Obama Says He’s Worried About ‘Fake’ Videos of Him Surfacing

Barack Obama says he is worried about “deepfake” videos surfacing in which he says or does things he has never done.

Obama told an Ottawa audience Friday evening that he has seen fake videos bearing his likeness, powered by artificial intelligence.

“People can duplicate me speaking and saying anything. And it sounds like me and it looks like I’m saying it — and it’s a complete fabrication,” Obama warned.

Huffingtonpost.ca reports: He explained part of the problem is because the human brain hasn’t adapted quickly enough to process the onslaught of information readily available to them on multiple platforms, and A.I. is only going to make things worse. Especially for democracies, he said.

“The marketplace of ideas that is the basis of our democratic practice has difficulty working if we don’t have some common baseline of what’s true and what’s not.”

“Deepfake” technology uses machine-learning algorithms to analyze archives of video and audio recordings to create realistic impersonations.

Advancements in this area have caused concerns it could be used to mislead voters.

Academy Award-winning director Jordan Peele and BuzzFeed used A.I. to produce a viral “deepfake” of Obama to deliver a PSA about fake videos last year.

Around the same time, a Belgium political party released a low-quality “deepfake” video of U.S. President Donald Trump urging the country to walk away from the Paris climate agreement.