As part of Intel's Responsible AI work, the company has developed FakeCatcher, a technology that can detect fake videos with a 96% accuracy rate. Intel's deepfake detection platform is the world's first real-time deepfake detector that returns results in milliseconds. "Deepfake videos are everywhere now. You have probably already seen them; videos of celebrities doing or saying things they never actually did," said Ilke Demir, senior staff research scientist in Intel Labs.

Intel's real-time deepfake detection uses Intel hardware and software and runs on a server and interfaces through a web-based platform. On the software side, an orchestra of specialist tools form the optimized FakeCatcher architecture. Teams used OpenVino to run AI models for face and landmark detection algorithms. Computer vision blocks were optimized with Intel Integrated Performance Primitives (a multi-threaded software library) and OpenCV (a toolkit for processing real-time images and videos), while inference blocks were optimized with Intel Deep Learning Boost and with Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 512, and media blocks were optimized with Intel Advanced Vector Extensions 2. Teams also leaned on the Open Visual Cloud project to provide an integrated software stack for the Intel Xeon Scalable processor family. On the hardware side, the real-time detection platform can run up to 72 different detection streams simultaneously on 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

The FBI has recently issued a Public Service Announcement (PSA) from the agency's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the division responsible for receiving, collating and categorizing digital threats. According to the PSA, the bureau has seen a relevant increase in the number of complaints surrounding the usage of deepfake technology: actors are now combining deepfake videos with stolen citizen credentials in order to apply to remote jobs.

Deepfakes (AI-generated or AI-assisted videos falsifying human beings) are a relatively known quantity even in mainstream media - particularly due to screenwriter and director Jordan Peele's 2018 showcase of how believable the technology was in animating an otherwise digital ex-president, Barack Obama. While the tech first made forays in the Internet's underground, the increasing ease with which bad actors can weaponize the technology is raising alarms throughout most sectors - or at the very least, they should be.