-Lago complex. Republicans questioned why Hur declined to bring charges when he found that Biden had been taking classified information home and to his personal office for decades.

But committee Republicans missed their big opportunity. Rather than focus on whether Hur should have indicted Biden, they should have focused on why Hur didn’t indict Biden. Famously, Hur wrote in his report last month that he declined to bring charges against the president because, in part, he was an "elderly man with a poor memory" with whom a jury might sympathize. 

FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT HUR TESTIFIES ON FINDINGS FROM BIDEN CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS PROBE

For most Americans, the important issue is not whether Biden took classified documents home after the end of his vice presidency in 2017, but whether he is mentally fit to continue serving as president.  Indeed, under long-standing Justice Department precedent, federal prosecutors are forbidden from bringing criminal charges against a sitting president.

Tuesday’s hearings revealed Hur to be a straight-shooting prosecutor, much like the outstanding career officials at the Department of Justice with whom we have both worked.  Hur declared in his opening statement that he would "refrain from speculating or commenting on areas outside the scope of the investigation."  He stuck to that throughout the whole hearing, repeatedly referring to his written February 2024 report and refusing attempts to get him to say something more damaging about either Biden or Trump.

Curiously, some congressional Democrats decided to attack Hur’s integrity even though he had declined to bring charges against the leader of their party.  Congressman Hank Johnson, D-Ga., accused Hur of launching an intentionally partisan attack: "You used your report to trash and smear President Biden ... and you knew that would play into the Republicans’ narrative that the president is unfit for office because he’s senile."  (Hur later stated that he did not find Biden to be senile nor did he use that word in his report.)  Johnson also baselessly accused Hur of being a Federalist Society member (he is not) and of "doing everything you can do to get President Trump reelected so that you can get appointed as a federal judge or perhaps to another position in the Department of Justice."

Things went downhill from there. 

SCHIFF SPARS WITH HUR IN HEATED EXCHANGE OVER REPORT THAT 'DISPARAGED' BIDEN: 'THAT DID NOT HAPPEN'

California Democrat Reps. Adam Schiff (who is currently running to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein) and Eric Swalwell both attacked Hur. Swalwell claimed that Hur described Biden as having a "photographic memory" regarding his Wilmington home and asking Hur to pledge that he would not seek a role in a potential second Trump administration; Hur declined. 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., falsely claimed that Hur’s report was a "complete exoneration of President Joe Biden" – Hur had to repeatedly state that he had not exonerated him.  Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., didn’t even bother to ask Hur any questions and instead gave a 5-minute speech that accused Trump of being the "white supremacist in chief."

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Republicans made more progress.  Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, had Hur affirm his report’s finding that Biden earned $8 million from using the classified information to write his November 2017 book, "Promise Me, Dad." Biden shared that information with his ghostwriter. Matt Gaetz , R-Fla., got Hur to agree that President Biden’s repeated claim that he "never shared" any of the classified documents was inaccurate.  Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., succeeded in persuading Hur to agree that a reasonable jury could have convicted Biden, and that Biden’s actions risked seriously damaging national security.   

But Republican members failed to mine the most important area for questioning.  While the Justice Department released the transcript of the interview, only Hur’s personal testimony could allow the American public to truly understand President Biden’s mental fitness.  Committee members did not require Hur to address, for example, Biden’s demeanor, alertness, memory, truthfulness, and overall mental state. 

Republican members did not strongly follow up on Hur’s conclusion, in his report, that Biden’s answers were sometimes "not credible."  They could have asked Hur to explain exactly which of his observations and Biden’s answers led him to believe that a jury might not convict Biden, and whether the DOJ could rebut those arguments at trial. They could have asked Hur why he didn’t focus on the classified documents in Biden’s possession that were from his senate days; senators may not remove such documents nor any notes about them from the SCIF, and thus Biden knowingly and wrongfully removed and retained those classified documents.

The House Judiciary Committee members also could have delved deeper into the interview transcripts. The transcript confirmed that Biden couldn’t remember when he was vice president or when Trump was elected. 

It confirmed that Biden himself had brought up his son, Beau, and then incorrectly stating that 2017-2018 was the "timeframe" when "my son [Beau] is – either been deployed or is dying."  Beau Biden was deployed in Iraq from 2008-2009 as a member of the Delaware National Guard, and tragically died of brain cancer on May 30, 2015. 

The transcript shows that President Biden answered Hur’s questions with "don’t know," "don’t recall," or "I have no god**mn idea" more than 100 times and couldn’t remember what a fax machine was. 

Was Biden angry? Obstructive? Did he honestly not remember or was he simply repeating a coached line when he was in trouble?  Was Biden’s tendency to wander off into nostalgic stories due to his age or mental decline, or was it evasive and/or obstructive?

Congress should seriously consider exploring these questions further. Chairman Jordan already has taken the next step by demanding that DOJ turn over all audio recordings and transcripts of the interviews. With Biden having essentially secured the Democratic Party nomination and Trump on the verge of securing the Republican one, the House Judiciary Committee owes it to the American public to reveal information on whether the incumbent is mentally fit for a second term in office.   

John Shu is a legal scholar and commentator who served in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

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