Deepfake detection is one corner of AI tech that isn’t booming

Experts agree there’s undue attention on AI generation and not enough on detection, said Claire Leibowicz, head of the AI and Media Integrity Program at nonprofit organization The Partnership on AI. — Image by drobotdean on Freepik

Artificial intelligence is now so powerful it can trick people into believing an image of Pope Francis wearing a white puffy Balenciaga coat is real, but the digital tools to reliably identify faked images are struggling to keep up with the pace of content generation.

Just ask the researchers at Deakin University’s School of Information Technology, outside of Melbourne. Their algorithm performed the best in identifying the altered images of celebrities in a set of so-called deepfakes last year, according to Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Index 2023.