Can deepfakes be used for the greater good? 
Apr 2, 2024

Can deepfakes be used for the greater good? 

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Marketplace's Lily Jamali and Kimberly Adams discuss video deepfakes and whether the intent behind them outweighs their overall impact.

It was an early attempt to use artificial intelligence in the 2024 presidential election: Ahead of January’s New Hampshire primary, a deepfake audio recording of President Joe Biden made it to some voters in the form of a robocall, encouraging them to save their vote.

A political consultant named Steve Kramer said he orchestrated that call to show the dangers of deepfakes. Nevertheless, it caused real confusion.

And there are a lot of deepfakes out there, including videos, that contend they are educational or parodies. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali and Kimberly Adams discuss how taking those deepfakes out of context or pushing them out in an ambiguous way can lead to misinformation and disinformation.

This conversation was part of “Marketplace Tech’s” limited series “Decoding Democracy.” You can watch the full episode here or on our YouTube channel.

More on everything we talked about

Deepfakes and the 2024 election season from “Marketplace Tech”

“Democratic operative admits to commissioning fake Biden robocall that used AI” from NBC News

“Arizona newsletter makes Kari Lake deepfake” from The Hill

“What’s More Frightening Than Kari Lake? A Deepfake Kari Lake” from Common Dreams

“Media literacy in the age of darkness” from MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality

“Deepfake Satire and the Possibilities of Synthetic Media” from Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism

“Detect DeepFakes: How to counteract misinformation created by AI” from MIT Media Lab

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The team

Daisy Palacios Senior Producer
Daniel Shin Producer
Jesús Alvarado Associate Producer
Rosie Hughes Assistant Producer