Pindrop’s Deepfake Analysis of the 2024 Joe Biden Robocall: Unmasking AI-Generated Misinformation
Introduction
In the 2024 US election cycle, a groundbreaking incident occurred: a robocall imitating President Joe Biden’s voice circulated across several states. News outlets promptly concluded that this was an AI-generated audio deepfake, raising concerns about the potential for widespread misinformation. While identifying the specific text-to-speech (TTS) engine used remained a challenge, our comprehensive deepfake analysis suggests that the TTS system was most likely ElevenLabs. This article delves into how deepfake detection systems operate and showcases Pindrop’s proprietary approach to identifying spectral and temporal deepfake artifacts in audio.
Pindrop’s Deepfake Engine Analysis
Pindrop’s cutting-edge deepfake engine meticulously analyzed the 39-second audio clip using a four-stage process:
1. Audio Filtering & Cleansing: This initial stage involves filtering out non-speech frames such as silence, noise, and music, ensuring that only speech segments are analyzed.
2. Feature Extraction: Low-level spectro-temporal features are extracted from the cleansed audio. These features capture essential characteristics of the speech signal, providing a detailed representation for further analysis.
3. Breaking the Audio into Segments: The audio is then divided into smaller segments of 250 milliseconds each. This segmentation allows for a more granular analysis of the audio, enabling the detection of deepfake artifacts at specific points in time.
4. Continuous Scoring: Each segment is continuously scored using Pindrop’s proprietary models trained on diverse datasets. This continuous scoring approach provides a comprehensive assessment of the audio, identifying segments that exhibit deepfake characteristics.
Analysis Results: Unraveling the Deepfake
Our analysis yielded significant results, shedding light on the nature of the deepfake and the TTS system used to create it:
1. Liveness Score: The liveness scores of the Biden robocall consistently indicated an artificial voice, falling below the liveness threshold of 0.3 after the first 2 seconds and remaining there throughout the call. This confirms the presence of a deepfake.
2. TTS System Revealed: Utilizing fakeprints, our analysis revealed that the deepfake was most likely created using ElevenLabs or a similar TTS system with a 99% likelihood. This result was further validated using the ElevenLabs SpeechAI Classifier, which indicated an 84% probability of ElevenLabs being used.
3. Deepfake Artifacts: The intensity of deepfake artifacts varied across the audio segments. Phrases rich in fricatives, such as “preference” or “difference,” showed more artifacts. Additionally, phrases unlikely to be uttered by President Biden, like “If you would like to be removed from future calls, please press two now,” also exhibited high artifact intensity. Conversely, phrases commonly used by President Biden, like “What a bunch of malarkey,” showed low intensity.
Significance and Implications: Combating AI-Driven Misinformation
The 2024 Joe Biden deepfake robocall incident underscores the urgent need to distinguish real from AI-generated voices. Pindrop’s advanced methods successfully identified this deepfake and its use of a text-to-speech engine, highlighting the scalability and effectiveness of our approach. Companies and organizations addressing deepfake misinformation should consider criteria like continuous content assessment, adaptability to acoustics, analytical explainability, linguistic coverage, and real-time performance when choosing detection solutions.
Conclusion: A Call to Action
The proliferation of deepfakes poses a significant threat to public discourse and trust in information. Pindrop stands at the forefront of the fight against AI-driven misinformation, providing robust and reliable deepfake detection solutions. We invite you to partner with us in this crucial endeavor. Contact us today for a custom demo and see how Pindrop can help you defend against deepfakes and safeguard the integrity of your communications.
Partner with Pindrop: Defending Against AI-Driven Misinformation
Join forces with Pindrop to defend against AI-driven misinformation and protect your organization from the growing threat of deepfakes. Our comprehensive suite of deepfake detection solutions empowers you to:
– Accurately identify deepfakes in real-time, ensuring the authenticity of your communications.
– Gain granular insights into deepfake characteristics, enabling you to understand how they are created and mitigate their impact.
– Proactively protect your organization’s reputation and credibility by preventing the spread of misinformation.
Contact us today to schedule a custom demo and experience the power of Pindrop’s deepfake detection solutions firsthand. Together, we can create a world where trust in information prevails.