PM Modi urges media to educate people about AI: “Looming threat of deep fakes in digital media a big concern”

On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew attention to the dangers posed by deepfakes in modern digital media content and emphasized the need to comprehend how artificial intelligence (AI) functions since these fakes have the potential to be used maliciously or to deliberately disseminate false information. Prime Minister Modi addressed the journalists present at the Diwali Milan program at the BJP Headquarters on Friday, discussing the risks associated with deepfakes in digital media. The prime minister called on the media to inform the public about the dangers of artificial intelligence being used to disseminate harmful content, such as deepfakes that misrepresent real people.

“I recently saw a video in which I was seen singing a Garba song. There are many other such videos online,” said PM Modi adding that the looming threat of Deepfake has become a great concern and can create a lot of problems for all of us.
Deepfakes are used to purposefully spread false information or they may have a malicious intent behind their use. They can be designed to harass, intimidate, demean and undermine people. Deepfakes can also create misinformation and confusion about important issues.
The Centre has said that creation and circulation of Deepfakes carry strong penalty – Rs 1 lakh in fine and three years in jail.
Misrepresentation of individuals in Deepfakes has led to the generation of blackmail materials to falsely incriminate people. As these videos and audio recordings can be difficult to verify, the negative impact on reputation can be difficult to recover from, even when verified as a Deepfake.