In the News: Manjeet Rege on AI Deepfakes in Politics

Manjeet Rege, chair of the Department of Software Engineering and Data Science and director of the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence at the University of St. Thomas, spoke with WCCO about the growing use of AI generated content in political campaigns. Rege explained that advances in artificial intelligence are making deepfakes increasingly difficult to identify and emphasized the importance of public awareness as AI generated images, audio and video become more common in elections and public discourse.

From the article: Dr. Manjeet Rege, a professor who oversees the University of St. Thomas' Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence, says deepfakes are becoming harder to detect.

"AI-generated content is becoming so realistic that even for experts it takes awhile for them to actually figure out what is real and what is fake," Rege said.

He shared some ways to spot AI deepfakes.

"Watch the edges of the face and the hairline," Rege said. "Also, spot something in the background, which might look a little bit different."