AI Detection Becomes a Business Essential in the Era of Synthetic Media

Artificial intelligence is arguably the single biggest technology to transform our lives over the last couple of years. Even the most technologically astute people are still trying to understand its impact.

Overall, more people seem to believe that AI is going to be a net negative for society than a positive one. One recent survey conducted last month found that only 30% of Americans feel that it will be beneficial overall, while 40% said that it will be net negative. This is a bleaker outlook than Americans took back in December, when 35% felt it would be a net positive and 34% believed that it would be a net negative. 

There are a number of reasons that AI can have a negative impact on our lives. One issue is that it is making it easier than ever for bad actors to create synthetic media, which can be used for malicious social engineering campaigns, phishing attacks and other nefarious purposes.

Businesses are trying to take all possible measures to mitigate the downsides of AI. One of the most important things they can do is use AI Detector technology, which can help identify synthetic media.

What Are the Risks of Synthetic Media Created with AI?

More content than ever is being created with AI these days. One study estimates that 90% of online content will be made with AI by the end of next year.

There are some clear benefits of using AI to create content. People can easily create beautiful headshot photos, write emails more quickly and create beautiful speeches for their friend’s weddings.

However, there is also a clear dark side of media created with AI. Synthetic media is frequently used to conduct a variety of crimes. Here are some examples:

• A woman in Scotland was recently duped into believing that she was in a relationship with another woman. However, the person on the other end was a scammer that was using AI-generated photos. They tricked her into sending them £17,000.
• An employee at an international firm was duped with a deepfake video purporting to be the company’s CEO. They sent $25 million to scammers abroad. 
• A variety of political propagandists used AI-altered media to astroturf people during the most recent election. 

There are a lot of clear risks of being duped by content created with AI. People need to know how to spot it and protect themselves. 

AI Detection Software Helps People Avoid Falling Victim to Synthetic Media Scams

There are a variety of things that people can do to help avoid falling victim to synthetic media scams propaganda. One of the biggest things that they can do is to use AI detection software.

But what is AI detection software and how does it work? AI detection programs are trained on large data sets of content that is made both with AI and content that is not. These programs use machine learning technology to tell the difference.

Some AI detection software focuses on telling if text-based content is made with AI, while others focus on the visual media. Here are some of the things that these programs look for:

• Metadata in images that frequently shows up in visual media made with AI
• Watermarks that are often present in AI images
• Patterns and unusual characteristics that are usually only seen in AI images
• Words and phrases that frequently show up in text content made with AI
• A lack of variability in sentence length in written content
• A lack of new ideas in written text

AI detectors that focus on image and text content are both effective at identifying anything made with AI. People can use them to effectively identify synthetic media that may be used for illicit purposes. 

What Types of Things Should AI Detection Software Be Used On?

There are a variety of ways that people can use AI detection software to help minimize the risks of being duped by unscrupulous actors. Here are some ideas:

• They can look at content that has gone viral on social media sites, which may be used to trick people into getting outraged over something. 
• They can inspect emails to see if they may show signs of being made with AI. This can help reduce the risk of phishing scams. 
• They can inspect videos to see if they are deepfakes. This is important since so many of those videos are used for scams. 

AI detection technology is going to become a lot more popular in the years to come, especially as a growing number of scammers and political agitators are going to use AI to dupe people. AI is getting better than ever, but AI detectors are also improving to help reduce the risks that it can pose to people all over the world.