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Imagine, seeing a video of yourself singing on a big screen without it actually being you that is singing, but someone else with the appearance of you. This is what happened to Simon Cowell on America’s Got Talent when the leading AI company Metaphysic transformed a singer into Cowell. Probably, just like Cowell, you would be stunned and shocked. How can this happen?

Metaphysic is a leader in creating hyperreal synthetic videos

The answer is: synthetic media or also called AI-generated media. It is a fast-growing field of digital experiences and products that are created with input from artificial intelligence (Marr, 2022). Through training an AI model based on real images and videos, a modified and created video is made. Such deep fake videos or photos are hard to distinguish from reality – if they even are – which is also the scary side of this new technology trend.

Generative adversarial network (GAN) is a technique in which two networks compete to create photos that are cross-checked to determine if they are realistic or not (Suliman, 2022)

Whilst such a video for AGT is unharmful and for entertainment purposes only, deep fake videos can cause serious trouble when misused and increases the amount of disinformation. Foremost, the AI technique to create such videos can be used to create fake videos as well. For instance, speeches of important politicians can be re-created to persuade the public about a particular issue of their liking, which I think, can cause serious harm to the stability of society. However, does it only bring harm?

Chris and Tom, founders of Metaphysic, see metaverse AI as a new opportunity. Combined with the metaverse –  a virtual reality in which users communicate and interact with each other in 3D – they think the technology paves a way to have “live” drinks with friends on the opposite side of the world, or even in the future, revisit a memory.

In my opinion, synthetic media can be a great new technology in the entertainment industry, however, ethical considerations should be in place. What you do not want, and what people might fear, is that actors with the wrong intentions use data without consent, permission or direct interaction. Therefore, it will be interesting to see what the future brings and how these ethical concerns can be secured or even impose laws. About the metaverse? I am keen on seeing how this development plays out as for now, I cannot imagine a world where virtual 3D live interaction is something usual.

For now, let’s see how far synthetic media can go in America’s Got Talent.

References

Marr, B. (2022). Can A Metaverse AI Win America’s Got Talent? (And What That Means For The Industry). Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/08/30/can-a-metaverse-ai-win-americas-got-talent-and-what-that-means-for-the-industry/?sh=766487777b20

Suliman, M. (2022). Synthetic media: How AI-generated characters spread disinformation. Big Think. https://bigthink.com/the-present/synthetic-media-deepfake/

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We all know the struggle of entering a parking place: you need to get a ticket out of the machine but the car is too far from the machine to reach it through the window. What if this could be done easier?

Q-Parkis a Dutch company that provides parking facilities to drivers in the Netherlands. It provides the opportunity to park contactless based on the license plate of the car, which removes the parking hurdle. It works as easy as inserting your license plate in the application on your phone, and it will scan your license plate and arrange payment in the app after parking at one of the Q-park facilities (NOS 2022). The app will collect your data, even if you do not actively use it. However, this new type of information system poses privacy issues. Therefore, the question arises whether this technology needs the implementation of (cyber)security measures.

A study by Cybersecurity expert De Ceukelaire (2022) revealed that (Q-Park) parking apps do not require users to prove their identity when registering a license plate to the parking app. Which shows how easily someone else can use your license plate, making it a target for hackers. The privacy problem is highlighted by a method (figure 1) that shows how hackers can use the parking app to stalk you:

“License plate recognition (ANPR) is a feature that sends out an alert with the location when the target vehicle enters an ANPR-enabled parking lot” (Thalen, 2022). Sending out this instant location is a serious misuse of the data in parking apps when the parking app is misused.

Whilst Q-park counters this by saying that people will recognize when their license plate is “used” by someone else, as the real owner would not be incurred for the parking costs if someone else added the license plate to their account (NOS, 2022). But often people think not paying could be a bug in the system as well. Besides, even if that is the case, the location is already shared and it would be too late.

In cases like this where (personal) information can be misused, are we willing to incur privacy breaches and misuse of our data for a smoother parking experience? Whilst the technology itself can provide its benefits, users have the right to prevent this misuse. Regulations like the AVG (Dutch privacy law) are in place for people to report issues. However, in essence, entering a license plate should be better protected by implementing cybersecurity measures, for instance confirming this is your license plate in the app and having a facial recognition password on it.

References

NOS. (2022, 26 september). Hacker: kentekenparkeren Q-Park is risico voor stalking. NOS.nl. Available at: https://nos.nl/artikel/2446082-hacker-kentekenparkeren-q-park-is-risico-voor-stalking (Accessed 1 October)

Thalen, M. (2022, 26 september). Parking apps can let anyone track your car—this hacker wants to stop it. The Daily Dot. Available at: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/parking-apps-track-car-privacy-gdpr/ (Accessed 2 October)