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AI deepfakes are getting better at spoofing KYC verification: Binance exec

May 24, 2023 Coin Telegraph

The technology is getting so advanced, deepfakes may soon become undetectable by a human verifier, said Jimmy Su, Binance's Chief Security Officer.

Deepfake technology used by crypto fraudsters to bypass know-your-customer (KYC) verification on crypto exchanges such as Binance is only going to get more advanced, Binance's chief security officer warns.

Deepfakes are made using artificial intelligence tools that use machine learning to create convincing audio, images or videos featuring a person’s likeness. While there are legitimate use cases for the technology, it can also be used for scams and hoaxes.

Deep fake AI poses a serious threat to humankind, and it's no longer just a far-fetched idea. I recently came across a video featuring a deep fake of @cz_binance , and it's scarily convincing. pic.twitter.com/BRCN7KaDgq
— DigitalMicropreneur.eth (@rbkasr) February 24, 2023

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Binance chief security officer Jimmy Su said there has been a rise in fraudsters using the tech to try and get past the exchange’s customer verification processes.

“The hacker will look for a normal picture of the victim online somewhere. Based on that, using deep fake tools, they’re able to produce videos to do the bypass.”

Su said the tools have become so advanced that they can even correctly respond to audio instructions designed to check whether the applicant is a human and can do so in real-time.

“Some of the verification requires the user, for example, to blink their left eye or look to the left or to the right, look up or look down. The deep fakes are advanced enough today that they can actually execute those commands,” he explained.

However, Su believes the faked videos are not at the level yet where they can fool a human operator.

“When we look at those videos, there are certain parts of it we can detect with the human eye,” for example, when the user is required to turn their head to the side,” said Su.

“AI will overcome [them] over time. So it's not something that we can always rely on.”

In August 2022, Binance’s chief communications officer Patrick Hillmann warned that a “sophisticated hacking team” was using his previous news interviews and TV appearances to create a “deepfake” version of him.

The deepfake version of Hillmann was then deployed to conduct Zoom meetings with various crypto project teams promising an opportunity to list their assets on Binance — for a price, of course.

Hackers created a "deep fake" of me and managed to fool a number of unsuspecting crypto projects. Crypto projects are virtually under constant attack from cybercriminals. This is why we ask most @binance employees to remain anonymous on LinkedIn. https://t.co/tScNg4Qpkx
— Patrick Hillmann (@PRHillmann) August 17, 2022

“That's a very difficult problem to solve,” said Su, when asked about how to combat such attacks.

“Even if we can control our own videos, there are videos out there that are not owned by us. So one thing, again, is user education.”

Binance is planning to release a blog post series aimed at educating users about risk management.

In an early version of the blog post featuring a section on cybersecurity, Binance said that it uses AI and machine learning algorithms for its own purposes, including detecting unusual login patterns and transaction patterns and other "abnormal activity on the platform."

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Amnesty nixes AI-generated images of Colombian protests after criticism

May 3, 2023 Coin Telegraph

The human rights advocacy group pulled the faked images following widespread online criticism.

Human rights advocacy group Amnesty International has retracted artificial intelligence (AI) generated images it used in a campaign to publicize police brutality in Colombia during national protests in 2021.

The group was criticized for using AI to produce the images for its social media accounts according to reports. One image, in particular, was highlighted by The Guardian on May 2.

It depicts a woman being dragged away by police during Colombia’s protests against deep and long-standing economic and social inequalities in 2021.

However, a closer look shows a few discrepancies in the image such as the uncanny-looking faces, dated police uniforms and a protestor that appears to be somehow wrapped in a flag that is not the correct flag of Colombia.

The bottom of each image also carries a disclaimer saying the images are produced by an AI.

*AI-generated image from Amnesty International. Source:* *Twitter*

Amnesty International told The Guardian it chose to use AI to generate images to protect protesters from possible state retribution. Erika Guevara Rosas, director for Americas at Amnesty, said:

“We have removed the images from social media posts, as we don’t want the criticism for the use of AI-generated images to distract from the core message in support of the victims and their calls for justice in Colombia,”

Photojournalists criticized the use of the images, commenting that in today’s highly polarized era of fake news people are more likely to question the media's credibility.

Media scholar Roland Meyer commented on the deleted images stating “image synthesis reproduces and reinforces visual stereotypes almost by default,” before adding they were “ultimately nothing more than propaganda.”

I can’t imagine an org that should NEVER use AI imagery more than @amnesty. These are real issues impacting the safety of real people in the real world. Photojournalists are out there documenting the reality. Using pretend imagery only hurts those who are suffering. pic.twitter.com/hN0SPvOFYi
— Shah Selbe (@shahselbe) April 30, 2023

Other images, now deleted by Amnesty, were shared by Twitter users in late April.

AI is being increasingly used to generate images and visual media. In late April, HustleGPT founder Dave Craige posted a video of the United States Republican Party using AI imagery in its political campaign.

Woa, this is crazy. The US Republican Party is already using Ai images in their ads. They show bleak images of what “could be” in the future.

Dang that was fast.https://t.co/q8ievnegxJ pic.twitter.com/ugMTLLcwkT
— Dave Craige (@davecraige) April 28, 2023

“We all knew that AI and deep-fake images were going to make it to politics, I just didn’t realize it would happen so quickly,” he exclaimed.

Cointelegraph contacted Amnesty for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.

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Elon Musk and tech execs call for pause on AI development

March 30, 2023 Coin Telegraph

artificial general intelligence

The authors of the letter say that advanced artificial intelligence could cause a profound change in the history of life on Earth, for better or worse.

More than 2,600 tech leaders and researchers have signed an open letter urging a temporary pause on further artificial intelligence (AI) development, fearing “profound risks to society and humanity.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and a host of AI CEOs, CTOs and researchers were among the signatories of the letter, which was published by the United States think tank Future of Life Institute (FOLI) on March 22.

The institute called on all AI companies to “immediately pause” training AI systems that are more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months, sharing concerns that “human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity,” among other things.

We're calling on AI labs to temporarily pause training powerful models!

Join FLI's call alongside Yoshua Bengio, @stevewoz, @harari_yuval, @elonmusk, @GaryMarcus & over a 1000 others who've signed: https://t.co/3rJBjDXapc

A short on why we're calling for this - (1/8)
— Future of Life Institute (@FLIxrisk) March 29, 2023

“Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources. Unfortunately, this level of planning and management is not happening,” the institute wrote.

GPT-4 is the latest iteration of OpenAI’s artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, which was released on March 14. To date, it has passed some of the most rigorous U.S. high school and law exams within the 90th percentile. It is understood to be 10 times more advanced than the original version of ChatGPT.

There is an “out-of-control race” between AI firms to develop more powerful AI, whi“no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control," FOLI claimed.

BREAKING: A petition is circulating to PAUSE all major AI developments.

e.g. No more ChatGPT upgrades & many others.

Signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Stability AI CEO & 1000s of other tech leaders.

Here's the breakdown: pic.twitter.com/jR4Z3sNdDw
— Lorenzo Green 〰️ (@mrgreen) March 29, 2023

Among the top concerns were whether machines could flood information channels, potentially with “propaganda and untruth” and whether machines will “automate away” all employment opportunities.

FOLI took these concerns one step further, suggesting that the entrepreneurial efforts of these AI companies may lead to an existential threat:

“Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”

“Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders,” the letter added.

Having a bit of AI existential angst today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 26, 2023

The institute also agreed with a recent statement from OpenAI founder Sam Altman that an independent review should be required before training future AI systems.

Altman in his Feb. 24 blog post highlighted the need to prepare for artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) robots.

Not all AI pundits have rushed to sign the petition, though. Ben Goertzel, the CEO of SingularityNET, explained in a March 29 Twitter response to Gary Marcus, the author of Rebooting.AI, that language learning models (LLMs) won’t become AGIs, which, to date, there have been few developments of.

Instead, he said research and development should be slowed down for things like bioweapons and nukes:

On the whole, human society will be better off with GPT-5 than GPT-4 -- better to have slightly smarter models around. AIs taking human jobs will ultimately a good thing. The hallucinations and banality will decrease and folks will learn to work around them.
— Ben Goertzel (@bengoertzel) March 29, 2023

In addition to language learning models like ChatGPT, AI-powered deep fake technology has been used to create convincing images, audio and video hoaxes. The technology has also been used to create AI-generated artwork, with some concerns raised about whether it could violate copyright laws in certain cases.

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz recently told investors he was shocked over the amount of regulatory attention that has been given to crypto, while little has been toward artificial intelligence.

“When I think about AI, it shocks me that we’re talking so much about crypto regulation and nothing about AI regulation. I mean, I think the government’s got it completely upside-down,” he opined during a shareholders call on March 28.

FOLI has argued that should AI development pause not be enacted quickly, governments should get involved with a moratorium.

“This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium,” it wrote.

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Deep Fake