Many AI researchers think fakes will become undetectable

Rishi Sunak is Britain’s prime minister. If some advertisements on Facebook can be trusted (which they cannot) he also appears to be flogging get-rich-quick schemes. One such advert shows Mr Sunak endorsing an app supposedly developed by Elon Musk, a businessman, into which viewers can make regular “savings”.

The video is fake. Generated with the help of AI, it is just one of 143 such advertisements catalogued by Fenimore Harper Communications, a British firm, which ran in December and January. It is not just those in the public eye who can have their likenesses used for dubious ends. In June 2023 the Federal Bureau of Investigation in America warned the public of “malicious actors” using AI to create fake sexually themed videos and images of ordinary people, in order to extort money.