Is Your Online Friend Real? AI-Created Fake People Now Reign Internet

By Sunidhi Dubey

Have you ever considered the possibility that the faces you see on the internet are not even real! The reviews that you read online, the face which you trust on a product’s review, the comments and posts shared by people that you may follow and even idealize may not even be real!

Yes, in the growing era of digitalization, which has skyrocketed during this pandemic, most of us would not be even surprised to know that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is busy making fake people.

In the world where there is an emphasis on publishing, advertising, buying, making friends get influenced by people they meet virtually, AI is being used to create fake profiles with fake faces and treating them as real human beings. The worst part is that they seem so real, that even the smartest of us cannot easily distinguish between a real human face and the one created by AI.

The cost of getting one such face designed could be as low as $2.99, or 1,000 people for $1,000. There are many companies who are selling AI-generated humans for various purposes. Interestingly, such fake faces can be used for a website, communication or video games. But, such technology to simulate people has attracted people with a different intern. Masking identity with fake faces is easy so spies, underworld and smugglers can find it attractive to hide their identities. Similarly, propaganda, fake influencers or bot army can be created with such technology.

AI can create a fake person by incorporating various distinct features like eyes, perspective, mood, age, gender, race, and ethnicity. Experts explain that AI takes various features of the faces, numbering them, and then rearranging them randomly so that no face ever gets repeated or gets similarities to any human alive!

The pictures can be as detailed as having glasses, accessories, a perfectly symmetrical face. Though, these details, on looking very carefully can help in the distinction of the fake picture. However, in this fast-paced world, running at the speed of mouse-clicks, these details somehow get ignored and people tend to fall into the traps set up by the AI.

There is no wonder that such type of technology, can be misused to such a large extent that the common man could not even think of. The creation of fake profiles could create a great security predicament, as it could be very readily used by terrorism groups, revolters, and potential threats to mankind.