AI may have outwitted itself with fake video

The US military is funding an effort to determine whether AI-generated video and audio will soon be indistinguishable from the real thing—even for another AI. The news: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is holding a contest this summer to generate the most convincing AI-created videos and the most effective tools to spot the counterfeits. Some background: Some of the most realistic fake footage is created by generative adversarial networks, or GANs. GANs pit AI systems against each other to refine their creations and make a product real enough to fool the other AI. In other words, the final videos are literally made to dupe detection tools. Why it matters: The software to create these videos is becoming increasingly advanced and accessible, which could cause real harm. “You already have modified video being used to cause real violence across the developing world,” Aviv Ovadya said at an event organized by Bloomberg. “That’s a real and present danger