A woman in the UK has described the moment she found out who had been creating her deepfake pornographic photos. She spoke to the BBC and the outlet did not reveal her real identity. The woman said she was sent a link to a porn website from an anonymous email account. When she clicked on the link, she saw mocked-up images and a video of her appearing to have sex with various men. They had been fabricated using the modern artificial intelligence (AI) drive n technology.

“I was screaming and crying and violently scrolling through my phone to work out what I was reading and what I was looking at. I knew that this could genuinely ruin my life,” the woman told the BBC.

Deepfaking is a process, which involves projecting a person’s face onto someone else’s using computer editing software. It can often result in convincing, life-like clips that are then used to spread disinformation or malicious content.

The person who had posted the deepfake images on the website asked other users to make fake pornography of her. In exchange for the fakes, the user offered to share more photos of the woman and details about her.

Scrolling through the website, she felt her “whole world fall away”.

The incident happened in 2021 and the woman faced online harassment for years at the hands of strangers online. Her picture was used on several social media platform, including Reddit.

Along with her friend, the woman decided to compile a list of men who could have been responsible for spreading her deepfake pictures. And one particular picture caught her attention and she made a horrible realisation.

The photo had an image of King’s College, Cambridge. She clearly remembered it being taken and sharing it with only one person – her best friend Alex Woolf.

Woolf went on to get a double first in music from Cambridge University and won BBC Young Composer of the Year 2012, as well as appearing on Mastermind in 2021.

They had bonded over their love of music in their teens, and she said she had always known him as a person who was sympathetic to struggles faced by women online.

It was Woolf who had been offering to share more original pictures of the woman in exchange for them being turned into deepfakes.

“He knew the impact that it was having on my life so profoundly. And yet he still did it,” she said while speaking to the BBC.

In August 2021, Woolf was convicted of taking photos of 15 women from social media and uploading them to pornographic websites. He was given a 20-week prison sentence, and ordered to pay each of his victims 100 pounds as compensation.

Woolf told the BBC he is “utterly ashamed” of the behaviour which led to his conviction and he is “deeply sorry” for his actions.

“There are no excuses for what I did, nor can I adequately explain why I acted on these impulses so despicably at that time,” he said.

For Jodie, finding out what her friend had done was the “ultimate betrayal and humiliation”.

In an era where technology blurs the lines between reality and fiction, the spectre of deepfakes created by artificial intelligence (AI) tools casts a long shadow over the democratic process. With the upcoming US presidential election looming, the spread of AI deepfakes poses a grave threat to the integrity of the electoral system. And the CEO of a prominent AI company has suggested that the technology could “threaten democracy” in the US unless it is controlled. Many prominent voices, including Elon Musk, have raised concern against the rapid spread of AI and Simona Vasyte is the latest to join the list.

“We’ve seen an AI-generated video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ‘asking’ Ukrainian soldiers to lay down their weapons. It’s entirely possible to see similar generated videos of presidential candidates right before the election,” Ms Vasyte, the head of Perfection42, told Newsweek.

“Another tactic might be to encourage youth voters not to vote in the election with fake videos on TikTok… If the election is close, it might become a determining factor, and that is definitely concerning,” she added.

The AI boss predicted foreign powers are likely to get involved.

The incident Ms Vasyte talked about happened in March 2023, when an unknown group – believed to be hackers – uploaded a deepfake video onto a Ukrainian news website of Mr Zelensky telling his soldiers to stop fighting. It was debunked, but the news renewed concerns around how deepfakes could be used to influence politics.

Ms Vasyte pointed towards Russia, hinting it might interfere with the election using AI.

“It’s important to note that AI can be used not only for malicious but also for positive content generation, so in that case, it might be the first major ‘AI election’ where both parties will try to keep up with the changing game of campaigning,” she said while speaking to Newsweek.

“The closer the race, the bigger the impact of AI will be during the election period,” Ms Vasyte added.

The tech entrepreneur called for a strong legislation to check the rapid spread of deepfakes.