CTalk“If you want to create an avatar using Joe Biden or Donald Trump, you will be blocked.”
CTalk
“If you want to create an avatar using Joe Biden or Donald Trump, you will be blocked.”
Tomer Zuker, VP of Marketing at D-ID, speaks to CTech about its place on Calcalist’s ‘Most Promising Startups’ list - and the challenge of providing AI video tools in an election year.
AI video generator D-ID was recently named as Calcalist’s 13th most promising startup for its technology that helps with "the humanization of bots". The company, which was established in 2017 and raised a total of $48 million from Pitango, OurCrowd, Macquarie, Maverick, AXA Ventures, and Y Combinator, is in the business of making us feel more comfortable when talking to AI assistants or watching AI-generated videos.
While the company focuses on the market of sales and marketing, it is obviously aware of the ethical problems that might arise when people use its technology for more nefarious reasons.
“We are aware of the concerns and we are part of a few organizations that are calling for regulation and to make this domain more organized,” explained Tomer Zuker, VP of Marketing. “Because we understand that this is a very powerful technology and you need to be aware of the concerns and to try to mitigate them.”
People online are already being fooled by AI-generated videos of politicians saying things that were never said, or tricked by deepfakes in fraud schemes. D-ID is tackling this problem by applying restrictions so its technology is not used by bad actors.
“Even if you are paying users, you have a watermark of AI,” he explained. “It's important for us that people will understand this is not a genuine figure, it's a synthetic media. In addition to that, we are blocking users from using famous people's images… So for instance, if you would like to create an avatar using Joe Biden or Donald Trump, you will be blocked. So we are having a few moderation mechanisms that mitigate the risk and try to control this part of the AI technology.”
You can watch the entire exchange in the video above.
