Regulating Unreality

Should knowing what content is genuine be a new human right? Lilian Edwards, professor of law, innovation and society at Newcastle Law School, explores.

‘Deepfakes’ or the use of AI to convincingly simulate or synthesise voice, images or video for malicious purposes have become prominent recently, most obviously as a means to create realistic but fake revenge-pornography involving celebrities and members of the public alike.

However, the implications for society deeper still.

Techniques to generate deepfakes are evolving in response to an arms war of detection techniques, and may eventually result in a world where ‘fake news’ expands to everything we see, hear and experience, not just the news we read.

Lilian Edwards, Professor of Law, innovation and society at Newcastle Law School, explores the rise of deepfakes in this Turing Lecture.