A mother in Pennsylvania of USA was arrested last week for creating deepfake videos of her daughter's rival cheerleaders in an apparent attempt to harass and intimidate them.
She was charged with multiple felonies for sending deepfake videos to cheerleading coaches as well as girla of the group. In the fake videos he had constructed using AI software, it appeared that team members were engaging in obscene or infringing behavior.
The case is being handled by Bucks County District Attorney Mar Weintramp's office, which told reporters the woman also sent anonymous messages to its victims, urging them to commit suicide.
Local news reports that the mother's actions were aimed at forcing her daughter's opponents to leave the team and all indications are that the daughter was unaware of her mother's actions.
Detectives who tracked down and found the woman, following the threatening messages she sent, reported that the phone numbers of a company that sells deepfake videos to marketing teams were used. It is not clear at this time whether the woman works for the company, or ordered them or created them herself.
The deepfake video is "Teased videos" that with AI technology have changed the faces of the protagonists with incredible fidelity. This technology is quite recent and has just begun to spread widely. So do not believe what you see. Arrests have already been made for misuse.
We have seen them to have fun and surprise, but it is clear from the beginning that deepfakes are a danger to society.
Theoretically there are still ways to locate them, but this could change quickly as developers develop their code to overcome the shortcomings of the platform.
As the level of skills and technology required to distinguish between a deepfake video and real video continues to grow, we are almost certain to see more situations like this.
