Artificial intelligence will bring enormous benefits to society and the economy by amplifying our own intelligence and creativity as well as giving us a critical tool for overcoming the challenges that lie ahead.

However, AI has a dark side.

One of the most important dangers is the emergence of deepfakes—high quality fabrications that be put to a variety of malicious uses with the potential to threaten our security or even undermine the integrity of elections and the democratic process.

In July 2019, the cybersecurity firm Symantec revealed that three unnamed corporations had been bilked out of millions of dollars by criminals using audio deepfakes.

In all three cases, the criminals used an AI-generated audio clip of the company CEO’s voice to fabricate a phone call ordering financial staff to move money to an illicit bank account.