Microsoft warns against ‘deepfake fraud’ and misleading AI as company implores government leaders to take action

MICROSOFT is calling on lawmakers to combat dangerous deepfake technology and AI-powered cyberattacks.

On Tuesday, the tech giant released a 42-page report detailing ways to protect consumers from “AI-generated abusive content.”

This includes pressuring government officials to solve the problem created by technology companies.

Vice President Brad Smith summarized the call to action in a post on company blog.

“While the technology sector and nonprofit groups have taken recent steps steps To address this issue, it has become apparent that our laws will also need to evolve to combat deepfake fraud,” Smith wrote.

“In short, we need new laws to help stop bad actors from using deepfakes to defraud the elderly or abuse children.”

The report detailed cases of deepfakes, a portmanteau of “deep learning” and “fake.”

The term was coined in 2017 and was originally used to describe photos manipulated by open-source facial swap technology.

With the advent of artificial intelligence, it has become easier than ever for malicious actors to produce synthetic content, especially as this technology becomes readily available.

Microsoft’s report cites cases of deepfakes being used to manipulate election results.

In Slovakiafor example, an audio recording quickly spread in which presidential candidate Michal Šimečka boasted about rigging the elections.

Despite denying it as false, Šimečka suffered in an already tense situation racewith Microsoft implying that the deepfake cost him the election.

“Although it is impossible to attribute the result to deepfake, the spread is within the typical statistical error rate and its impact cannot be easily dismissed,” the report says.

Other cases excluded from the article were reported across the United States.

In January, a robocall using President Joe Biden’s voice urged Democrats not to vote in the New Hampshire primary.

The man behind the conspiracy was arrested and indicted on charges of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate.

The tech mogul has been criticized for promoting manipulated content in violation of his own platform’s terms.

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Earlier this week, Elon Musk posted a deepfake video of alleged Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on X, formerly Twitter.

Microsoft cited the use of deepfakes to manipulate vulnerable people, specifically the elderly, into falling for schemes.

The article referenced a 2023 study in which 37% of organizations worldwide reported experiencing some fake voice fraud attempts.

Voice phishing, or vishing, has seen an explosion in frequency just in the last year.

Cybercriminals will pose as friends or relatives of victims using AI voice cloning technology and convince them to send money or hand over confidential bank account details.

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The company insists it is doing everything it can to combat the problems and makes admittedly strong arguments.

Initiatives include the signing of a cross-sector technology agreement at the Munich Security Conference in February.

Microsoft was part of a coalition of 20 companies that launched the Technical Agreement to Combat the Deceptive Use of AI in the 2024 Elections.

The tech giant also partnered with OpenAI in May to launch a $2 million Social Resilience Fund.

Both companies hope the initiative will “promote AI education and literacy among voters and vulnerable communities.”

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However, Microsoft insists that the federal government needs to do more to define and enforce laws regarding the misuse of AI technology.

Suggestions for US lawmakers include requiring vendors of AI systems to clearly label synthetic content.

Microsoft proposes the use of provenance tools, which provide details about the origin, changes, and validity of data.

“This is essential to building trust in the information ecosystem and will help the public better understand whether content is generated or manipulated by AI,” the report says.

What are the arguments against AI?

Artificial intelligence is a highly controversial issue and it seems like everyone has a position on it. Here are some common arguments against this:

Job Loss – Some industry experts argue that AI will create new niches in the job market, and as some roles are eliminated, others will appear. However, many artists and writers insist that the argument is ethical, since generative AI tools are being trained on their work and would not work otherwise.

Ethics – When AI is trained on a dataset, much of the content is taken from the internet. This is almost always, if not exclusively, done without notifying the people whose work is being performed.

Privacy – Content from personal social media accounts can be fed into language models to train them. Concerns have emerged as Meta unveils its AI assistants on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. There have been legal challenges to this issue: in 2016, legislation was created to protect personal data in the EU, and similar laws are in the works in the United States.

Misinformation – As AI tools extract information from the Internet, they may take things out of context or experience hallucinations that produce absurd responses. Tools like Copilot on Bing and Google’s generative search AI are always at risk of getting things wrong. Some critics argue this could have lethal effects – such as AI prescribing erroneous health information.

Microsoft is also pushing for a “federal deep fraud statute” to protect victims of cybercrimes.

“We need to give law enforcement officials, including state attorneys general, a stand-alone legal framework to prosecute AI-generated fraud and scams as they proliferate in speed and complexity,” the report says.

The company has also advocated for changes to laws at the federal and state levels to stay up to date with developments in AI.

“While it is imperative that the technology industry has a seat at the table, it must do so with humility and a bias for action,” Smith wrote in a foreword.

“Ultimately, the danger is not that we move too fast, but that we move too slowly or not at all.”