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McAfee announces Project Mockingbird to counter deepfakes

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McAfee has announced Project Mockingbird to counteract AI-driven deepfakes at CES 2024. It’ll counter especially those employing audio to deceive consumers with fabricated news and fraudulent activities. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is getting smarter; because of this, bad actors are making more convincing fake content, like fake voices and videos. McAfee’s new tool, Project Mockingbird, uses AI to analyze and understand content, and it’s really good at spotting fake audio in videos, being right over 90% of the time.

McAfee Project Mockingbird will counteract deepfakes

McAfee’s Project Mockingbird is designed to differentiate genuine human audio from AI-generated replicas. This innovation is pivotal in addressing the emerging challenge of AI-enabled deepfakes, especially those incorporating deceptive audio elements.

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Deepfakes, which often show celebrities in fake videos, used to be on certain websites mostly. But now, fake audio is becoming a bigger problem. Steve Grobman, McAfee’s CTO, is worried about these misleading audio clips spreading on social media, especially with the upcoming 2024 U.S. Presidential election. More importantly, it comes at a time when there are over three major elections ahead, in the U.S., India, and South Africa. Quite similar to McAfee’s approach, Meta had also updated their policy to counter deepfakes.

McAfee’s Steve Grobman shares concerns about cheapfake scams

McAfee’s CTO stressed how important this technology is. He compared it to a weather forecast but for the internet. McAfee wants to help people understand and stay safe from fake content made by AI.

“We’ll help consumers avoid ‘cheapfake’ scams where a cloned celebrity is claiming a new limited-time giveaway,” he told Venture. “And make sure consumers know instantaneously when watching a video about a presidential candidate, whether real or AI-generated for malicious purposes.”

Grobman also mentioned how badly people use real social media accounts to spread fake videos or lies. McAfee’s tech can spot these fake videos and tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not.

As CES 2024 kicks off in Las Vegas, anticipation is building for a plethora of groundbreaking tech announcements. The upcoming days promise a thrilling showcase of innovation and advancements!