Two days ago, I came across a video on YouTube that caught my attention. It had over 30 million views in just three months after being published, and the artist (a musical artist) is not among the biggest artists in the country who can easily pull such numbers within that short period. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the video, and honestly, I was wowed.
Okay, it could be that the number of views was artificially generated, but what triggered me the most was the video itself. It was completely done with AI, and it looked extremely real. The image of the actress appeared so real and exact, with just a little difference—more refined and finer than the original image. Not only that, everything and everyone in the video looked very real. That is the power of deepfake, and that is one of its advantages.
While it may look like the only way deepfakes are being used these days is for deceit, people are still making good use of it to create quality content and pass real information. It is just that the rate at which people are abusing the use of deepfake technology is very alarming.
Even in this era, people still make use of AI to create very lookalike photos of themselves in a more refined way, which they use to make posts, especially on social media. In that aspect, it is a good thing.
But hey, the bad sides of it are taking a toll on us, and it is growing worse every day.
Two years ago, I was at my workplace scrolling through my phone when my phone rang. It was an unknown number, and when I picked up, a masculine voice greeted me in my dialect. I replied, and we started conversing. He told me that he had already called my dad and that it was my dad who gave him my number. He said he had a job offer for me in an oil company in the next city and asked me to transport myself there immediately with my CV.
After we ended the call, I quickly called my dad to confirm, and my dad agreed that he gave him my number. When I asked him about the person, he said he knew him very well, though he no longer had his number and only recognised him through the voice. According to my dad, the man who called him to offer his son (me) a job was a friend of his whom he had lost contact with.
To be honest, I had already agreed and started arranging my files to begin the journey when a second thought crossed my mind. I decided to call the man again and started using simple methods to identify a scammer. The man failed completely, and I could not help but wonder how I would have wasted my transport fare and time traveling to the city and possibly been heavily scammed if I had not felt the urge to verify further.
When I told my dad that the person who called him and claimed to be his friend was fake, he did not believe me initially. Instead, he accused me of being lazy in looking for a job and claimed that I had seen an opportunity but refused to go for it. I laughed a lot that day and also pleaded with him to inform me first whenever he receives any call that looks strange.
What the scammer did was fake a voice, and it worked perfectly well. My dad later found a way to get the number of the friend whose voice was cloned, and the man assured him that he never did anything like that.
Thanks for reading.
This is my entry to Week 196, Edition 02 of the Weekly Featured contest in Hive Learners Community
Great thing you took the time to verify further before believing the man. Scammers have used this method to scam many job seekers who are desperate to get a job, but are not diligent enough to do their research before jumping into a job offer.