Google to team up with govt to tackle deepfakes

Google, one of the most renowned names in the tech world, has highlighted its battle with tackling deepfakes and misinformation created by AI (artificial intelligence). The tech giant voiced out the initiatives that it's been taking to combat and flag AI-generated content through a combination of machine learning and human reviewers. With the help of AI, the company’s accuracy of its content will be increased.

Recent deepfake videos that have been posted on social media platforms of famous celebrities like Rashmika Mandanna, Katrina Kaif, and Alia Bhatt have raised concern for people’s safety on social media.

Big tech companies have been provided one week’s time by the government to put an end to deepfakes and generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI)-laced misinformation online campaigns. Google is already working to fix these issues through labelling genAI-generated images with metadata and embedded watermarking them with SynthID. 

YouTube creators will also have to mandatorily disclose in coming months if there’s any genAI usage in their content and they’ll need to inform the viewers about the same by outlining those with addition of labels in the description box and the video player as well. There is a new option of ‘privacy request process’ that they are working on. It will help users to take down the genAI-laced content, which has been used AI to imitate a person’s face or voice.

Google has announced that it will team up with the Indian government to address the risks like deepfakes and misinformation online campaigns aka ‘synthetic media’, in the upcoming Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) Summit.

The tech giant also recently updated its election advertising policies, which now require publishers to state if their ads include digitally altered or generated content, with the intent to deceive, mislead or defraud users. Google Search already has some guardrails like Knowledge Panels and Featured Snippets that flags deepfakes and AI-modified content.

Google says it's currently speaking with policymakers, researchers across India. Last year in December, the tech behemoth donated $1 mn to the Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Madras, to set up a first of its kind Responsible AI centre to to study bias in AI from the Indian perspective.