Tag Archives: deepfakes

Here’s how deepfake vishing attacks work, and why they can be hard to detect

By now, you’ve likely heard of fraudulent calls that use AI to clone the voices of people the call recipient knows. Often, the result is what sounds like a grandchild, CEO, or work colleague you’ve known for years reporting an urgent matter requiring immediate action, saying to wire money, divulge login credentials, or visit a… Read More »

White House unveils sweeping plan to “win” global AI race through deregulation

Trump’s plan was not welcomed by everyone. J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate for Public Citizen, in a statement provided to Ars, criticized Trump as giving “sweetheart deals” to tech companies that would cause “electricity bills to rise to subsidize discounted power for massive AI data centers.” Infrastructure demands and energy requirements Trump’s new AI… Read More »

AI video just took a startling leap in realism. Are we doomed?

Since 2022, we’ve been using the prompt “a muscular barbarian with weapons beside a CRT television set, cinematic, 8K, studio lighting” to test AI image generators like Midjourney. It’s time to bring that barbarian to life. A muscular barbarian man holding an axe, standing next to a CRT television set. He looks at the TV,… Read More »

Google’s Will Smith double is better at eating AI spaghetti … but it’s crunchy?

On Tuesday, Google launched Veo 3, a new AI video synthesis model that can do something no major AI video generator has been able to do before: create a synchronized audio track. While from 2022 to 2024, we saw early steps in AI video generation, each video was silent and usually very short in duration.… Read More »

Your AI clone could target your family, but there’s a simple defense

The warning extends beyond voice scams. The FBI announcement details how criminals also use AI models to generate convincing profile photos, identification documents, and chatbots embedded in fraudulent websites. These tools automate the creation of deceptive content while reducing previously obvious signs of humans behind the scams, like poor grammar or obviously fake photos. Much… Read More »

New Zemeckis film used AI to de-age Tom Hanks and Robin Wright

On Friday, TriStar Pictures released Here, a $50 million Robert Zemeckis-directed film that used real time generative AI face transformation techniques to portray actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright across a 60-year span, marking one of Hollywood’s first full-length features built around AI-powered visual effects. The film adapts a 2014 graphic novel set primarily in… Read More »

Downey Jr. plans to fight AI re-creations from beyond the grave

Robert Downey Jr. has declared that he will sue any future Hollywood executives who try to re-create his likeness using AI digital replicas, as reported by Variety. His comments came during an appearance on the “On With Kara Swisher” podcast, where he discussed AI’s growing role in entertainment. “I intend to sue all future executives… Read More »

Deepfake lovers swindle victims out of $46M in Hong Kong AI scam

The police operation resulted in the seizure of computers, mobile phones, and about $25,756 in suspected proceeds and luxury watches from the syndicate’s headquarters. Police said that victims originated from multiple countries, including Hong Kong, mainland China, Taiwan, India, and Singapore. A widening real-time deepfake problem Realtime deepfakes have become a growing problem over the… Read More »

Is China pulling ahead in AI video synthesis? We put Minimax to the test

In the spirit of not cherry-picking any results, everything you see was the first generation we received for the prompt listed above it. “A highly intelligent person reading ‘Ars Technica’ on their computer when the screen explodes” “A cat in a car drinking a can of beer, beer commercial” “Will Smith eating spaghetti“ “Robotic humanoid… Read More »

Meta’s new “Movie Gen” AI system can deepfake video from a single photo

On Friday, Meta announced a preview of Movie Gen, a new suite of AI models designed to create and manipulate video, audio, and images, including creating a realistic video from a single photo of a person. The company claims the models outperform other video-synthesis models when evaluated by humans, pushing us closer to a future… Read More »