Opinion | Be very afraid of the dangers of ‘deepfake’ technology

The Lok Sabha elections are upon us and we will soon be inundated on our social media apps by Photoshopped images of politicians showing them doing something silly or despicable. None of us will be spared. We have enough gullible friends and uncles who will forward them to us. Some of these images will go viral.

Of course, the brighter ones among us will not be easily deceived. The fakery of most Photoshopped images is not very difficult to detect. For instance, a fake picture of a newspaper front page, on close examination, will almost invariably reveal that the font of a changed word or phrase does not exactly match the font of the rest of the headline. Or that the head of a politician does not perfectly fit his neck. All you need is some scepticism and not blind faith in whatever comes your way that fits in with your political inclinations.