Broader Social and Institutional Implications

But even beyond financial fraud and courtroom exploitation, deepfakes threaten societal faith in institutions. Brundage et al. (2018) caution against the larger, nefarious potential of artificial intelligence in general. For example, they predict that disinformation campaigns might be used to erratically steer political governance. Their prediction extends to how synthesized media might be used against something as reliable as government watchdogs and courts to enforce a lack of faith in legitimacy. If people believe any video or audio evidence to be fake news, then actual evidence is questionable. Even with this new form of evidence for each individual court case, the overall appreciation for democratic governance and rule of law becomes threatened.