Oren Etzioni was once an optimist about artificial intelligence. Now, his nonprofit, TrueMedia.org, is offering tools for fighting A.I.-manipulated co

An A.I. Researcher Takes On Election Deepfakes

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2024-04-02 17:30:08

Oren Etzioni was once an optimist about artificial intelligence. Now, his nonprofit, TrueMedia.org, is offering tools for fighting A.I.-manipulated content.

Oren Etzioni worries A.I.-generated fakes could overwhelm upcoming elections. Credit... Kyle Johnson for The New York Times

But in 2019 Dr. Etzioni, a University of Washington professor and founding chief executive of the Allen Institute for A.I., became one of the first researchers to warn that a new breed of A.I. would accelerate the spread of disinformation online. And by the middle of last year, he said, he was distressed that A.I.-generated deepfakes would swing a major election. He founded a nonprofit, TrueMedia.org in January, hoping to fight that threat.

On Tuesday, the organization released free tools for identifying digital disinformation, with a plan to put them in the hands of journalists, fact checkers and anyone else trying to figure out what is real online.

The tools, available from the TrueMedia.org website to anyone approved by the nonprofit, are designed to detect fake and doctored images, audio and video. They review links to media files and quickly determine whether they should be trusted.