UK opposition leader targeted by AI-generated fake audio smear | Hacker News Reader

UK opposition leader targeted by AI-generated fake audio smear

therecord.media

16 pointsCTOSian7 comments

I think this is a bad example of what a well executed smear might look like. The recording sounds very unnatural (and one sided).

Further, it is not that different from just making spurious allegations or a meme with a fake quote. However, this is going to get worse and worse in the future. I am glad that the government (who come from the opposing party) decided to confirm that it's a fake. A more plausible version of something like this could be very damaging though.

Audio is pretty hard to fake in general, especially in the UK, who have some of the best forensic audio capability out there (mains hum is recorded in the UK for forensic purposes, and there are other techniques that make low hanging forgeries like this pretty easy to detect) [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_network_frequency_a...

I don't think it needs to be perfect, there are people who will actually believe it anyway...

That's the thing though - there will always be some subset of the population that believes some fake meme that says "I love killing puppies -My political opponent". This is not too different from that, it's just one step further in an arms race.

To me what stood out was how clean the audio was for a recording you'd expect to be covert. Yeah you've got the background noise slapped in, but the AI voice is nearly crystal with no change of volume, and there's no /phone mic bumping against someone's hand + pocket/ noises synonymous with the sort of recording you'd hear this in.

I cannot find this for the life of me but I remember in Corbyn's tenure during the whole "stupid woman" spat there was a video circling around Twitter + WhatsApp with cut up audio of Corbyn saying those two words slapped on top. It was simple, but to a lot of average folk who aren't experienced with audio editing and wouldn't even consider how fake it was, it might as well have been real. It's interesting how the game of detective has changed with the advent of AI audio & image generation, but bullshit travels faster than the truth, and those who could nip it in the bud are nowhere near close to the first people who share it

I think it's worth noting the penultimate paragraph, which points to a possible motive:

> The account which posted the Keir Starmer smear had previously tweeted: “Let me be clear. I am unequivocally PRO smear tactics against those who engage in smear tactics themselves. People lie about Keir Starmer? Good. And I'm one of them.”

Which leads me think @leo_hutz may be unhappy with (our lord and savior!) JC's[0] expulsion from the Labour party.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn

Couldn't we just increase surveillance on politicians and other figures vulnerable to these attacks? They're already surveilled most of the time anyway?

It's trivial to detect what's fake when you have total coverage of what's real.

This is the whole idea behind body cams isn't it? It puts the risk of being lied about directly in the hands of the person wearing the device. The truth in this case is guaranteed to be faster than the lie.

It would be hilarious if the fear of being faked turned out to be the final blow to demands for privacy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com