Who am I talking to?

Atlas Bioshock 2

Your plane goes down in the middle of the ocean and there is nobody to help you, save for a voice over the radio by the name of Atlas. This is the premise of 2k Game's Bioshock 2. You later find out that this "Atlas" doesn't really exist, rather, he is a persona created by a man named Frank Fontaine so that he can use you in his nefarious plans. In this instance, Frank Fontaine was directly lying to you by claiming to be Atlas. This lie leads you into direct conflict with the main antagonist of the game Andrew Ryan. Eventually resulting in you being physically harmed. Here is one instance, although fictitious, of a lie being able to directly harm a person. Philosopher Harry Frankfurt discusses lies in his article[1]. 
Explaining that a person telling a lie, in essence “aims at inducing us to accept his fabrication as an accurate account of how the world truly is.” With what "Atlas" tells you, he shapes your perception of reality with his fabrications. He is the good guy, and you're helping him do a good thing. When in (fictitious) reality he is one of the baddies.

With the technology of the modern world, it makes it easier and easier to pass such fabrications off as reality. One such example of this is deep fake technology, with which one can create very realistic synthetic videos of events that did not actually occur in reality. 

Descript is a company focused on creating tools for media editors, such as video editing software, transcription software and more. In 2019 Descript acquired Canadian startup Lyrebird. The interesting thing about Lyrebird, is that they have created software which, in essence, takes a sample recording of a person's voice, and replicates it. For example, by taking a short sample of audio you could make anybody say anything.

Right now, on Descript's website, you can use a feature called Overdub; Overdub gives you a sample sentence spoken by an AI with a replaceable portion. You can fill this replaceable box with anything that you want. For example, the first sample sentence given is "I should probably _____ this year." There is a limit of about 30 characters, but you can make it say some interesting things. Most of these sentences sound completely natural, tonally and rhythmically speaking. 

Now, the original speaker who the voice was sampled from has probably never said the sentence "I should probably eat 32,000 pizzas this year," however, with this software, I was able to make it sound as if the original voice had actually said that. The voice sounds eerily realistic, almost like a carbon copy of the original sample.

Moral philosopher James Moor refers to 3 major stages of a technological revolution in his article.[2] The three stages are as follows, the introduction stage, where the technology is being developed and mainly used by experts. The permeation stage, where the cost to produce the technology drops and demand as well as integration into society increases. Finally, the third stage is referred to as the power stage, where it is commonly available, and society would be directly affected by the absence of it.

This deepfake tech is still in the late introduction/early permeation stage, but technology moves fast, I could reasonably see this being streamlined and developed for wider consumer use in 5 to 10 years. 

Although one might not consider deepfakes to be a form of technological revolution, I would. If legislation is put into place as a result of this technology, then our society will be directly impacted. If not, just the knowledge that this video or audio recording might be fake will have a permanent impact on society. You can already see it today, with not knowing if a picture is "shopped" or not.

Source: Shutterstock.com

The ramifications of this kind of technology are immense and varying. For example, you might one day get a call from a family member who needs money and only later realize that you were talking to telescammer using a synthesized voice to impersonate them and steal from you. Or one could use a synthesized voice of a politician or celebrity to make it appear that they said things that would turn public opinion against them. How can we deal with the fabrications produced by this technology? Do we ban any software that can mimic voices? Or do we go on the opposite end of the spectrum and allow any software to take samples and create sentences a person has never said? Or maybe a middle ground that exists in some forms already. By just requiring a person's consent before their voice is run through the software. These are the kinds of questions that are going to be plaguing our legislators in the years to come.

Finally, I would like to remind you that with this software, anyone can be made to say anything. Calling in to question just where the fabrications end and reality begins.

[1]Frankfurt, H., "On Truth, Lies, and Bullshit"
[2]Moor, J.H., "Why We Need Better Ethics for Emerging Technologies"