Impressive or Terrifying?; Locals react to new technology, turning AI photos into videos

Microsoft has released a paper introducing the VASA-1, an AI program that can turn photos into videos.

All the program needs is your picture and a recording of your voice.

“If you’ve seen the AI videos that have been developed recently, I mean, it’s crazy. It’s almost as if you can’t tell what the real thing is,” said Greg, a software development major at Florida Gulf Coast University.

WINK News spoke with students about this technology, and they say they’re worried about the risks.

“I know that a lot of people, especially like around our age, would probably use that for bad purposes,” said Victoria, a political science major at FGCU, “Not just like cheating or whatever, but there’s a lot of people that would use it for things like, literally like, revenge porn.”

Technology is outpacing the law in many ways, and attorney Scot Goldberg says people will abuse this technology.

He also says, we as a society will learn where to draw a line in the sand.

“The idea of putting somebody’s head on a nude figure and then putting it into the internet, there’s going to be consequences for that. And is there a specific law about that? Well, there wasn’t a specific law for cyber bullying before, there wasn’t a simple, simple law. But these things they take place after something bad has happened.” said Goldberg.

And what if you made a video of OJ saying he did it and tried to submit it as evidence in a court of law?

Goldberg says evidence like that can already be scrutinized and looked at by experts so there are already protections for that.

What scares Goldberg is how people will use this against us personally.

“They use that to open up my iPhone? I mean, that’s the first thing, I think, or could they use that to get into my house?” said Goldberg, “Those are all security things that I think about is, ‘Can somebody use this to get to my family, or to my income.'”

Experts say this kind of technology could also be used by scammers.

Would your parents or grandparents know if wasn’t you in a video message asking for money?

Goldberg says now more than ever, you need to be careful about what you share online.

He says to check to make sure your accounts are set to private and be sure of the friends you add, or friend requests you accept.