Re: THE PENTAGON WANTS TO USE AI TO CREATE DEEPFAKE INTERNET USERS

D. Ray wrote:
> THE UNITED STATES’ secretive Special Operations Command is looking for
> companies to help create deepfake internet users so convincing that neither
> humans nor computers will be able to detect they are fake, according to a
> procurement document reviewed by The Intercept.
> 
> The plan, mentioned in a new 76-page wish list by the Department of
> Defense’s Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, outlines advanced
> technologies desired for country’s most elite, clandestine military
> efforts. “Special Operations Forces (SOF) are interested in technologies
> that can generate convincing online personas for use on social media
> platforms, social networking sites, and other online content,” the entry
> reads.
> 
> The document specifies that JSOC wants the ability to create online user
> profiles that “appear to be a unique individual that is recognizable as
> human but does not exist in the real world,” with each featuring “multiple
> expressions” and “Government Identification quality photos.”
> 
> In addition to still images of faked people, the document notes that “the
> solution should include facial & background imagery, facial & background
> video, and audio layers,” and JSOC hopes to be able to generate “selfie
> video” from these fabricated humans. These videos will feature more than
> fake people: Each deepfake selfie will come with a matching faked
> background, “to create a virtual environment undetectable by social media
> algorithms.”
> 
> The Pentagon has already been caught using phony social media users to
> further its interests in recent years. In 2022, Meta and Twitter removed a
> propaganda network using faked accounts operated by U.S. Central Command,
> including some with profile pictures generated with methods similar to
> those outlined by JSOC. A 2024 Reuters investigation revealed a Special
> Operations Command campaign using fake social media users aimed at
> undermining foreign confidence in China’s Covid vaccine.
> 
> Last year, Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, expressed interest in
> using video “deepfakes,” a general term for synthesized audiovisual data
> meant to be indistinguishable from a genuine recording, for “influence
> operations, digital deception, communication disruption, and disinformation
> campaigns.” Such imagery is generated using a variety of machine learning
> techniques, generally using software that has been “trained” to recognize
> and recreate human features by analyzing a massive database of faces and
> bodies. This year’s SOCOM wish list specifies an interest in software
> similar to StyleGAN, a tool released by Nvidia in 2019 that powered the
> globally popular website “This Person Does Not Exist.” Within a year of
> StyleGAN’s launch, Facebook said it had taken down a network of accounts
> that used the technology to create false profile pictures. Since then,
> academic and private sector researchers have been engaged in a race between
> new ways to create undetectable deepfakes, and new ways to detect them.
> Many government services now require so-called liveness detection to thwart
> deepfaked identity photos, asking human applicants to upload a selfie video
> to demonstrate they are a real person — an obstacle that SOCOM may be
> interested in thwarting.
> 
> The listing notes that special operations troops “will use this capability
> to gather information from public online forums,” with no further
> explanation of how these artificial internet users will be used.
> 
> This more detailed procurement listing shows that the United States pursues
> the exact same technologies and techniques it condemns in the hands of
> geopolitical foes. National security officials have long described the
> state-backed use of deepfakes as an urgent threat — that is, if they are
> being done by another country.
> 
> Last September, a joint statement by the NSA, FBI, and CISA warned
> “synthetic media, such as deepfakes, present a growing challenge for all
> users of modern technology and communications.” It described the global
> proliferation of deepfake technology as a “top risk” for 2023. In a
> background briefing to reporters this year, U.S. intelligence officials
> cautioned that the ability of foreign adversaries to disseminate
> “AI-generated content” without being detected — exactly the capability the
> Pentagon now seeks — represents a “malign influence accelerant” from the
> likes of Russia, China, and Iran. Earlier this year, the Pentagon’s Defense
> Innovation Unit sought private sector help in combating deepfakes with an
> air of alarm: “This technology is increasingly common and credible, posing
> a significant threat to the Department of Defense, especially as U.S.
> adversaries use deepfakes for deception, fraud, disinformation, and other
> malicious activities.” An April paper by the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies
> Institute was similarly concerned: “Experts expect the malicious use of AI,
> including the creation of deepfake videos to sow disinformation to polarize
> societies and deepen grievances, to grow over the next decade.”
> 
> The offensive use of this technology by the U.S. would, naturally, spur its
> proliferation and normalize it as a tool for all governments. “What’s
> notable about this technology is that it is purely of a deceptive nature,”
> said Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute. “There are
> no legitimate use cases besides deception, and it is concerning to see the
> U.S. military lean into a use of a technology they have themselves warned
> against. This will only embolden other militaries or adversaries to do the
> same, leading to a society where it is increasingly difficult to ascertain
> truth from fiction and muddling the geopolitical sphere.”
> 
> Both Russia and China have been caught using deepfaked video and user
> avatars in their online propaganda efforts, prompting the State Department
> to announce an international “Framework to Counter Foreign State
> Information Manipulation” in January. “Foreign information manipulation and
> interference is a national security threat to the United States as well as
> to its allies and partners,” a State Department press release said.
> “Authoritarian governments use information manipulation to shred the fabric
> of free and democratic societies.”
> 
> SOCOM’s interest in deepfakes is part of a fundamental tension within the
> U.S. government, said Daniel Byman, a professor of security studies at
> Georgetown University and a member of the State Department’s International
> Security Advisory Board. “Much of the U.S. government has a strong interest
> in the public believing that the government consistently puts out truthful
> (to the best of knowledge) information and is not deliberately deceiving
> people,” he explained, while other branches are tasked with deception. “So
> there is a legitimate concern that the U.S. will be seen as hypocritical,”
> Byman added. “I’m also concerned about the impact on domestic trust in
> government — will segments of the U.S. people, in general, become more
> suspicious of information from the government?”
> 
> <https://theintercept.com/2024/10/17/pentagon-ai-deepfake-internet-users/>
> 

TY for sharing the full article on this.

Now we know for sure why Jonathan D Ball/Rudey remains active here.

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