ORLANDO, Fla. – At the recent cybersecurity conference, KB4-CON, a man in a backroom told News 6 anchor Matt Austin he could make Austin say anything he wanted — using nothing more than videos Austin had already posted online.
Perry Carpenter calls himself a Chief Deception Strategist with security company KnowBe4. When Austin joked that it sounded like a politician’s title, Carpenter didn’t disagree.
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What Carpenter demonstrated next was unsettling. He pulled up Austin’s Instagram account mid-interview and began harvesting real videos the anchor had posted publicly. He dropped them into programs designed to clone a person’s voice and face, then used that data to generate a new version of Austin — one with very different intentions.
In the fake video, “Austin” promoted a meme coin to his Instagram followers.
“Hey there, Instagram fam, Matt Austin here. Coming to you today with an offer you will not believe. It’s my new meme coin.”
The whole thing took about 45 minutes.
The fabricated Austin looked very convincing. He sounded fairly convincing. The real Austin knew it wasn’t him — but wasn’t sure a viewer would.
Carpenter says that’s exactly the point. He describes the most dangerous type of deepfake as taking a video of someone found online and making them say something they never said, to an audience they never intended to reach.
Then Carpenter went further. He wore Austin’s face in real time — a digital skin suit, the kind a scammer could use in a live video call to fully impersonate someone to their friends, family, or followers.
Carpenter even turned himself and News 6 producer Robert Breuer into Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings in real time.
These live deepfakes can be especially damaging as part of romance, investment, blackmail, or celebrity schemes.
News 6 recently reported that a Leesburg couple lost $45,000 to an alleged car giveaway from billionaire Elon Musk. The scheme included a deepfake video of Musk.
Public-facing people like Musk are especially exposed. Journalists, influencers, anyone who posts regularly online — every video is raw material waiting to be harvested.
Carpenter says bad actors could then make you say something - that you never said - to your audience that could end up costing them money or cause them to lose faith in you.
AI-generated videos can also be used as pranks, which can be criminal if they cross the line.
For example, in April, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office announced a man was arrested on multiple charges after he reportedly showed an AI-generated video to a deputy and falsely reported a crime.
So what’s the takeaway?
“The lesson to learn is to realize that our reality is already so warped that we do not know what’s real and what’s not,” Carpenter said. “Healthy skepticism without giving in to cynicism, I think, is good.”
When asked if our viewers could use software or an AI tool to determine if a video is AI-Generated, Carpenter replied:
“It’s important that your viewers know that even though some sites say they can determine if a video is AI or not, they all have fundamental flaws that can lead people to a false sense of reality. I’ve been able to trick every single “deepfake detector” that I’ve ever tried. There is no reliable “easy button” for determining if something is AI-generated or not. As AI gets better, it’s getting harder and harder for both humans and machines to tell what’s real from what is not.”
It’s not a reassuring answer. But given what he just demonstrated with another person’s face in under an hour, it might be the honest one.
More about KnowBe4 and KB4-CON
Staying ahead of security dangers like AI-generated deepfakes, is part of the reason why KnowBe4 launched KB4-CON in 2018.
Their website says, “It is the human risk management industry’s premier event, bringing together KnowBe4 customers, channel partners, prospects, plus security advocates and industry professionals.”
While News 6 was there for the deepfake demonstration, we observed hundreds of people in attendance. Many were on their way to and from the various security and product sessions.