Disruptive Technology and Deepfakes

DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY

Innovations originating from low-end or new-market foothold that are capable of disrupting existing markets and value networks (McKelvey, 2020).
A common example of disruptive technology is Netflix and streaming services overtaking DVD-renting services as films are digitized for the audience’s consumption (Zaman, 2022).

WHAT IS DEEPFAKE

Artificial Intelligence capable of manipulating media by swapping facial and voice recognition to a desired existing persona that is commonly well-known such as celebrities, politicians, influencers, and athletes.

FIELDS DISRUPTED BY DEEPFAKE

Financial and Insurance Markets

Although unlikely to occur, it is possible that deepfake may cause immense amounts of distrusts between the bank and their client which may lead to a bank run. Indeed, Borak (2020) highlights the incident where scammers stole huge monetary assets from the CEO of a UK-based energy firm by deceiving him by using AI-based software to change their voice identically to the head of the CEO’s German parent company.

Media and Entertainment Industry

Deepfake is also infamous for generating nonconsensual pornography. According to Adee (2020), 96% of deepfake pornography released on the internet targets celebrities, especially women. Indeed, Maine Mendoza fell victim to the unsolicited use of her facial recognition in a sex video that circulated online (Philstar Life, 2020). Although many believed that she did not partake in that pornography, this may cause unwanted and harmful issues to other actors, especially their rights, and security.

Government

A deepfake video of Ukrainian President declaring the nation’s soldiers to surrender and lay down their weapons was released by hackers who may be russians spreading disinformation as warfare tactic (Alynn, 2022). Although Ukraine was quick to address this concern and people easily spotted some evidence that the video clip was deepfake and untrue, the advances in AI and technology may blur the line between reality and illusion, making deepfake a scarier weapon to create distrust among people and their leaders.

References:

Adee, S. (2020). What are deepfakes and how are they created? deepfake technologies: what they are, what they do, and how they’re made. IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved from https://spectrum.ieee.org/what-is-deepfake

Allyn, B. (2022). Deepfake video of Zelenskyy could be ‘tip of the iceberg’ in info war, experts warn. National Public Radio. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2022/03/16/1087062648/deepfake-video-zelenskyy-experts-war-manipulation-ukraine-russia

Borak, M. (2020). Deepfakes have the potential to disrupt financial markets, not just fake your bank ID, experts say. The Star. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2020/11/17/deepfakes-have-the-potential-to-disrupt-financial-markets-not-just-fake-your-bank-id-experts-say

Philstar Life (2020). Sex video used deepfake technology to make woman look like Maine Mendoza. Retrieved from https://philstarlife.com/geeky/266673-sex-video-deepfake-maine-mendoza

McKelvey, J. (2020). Good entrepreneurs don’t set out to disrupt. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2020/05/good-entrepreneurs-dont-set-out-to-disrupt

Zaman, R. (2022). Netflix disruptive innovation – renting to streaming. The Waves. Retrieved from https://www.the-waves.org/2022/03/15/netflix-disruptive-innovation-renting-to-streaming/

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