WEBVTT 00:00:00.330 --> 00:00:04.030 Today on our Tech for Business podcast, it is 00:00:04.030 --> 00:00:06.969 Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and we're going 00:00:06.969 --> 00:00:11.630 to dive into the lovely buzzword of deepfakes. 00:00:12.130 --> 00:00:16.289 So we're joined by Todd, our COO and CISO, and 00:00:16.289 --> 00:00:19.850 Nate, our Director of Cybersecurity. I think 00:00:19.850 --> 00:00:23.769 our listeners know what deepfakes are, but I 00:00:23.769 --> 00:00:26.350 guess we could give them the elevator pitch and 00:00:26.350 --> 00:00:30.359 maybe just some examples of where they might 00:00:30.359 --> 00:00:33.079 see it or where you have seen it. I can open 00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:38.159 up this time. So deepfakes are when you use artificial 00:00:38.159 --> 00:00:42.640 intelligence to impersonate someone. Right. This 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:45.399 goes back quite some time. I remember seeing 00:00:45.399 --> 00:00:50.119 a video from Adobe when they were first introducing 00:00:50.119 --> 00:00:53.060 some of their voice cloning technology. Right. 00:00:53.240 --> 00:00:56.640 At the time, it was mind blowing because they 00:00:56.640 --> 00:00:59.969 would kind of record the audio from the presenter 00:00:59.969 --> 00:01:04.129 and then they changed the the the words they 00:01:04.129 --> 00:01:06.790 were able to type it out and have it speak back 00:01:06.790 --> 00:01:10.489 and I think on that on stage they changed it 00:01:10.489 --> 00:01:13.230 to basically say that that the speaker kissed 00:01:13.230 --> 00:01:14.950 someone other than his wife or something and 00:01:14.950 --> 00:01:18.069 everyone's mind was blown that how dare he say 00:01:18.069 --> 00:01:20.689 something along those lines right that was like 00:01:20.689 --> 00:01:22.810 10 years ago I don't I don't have the day we 00:01:22.810 --> 00:01:27.209 can find that but The tech has greatly evolved 00:01:27.209 --> 00:01:29.590 right you know by this point. I think everyone 00:01:29.590 --> 00:01:33.189 knows AI is here It's it's revolutionizing kind 00:01:33.189 --> 00:01:36.049 of how we work how we think that type of stuff 00:01:36.049 --> 00:01:40.189 Where the deep fakes have done really good now 00:01:40.189 --> 00:01:43.890 is video so in the past audio was easy You know 00:01:43.890 --> 00:01:47.409 you you don't need to do much to impersonate 00:01:47.409 --> 00:01:51.150 a voice There's even free services on this and 00:01:51.150 --> 00:01:54.680 I've I've done printing sessions on Grandpa, 00:01:54.840 --> 00:01:58.280 if you ever receive a call from me sounding like 00:01:58.280 --> 00:02:01.159 I'm in jail, let me run. Don't pay the demand, 00:02:01.340 --> 00:02:06.079 right? But with the video is where now it's starting 00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:08.900 to blur the line of what's reality and what's 00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:12.259 not. So if you spend any time on the internet, 00:02:12.520 --> 00:02:15.379 like let's say Reddit or YouTube or Facebook, 00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:20.400 this information is running rampant with the 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:23.360 fakes. Where we start to see this also become 00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:25.960 dangerous is that there's also been articles 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:30.319 out there that will say North Korea is using 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:35.099 deep fake technology to gain jobs at U .S. tech 00:02:35.099 --> 00:02:39.340 companies to then further, you know, basically 00:02:39.340 --> 00:02:41.699 what they're doing is they're taking this technology, 00:02:41.780 --> 00:02:45.919 sorry, they're using deep fakes, gain jobs, receive 00:02:45.919 --> 00:02:49.020 a salary, which then is going back to the North 00:02:49.020 --> 00:02:51.870 Korean weapons program. And that's essentially 00:02:51.870 --> 00:02:54.830 how they're now siphoning money from the U .S. 00:02:54.830 --> 00:02:59.449 to fund their activities. Yeah. Todd, is this 00:02:59.449 --> 00:03:04.050 something that the average business owner should 00:03:04.050 --> 00:03:06.449 be concerned about? Or is this kind of like an 00:03:06.449 --> 00:03:10.810 enterprise business issue? Well, I would say 00:03:10.810 --> 00:03:13.169 I'm sure there's all kinds of examples. I was 00:03:13.169 --> 00:03:14.969 kind of trying to figure out what to add into 00:03:14.969 --> 00:03:18.840 it. And I and I. Bear with me as my train of 00:03:18.840 --> 00:03:20.500 thought goes running rampant on me and I was 00:03:20.500 --> 00:03:21.860 kind of going What's the difference between a 00:03:21.860 --> 00:03:24.960 deep fake and an AI slop? But if I answer the 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:26.900 other question is I mean, there's so much stuff 00:03:26.900 --> 00:03:30.199 that's AI driven and it's it's mildly interesting 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:33.379 to me as I Scroll through social media or whatever 00:03:33.379 --> 00:03:36.840 the case may be and there's currently enough 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:38.979 obvious stuff where I'm like, well, that's that's 00:03:38.979 --> 00:03:41.919 obviously AI AI AI I don't think that's going 00:03:41.919 --> 00:03:44.860 to last much more than a year and then it's going 00:03:44.860 --> 00:03:47.099 to be incredibly difficult to see it. So I think 00:03:47.099 --> 00:03:49.979 the threat is real. And I do think every business 00:03:49.979 --> 00:03:52.759 owner needs to be aware of it. Now, whether it's 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:55.819 as relatively generic as something as we're just 00:03:55.819 --> 00:03:58.180 trying to pull some revenue from an organization 00:03:58.180 --> 00:04:00.900 to help funnel our desires, maybe one thing, 00:04:00.919 --> 00:04:03.539 but it could be something much more heinous than 00:04:03.539 --> 00:04:05.659 that too, right? I mean, in theory, if you're 00:04:05.659 --> 00:04:08.520 hiring an IT individual remotely, And that person 00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:10.520 now gets credentials to your network, your host. 00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:13.840 But it could be anything else too. I mean, we 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:17.240 had a retirement party at the office this morning, 00:04:17.740 --> 00:04:19.699 and somebody had mentioned they were buying a 00:04:19.699 --> 00:04:22.000 bunch of gift cards with their reward points. 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:24.279 And someone was like, well, great. When the CEO 00:04:24.279 --> 00:04:27.420 asks for you to get a whole bunch of gift cards 00:04:27.420 --> 00:04:30.290 for them, you're all set. Keep going down this 00:04:30.290 --> 00:04:32.350 path because you know what happens when it's 00:04:32.350 --> 00:04:35.709 a video of your CEO Hey, I need you to help me 00:04:35.709 --> 00:04:38.589 out Nate. Can you get me some gift cards? Those 00:04:38.589 --> 00:04:40.610 kinds of things are completely possible, right? 00:04:40.629 --> 00:04:43.670 It's your voice. It's your face. It's everything. 00:04:43.750 --> 00:04:46.829 It's the mannerisms So yeah, I think the thread 00:04:46.829 --> 00:04:49.149 is real. It is something that is it's something 00:04:49.149 --> 00:04:52.410 that everybody faces You know, I've done speaking 00:04:52.410 --> 00:04:54.430 engagements in the past and they kind of mentioned 00:04:54.430 --> 00:04:58.389 the one with his grandfather is there is a generation 00:04:58.389 --> 00:05:01.329 of people in the United States and probably everywhere, 00:05:01.870 --> 00:05:04.230 where they are pretty unsure of what's going 00:05:04.230 --> 00:05:06.529 on from a technology aspect. And something like 00:05:06.529 --> 00:05:10.829 this can be used to siphon millions of dollars 00:05:10.829 --> 00:05:14.110 away from a certain demographic of our nation. 00:05:14.509 --> 00:05:17.189 So not just business -wise, I think it impacts 00:05:17.189 --> 00:05:20.069 everybody. I know this is getting a little bit 00:05:20.069 --> 00:05:23.009 deeper into it. So we can come back to your question 00:05:23.009 --> 00:05:26.170 as well. I do want to call out, it's not all 00:05:26.170 --> 00:05:29.029 nefarious either. There are legitimate business 00:05:29.029 --> 00:05:33.790 cases where deepfakes may be useful. Joking aside, 00:05:33.990 --> 00:05:36.569 let's say, you know, Ariel already has a lot 00:05:36.569 --> 00:05:40.189 of content of me talking and speaking, right? 00:05:40.189 --> 00:05:42.709 We've rehashed certain ideas. So there's multiple 00:05:42.709 --> 00:05:45.430 ways that I've said things. This would be a great 00:05:45.430 --> 00:05:48.569 time to fire me and just say, I'm going to now 00:05:48.569 --> 00:05:52.290 have a AI deepfake Nate for the podcast and save 00:05:52.290 --> 00:05:56.610 money, right? So what? But I say that because 00:05:56.610 --> 00:06:00.310 we are starting to see a lot of marketing campaigns 00:06:00.310 --> 00:06:04.709 switch to using AI generated video. Maybe it's 00:06:04.709 --> 00:06:09.610 not a deep fake necessarily, but AI video again 00:06:09.610 --> 00:06:12.709 has become really good at this point. So there 00:06:12.709 --> 00:06:14.730 are still some telltale signs that maybe we can 00:06:14.730 --> 00:06:18.209 talk about of how to identify this stuff in multiple 00:06:18.209 --> 00:06:24.439 avenues. But. When it comes to. legitimate business 00:06:24.439 --> 00:06:27.899 cases is now you're seeing advertising agencies 00:06:27.899 --> 00:06:31.019 save significant amounts of money because they 00:06:31.019 --> 00:06:34.139 don't need to go to a casting director or hire 00:06:34.139 --> 00:06:37.959 the actors develop the script anything like that 00:06:37.959 --> 00:06:40.759 they just have to say put in a good -looking 00:06:40.759 --> 00:06:43.439 individual that looks like this in this type 00:06:43.439 --> 00:06:46.279 of scenery and says these things and they might 00:06:46.279 --> 00:06:49.589 get a really nice video with only a couple hours 00:06:49.589 --> 00:06:52.170 at work, and it still provides the same type 00:06:52.170 --> 00:06:55.470 of impact to its consumers. No, you've got other 00:06:55.470 --> 00:06:57.790 things, but I can't help it. I don't want to 00:06:57.790 --> 00:06:59.889 get into specifics because I don't want to raise 00:06:59.889 --> 00:07:01.930 any alarms, and I don't want anybody to get upset. 00:07:02.449 --> 00:07:05.050 But I've seen videos, and Nate kind of mentioned 00:07:05.050 --> 00:07:07.089 this, so I'm tipping my hand slightly a little 00:07:07.089 --> 00:07:10.230 bit, but there's a video of a very prominent 00:07:10.230 --> 00:07:13.189 political figure in the United States where it's 00:07:13.189 --> 00:07:15.589 pretty obvious there's been posts where they're 00:07:15.589 --> 00:07:17.529 doing, whether you want to call it the AI avatar 00:07:17.529 --> 00:07:20.600 or other, it looks like them specifically but 00:07:20.600 --> 00:07:22.899 if you watch the video you can see certain things 00:07:22.899 --> 00:07:24.560 so they do hand gestures and in case you're not 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:28.220 on video I'm doing hand gestures and two of the 00:07:28.220 --> 00:07:31.319 fingers on one of his hands so now I notice he 00:07:31.319 --> 00:07:34.180 blends into one so those are the kinds of things 00:07:34.180 --> 00:07:35.620 that are going on there but but if you weren't 00:07:35.620 --> 00:07:37.620 really looking for it you probably wouldn't have 00:07:37.620 --> 00:07:40.600 even noticed but it's happening so it's it's 00:07:40.600 --> 00:07:43.000 happening today there is real stuff that's out 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:45.970 there that that avatar it's just quick it's easy 00:07:45.970 --> 00:07:48.050 it's getting the right message across in the 00:07:48.050 --> 00:07:50.930 same fat manner that you wanted to so it does 00:07:50.930 --> 00:07:53.310 exist i actually saw an article and i did not 00:07:53.310 --> 00:07:56.230 dig into it this morning uh but i saw that there 00:07:56.230 --> 00:07:59.050 is an ai actress kind of to nate's point that's 00:07:59.050 --> 00:08:01.629 drawing a lot of interest from hollywood and 00:08:01.629 --> 00:08:05.110 i was like well how how does an ai actress draw 00:08:05.110 --> 00:08:08.730 interest from a studio anyways if you're curious 00:08:08.730 --> 00:08:12.430 the name is tilly norwood i believe um but the 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:15.720 This is an AI actress. And to Nate's point is 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:17.740 it's pretty quick that you can start to use this 00:08:17.740 --> 00:08:19.639 type of technology to do all kinds of stuff, 00:08:19.720 --> 00:08:22.040 new movies, new whatever. And it can be a totally 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:24.759 generic individual. That's interesting. I'll 00:08:24.759 --> 00:08:29.079 have to look that up because just like who has 00:08:29.079 --> 00:08:32.100 ownership over that, you know, there's like probably 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:34.639 a marketing or an artist person on the side. 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:38.279 It's such an interesting concept. I'd love to 00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:42.190 dive into sort of spotting these things. and 00:08:42.190 --> 00:08:45.389 what you're looking for, Todd kind of transition 00:08:45.389 --> 00:08:48.590 us in that direction. So when you're dealing 00:08:48.590 --> 00:08:53.950 with, you know, interviews or phone calls or 00:08:53.950 --> 00:08:57.769 things like that, what are really those big things, 00:08:58.250 --> 00:09:02.889 big red flags? Yeah. So with this is becoming 00:09:02.889 --> 00:09:06.049 a challenge because AI is getting better. So 00:09:06.049 --> 00:09:09.009 I'll talk about it as in, you know, within the 00:09:09.009 --> 00:09:14.500 last six months or so is AI, sorry, people are 00:09:14.500 --> 00:09:17.120 predictable, but they also differ right from 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:21.240 time to time. So I have a common cadence to my 00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:23.980 tone and how I communicate. But every once in 00:09:23.980 --> 00:09:27.220 a while, I will change things up right on the 00:09:27.220 --> 00:09:30.139 fly without having to have any rhyme or reason 00:09:30.139 --> 00:09:34.840 of why I do so. Now the AI is going to kind of 00:09:34.840 --> 00:09:37.700 common patterns and try and stitch that together 00:09:37.700 --> 00:09:40.100 and you can tune it to maybe sound a little bit 00:09:40.100 --> 00:09:43.779 different. Sometimes it will struggle with certain 00:09:43.779 --> 00:09:46.399 intonations. Maybe, you know, it always gives 00:09:46.399 --> 00:09:50.480 it a hard T or a hard S and it might sound a 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:53.799 little bit jarring. Other times, it'll often 00:09:53.799 --> 00:09:58.840 put the same spacing in between each words. And 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:03.059 so the computer is basically taking a word, plopping 00:10:03.059 --> 00:10:05.259 it down, taking the next word, plopping it down, 00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:07.139 and it's reading it like a book, right? There's 00:10:07.139 --> 00:10:11.519 always one space. What we know is that people 00:10:11.519 --> 00:10:14.700 will sometimes put longer pauses like that. And 00:10:14.700 --> 00:10:18.019 so that's where people become a little unpredictable. 00:10:18.019 --> 00:10:22.320 So if you can follow something that sounds like 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:25.500 a very common cadence or, you know, standard, 00:10:25.500 --> 00:10:28.860 you know, repeatable cadence, it could be a telltale 00:10:28.860 --> 00:10:34.320 sign. One of the other traits of audio is if 00:10:34.320 --> 00:10:37.929 you are interacting with a deep fake. it has 00:10:37.929 --> 00:10:40.629 to do its processing on the back end to be able 00:10:40.629 --> 00:10:44.210 to respond back. And so if I were to go ask you 00:10:44.210 --> 00:10:48.730 a question and you pause for one, two, and then 00:10:48.730 --> 00:10:52.409 respond, then at that point it could be a defake. 00:10:52.610 --> 00:10:55.129 Maybe, maybe not. The one thing I do want to 00:10:55.129 --> 00:10:57.950 be careful because I was just doing some interviews 00:10:57.950 --> 00:11:02.149 over the past week is while you're trying to 00:11:02.149 --> 00:11:05.049 identify potential defects, which again are going 00:11:05.049 --> 00:11:10.519 to be that common, Do not inherently discredit 00:11:10.519 --> 00:11:13.740 someone else's standard cadence or thought patterns. 00:11:14.059 --> 00:11:16.419 There are people that may actually need to take 00:11:16.419 --> 00:11:20.600 a second or two to communicate or process their 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:24.259 thoughts before communicating effectively. So 00:11:24.259 --> 00:11:26.340 I just want to put that in there because I think 00:11:26.340 --> 00:11:29.419 there is a lot of bias when hiring and I don't 00:11:29.419 --> 00:11:33.279 want to rule out you discrediting good. because 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:36.919 you're looking for a AI deep fake, and then coming 00:11:36.919 --> 00:11:39.700 to me saying, Nate, he told me that this person 00:11:39.700 --> 00:11:42.799 is fake, right? I think it's really important 00:11:42.799 --> 00:11:44.500 to kind of highlight what Nate said, so I'm going 00:11:44.500 --> 00:11:48.399 to do it again. As of the first week of October 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:51.580 in 2025, this is where we stand with spotting 00:11:51.580 --> 00:11:54.940 it. And I say this because I went to a conference 00:11:54.940 --> 00:11:58.120 back in May, so we're not too far along back, 00:11:58.139 --> 00:12:00.860 and there was some AI stuff that was going on, 00:12:00.899 --> 00:12:03.600 and I was like, that is so... ridiculously obvious 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:06.340 that it's AI. In this one example, there was 00:12:06.340 --> 00:12:09.899 no blinking. None. The AI did not blink once, 00:12:09.960 --> 00:12:11.320 and I was like, well, that was so ridiculously 00:12:11.320 --> 00:12:13.360 obvious as to the fact that that's not real. 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:15.980 You don't even see that. It's only been a couple 00:12:15.980 --> 00:12:17.539 of months. That's been corrected. That doesn't 00:12:17.539 --> 00:12:19.720 exist anymore. So just kind of highlighting, 00:12:19.799 --> 00:12:22.460 this is a moment of time. This is where AI deep 00:12:22.460 --> 00:12:25.019 fakes are at the moment. Some of the stuff, depending 00:12:25.019 --> 00:12:27.159 on what you're looking at, I think you'll see 00:12:27.159 --> 00:12:29.620 varying results. For example, on social media, 00:12:29.639 --> 00:12:31.460 as I said, is your doom scrolling or whatever. 00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:33.620 Some of the things that are fairly obvious, the 00:12:33.620 --> 00:12:35.919 skin tone tends to be weird. The lighting tends 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:38.539 to be odd. You get shiny reflections that don't 00:12:38.539 --> 00:12:41.659 make sense. People are unnaturally beautiful 00:12:41.659 --> 00:12:44.330 and have perfect bodies. They're fairly obvious 00:12:44.330 --> 00:12:46.470 when you're looking at it. You're like, that's 00:12:46.470 --> 00:12:49.450 not real. No advertising agency would ever pick 00:12:49.450 --> 00:12:53.049 me. But those ones are relatively easy to spot 00:12:53.049 --> 00:12:56.110 as of today. Now, things that still do happen 00:12:56.110 --> 00:12:58.990 is you'll see weird eye movement. You will see, 00:12:59.129 --> 00:13:01.129 as Nate mentioned, there'll be some some herky 00:13:01.129 --> 00:13:04.330 jerkiness. I think the if you're interacting 00:13:04.330 --> 00:13:06.769 one. The one that Nate mentioned, the pausing 00:13:06.769 --> 00:13:09.450 is pretty obvious. To me, it's fairly obvious. 00:13:09.509 --> 00:13:11.409 The other one that I think is kind of funny is, 00:13:11.549 --> 00:13:13.509 is one of the things that AI is starting to do 00:13:13.509 --> 00:13:17.730 to kind of cover up the strange cadence is it'll 00:13:17.730 --> 00:13:19.870 put in a, every once in a while, you're like, 00:13:19.889 --> 00:13:21.750 that doesn't actually fit there. That's bizarre. 00:13:22.490 --> 00:13:24.710 So those things kind of will be pretty obvious. 00:13:24.870 --> 00:13:28.090 Again, at the moment, there is some of the light 00:13:28.090 --> 00:13:30.669 lip syncing things that happened today. You don't 00:13:30.669 --> 00:13:32.830 see that quite as much on video just because 00:13:32.830 --> 00:13:35.580 of the inherent nature. where that's off as much 00:13:35.580 --> 00:13:37.879 but I think we kind of nailed the vast majority 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:40.460 of them and again most of this is as of today 00:13:40.460 --> 00:13:43.279 I think it's getting better so much quicker but 00:13:43.279 --> 00:13:45.960 as Nate mentioned the one that's really obvious 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:48.320 is when you're interacting with it there is a 00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:52.940 typical half second one second pause of it's 00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:54.980 taking that that message and saying how am I 00:13:54.980 --> 00:13:57.159 going to respond it's trying to predict anyway 00:13:57.159 --> 00:13:59.759 but it has to make sure it's got it the right 00:13:59.759 --> 00:14:02.179 context before it responds so there is usually 00:14:02.179 --> 00:14:04.990 a bit of a delay in it. But again, it's not a 00:14:04.990 --> 00:14:07.529 perfect solution. You know this is always incorrect 00:14:07.529 --> 00:14:09.149 because someone took a moment to gather their 00:14:09.149 --> 00:14:12.490 thoughts. There are other telltale signs. I can't 00:14:12.490 --> 00:14:13.690 find it right now. I was trying to find it while 00:14:13.690 --> 00:14:17.210 you're talking. And it was some commercial for 00:14:17.210 --> 00:14:20.330 a drink. I don't know if it was Fanta or whoever. 00:14:21.090 --> 00:14:25.470 But when you look at the AI actress's hair, it 00:14:25.470 --> 00:14:27.970 doesn't follow the physics that you would expect. 00:14:28.450 --> 00:14:32.110 Things kind of float and flow just a little too 00:14:32.110 --> 00:14:34.370 much. And if you look at the physics of that, 00:14:34.710 --> 00:14:39.169 yeah, that doesn't look great. We know that when 00:14:39.169 --> 00:14:43.450 you look at generated content, things like water 00:14:43.450 --> 00:14:46.490 doesn't flow well. Hair has historically been 00:14:46.490 --> 00:14:51.049 a question of whether or not it's accurate. It's 00:14:51.049 --> 00:14:53.970 gotten a lot better. But even in the most recent 00:14:53.970 --> 00:14:57.190 AI advertising, it's how much time and money 00:14:57.190 --> 00:15:00.269 does that advertising agency want to put in to 00:15:00.269 --> 00:15:02.830 make it look perfect? if they already are delivering 00:15:02.830 --> 00:15:07.409 the same type of messaging. Right. Yeah. I'll 00:15:07.409 --> 00:15:09.110 kind of expand just a little bit too. There are 00:15:09.110 --> 00:15:10.909 certain things too, and Nate and I are really 00:15:10.909 --> 00:15:13.509 good at it. Ariel would be a much tougher person 00:15:13.509 --> 00:15:15.529 to figure out if it's AI, but Nate and I both 00:15:15.529 --> 00:15:18.370 have quite a few hands gestures that pop up on 00:15:18.370 --> 00:15:23.200 video. So AI is not going to map that out very 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:25.159 well. So I think those ones are fairly obvious, 00:15:25.419 --> 00:15:28.580 too. But as I mentioned earlier, there is stuff 00:15:28.580 --> 00:15:32.039 where you can see blurring of and blending of 00:15:32.039 --> 00:15:35.159 fingers. So another one I saw, somebody had six 00:15:35.159 --> 00:15:37.279 fingers on their hand. And no, this is not a 00:15:37.279 --> 00:15:41.000 reference to Princess Bride. But it does happen. 00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:44.320 There was an article that came out, and already 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:49.340 it's kind of slowly becoming obsolete. they were 00:15:49.340 --> 00:15:52.379 talking about when you're interacting with like 00:15:52.379 --> 00:15:55.139 a deepfake like in an interview asking them to 00:15:55.139 --> 00:15:59.320 do something to like stand up or to move or there 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:01.679 was an article talking about kind of going back 00:16:01.679 --> 00:16:05.100 to a little bit more basic technology like if 00:16:05.100 --> 00:16:09.539 you're on a phone sending a code word or just 00:16:09.539 --> 00:16:12.799 the same thing as like an MFA with someone like 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:16.519 can you say the code that I texted you you know 00:16:16.669 --> 00:16:19.190 So can you talk a little bit about what are some 00:16:19.190 --> 00:16:21.769 of the steps we can take to make sure we're not 00:16:21.769 --> 00:16:25.570 falling for these things? I was trying to find 00:16:25.570 --> 00:16:28.289 another article here. We can put it in the show 00:16:28.289 --> 00:16:31.809 notes. There's a article about how a North Korean 00:16:31.809 --> 00:16:34.909 fake IT worker tried to get hired at Know Before. 00:16:35.230 --> 00:16:38.340 So Know Before is a phishing and security training 00:16:38.340 --> 00:16:40.379 platform. You know, many of our customers use 00:16:40.379 --> 00:16:43.779 it. There was some anomalies that kind of showed 00:16:43.779 --> 00:16:46.840 up when trying to work with this individual. 00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:49.340 I don't remember all the specifics because I 00:16:49.340 --> 00:16:53.580 remember it was from last year. But I would say 00:16:53.580 --> 00:16:58.580 a couple of the items is how do you monitor output 00:16:58.580 --> 00:17:01.600 of your employees? Right. So let's say, yes, 00:17:01.779 --> 00:17:05.559 you hired a deep fake in North Korean. you know, 00:17:05.700 --> 00:17:09.200 tech workers, it could be anywhere. What type 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:12.299 of output are they getting, right? Interesting, 00:17:12.460 --> 00:17:14.920 yeah. You should have some way of measuring employee 00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:19.380 success. Now, I am vehemently opposed to what 00:17:19.380 --> 00:17:22.619 I consider spyware of just putting on all your 00:17:22.619 --> 00:17:25.339 employees' software or your computers and taking 00:17:25.339 --> 00:17:27.720 screenshots and keyloggers. I think that's wrong. 00:17:28.559 --> 00:17:30.920 You should have a good way of measuring employee 00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:33.240 productivity without needing to go down that 00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:37.579 route. I will call out the safeguards is you 00:17:37.579 --> 00:17:40.480 do hire the wrong person. How do you prevent 00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:43.779 new software from being loaded onto your workstations 00:17:43.779 --> 00:17:47.920 or devices in the event that you do make a mistake 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:50.220 and hire that person, right? This is where tools 00:17:50.220 --> 00:17:52.740 like the application allow listing are going 00:17:52.740 --> 00:17:55.079 to come into play and very, very critical. If 00:17:55.079 --> 00:17:57.140 anyone tries running anything new, are you able 00:17:57.140 --> 00:17:59.359 to get an alert saying someone's running new 00:17:59.359 --> 00:18:02.119 malicious software in your environment? Taking 00:18:02.119 --> 00:18:05.680 a step backwards is, those are all reactionary, 00:18:05.839 --> 00:18:08.299 right? Now, what do you actually throw actively 00:18:08.299 --> 00:18:10.960 to try and prevent this in the first place? There 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:13.380 are various tools that are coming up of, you 00:18:13.380 --> 00:18:15.799 know, okay, let's run a extended social security 00:18:15.799 --> 00:18:19.039 trace, you know, taking a look to see, does this 00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:23.279 person have a history of predictable employment 00:18:23.279 --> 00:18:26.240 history, right? As I see they grabbed a couple 00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:29.099 of, we're based out of Minnesota here, so. Have 00:18:29.099 --> 00:18:31.180 they worked at several Minnesota -based jobs 00:18:31.180 --> 00:18:34.140 or are they kind of a global nomad picking jobs 00:18:34.140 --> 00:18:37.099 wherever they may be? It's not a disqualifier, 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:41.980 maybe a red or a yellow flag to consider. What 00:18:41.980 --> 00:18:45.559 about some type of background check? Does it 00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:48.779 come back with much history or not, right? Is, 00:18:48.900 --> 00:18:51.339 sorry, not employment records, but, you know, 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:53.900 residence records, you know, do they kind of 00:18:53.900 --> 00:18:56.500 follow a standard pattern of where they've lived 00:18:56.500 --> 00:18:59.380 or are they just popping up again all over the 00:18:59.380 --> 00:19:01.660 world and maybe those don't always align with 00:19:01.660 --> 00:19:05.779 the employment history. So if you're a technical 00:19:05.779 --> 00:19:08.940 recruiter or an HR individual, you've got more 00:19:08.940 --> 00:19:11.640 work to do, I'm sorry. And now you are playing 00:19:11.640 --> 00:19:13.920 into a little bit of this anomaly detection. 00:19:14.559 --> 00:19:17.500 There are tools out there, partnering with any 00:19:17.500 --> 00:19:19.920 of them, you know, for this podcast or anything, 00:19:20.500 --> 00:19:24.099 that do partner in with your HR background check 00:19:24.099 --> 00:19:27.930 software to provide additional validation. And 00:19:27.930 --> 00:19:32.329 even on calls, maybe like a Teams call or a Zoom 00:19:32.329 --> 00:19:36.470 call that can identify when there is some type 00:19:36.470 --> 00:19:39.609 of anomaly. And on the fly on the side, say, 00:19:40.190 --> 00:19:44.069 suspect a deep fake. Maybe either stop the call 00:19:44.069 --> 00:19:46.970 or to aerial your point. Hey, can you stand up 00:19:46.970 --> 00:19:50.410 for a second? You know, and provide that additional 00:19:50.410 --> 00:19:53.660 challenge. Yeah, all excellent things. I think 00:19:53.660 --> 00:19:56.460 the interacting in a video is very specific. 00:19:56.640 --> 00:19:58.140 I mean, there are other things that I think are 00:19:58.140 --> 00:20:00.819 worthy. So if you're doing, this is just general 00:20:00.819 --> 00:20:03.299 stuff, right? If you're getting AI content, you'll 00:20:03.299 --> 00:20:04.880 often see the hyphen in the middle of words. 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:06.799 If you're like, people don't hyphen like that, 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:09.829 AI does. So there's things like that too, but 00:20:09.829 --> 00:20:11.769 I think the video example of doing something 00:20:11.769 --> 00:20:14.910 unusual, some unusual emotion is a great first 00:20:14.910 --> 00:20:17.630 thing. The other really good one I would have 00:20:17.630 --> 00:20:20.410 is stay skeptical just in general. It does make 00:20:20.410 --> 00:20:23.309 sense. One of the other things that I would typically 00:20:23.309 --> 00:20:28.490 keep front of mind is the interview is also very 00:20:28.490 --> 00:20:32.509 specific, but historically I would say AI, a 00:20:32.509 --> 00:20:35.970 deep fake in particular, it's a method of social 00:20:35.970 --> 00:20:38.890 engineering. What you're going to see with it 00:20:38.890 --> 00:20:41.750 is the same thing that you almost always see, 00:20:42.029 --> 00:20:43.730 which is there's going to be a sense of urgency. 00:20:43.829 --> 00:20:45.529 There's always going to get you to try and do 00:20:45.529 --> 00:20:48.869 something. And so all the things that we've preached 00:20:48.869 --> 00:20:51.250 in the past when it comes to social engineering, 00:20:51.589 --> 00:20:53.769 you still need to be aware of. Doesn't matter 00:20:53.769 --> 00:20:56.869 that it's a video now. It's just, you know, why 00:20:56.869 --> 00:20:58.950 am I feeling this pressure? Why is this getting 00:20:58.950 --> 00:21:01.930 amped up? What's going on? And use the typical 00:21:01.930 --> 00:21:03.809 methods you'd have to kind of de -escalate the 00:21:03.809 --> 00:21:07.660 situation. I mean... ultimately your typical 00:21:07.660 --> 00:21:10.920 good security things need to still stay in place 00:21:10.920 --> 00:21:12.799 so you know if someone's trying to get money 00:21:12.799 --> 00:21:14.920 from you or get logging information if it was 00:21:14.920 --> 00:21:16.759 somebody trying to interact with you like they're 00:21:16.759 --> 00:21:19.339 the IT department making sure you've got multi 00:21:19.339 --> 00:21:21.559 -factor authentications and then all of all those 00:21:21.559 --> 00:21:24.339 things all still make sense they're all super 00:21:24.339 --> 00:21:26.779 urgent things that you need to be doing so don't 00:21:26.779 --> 00:21:28.599 take your eye off the ball just because you got 00:21:28.599 --> 00:21:31.509 a video interface with somebody I wanna make 00:21:31.509 --> 00:21:33.410 sure you both get a chance to share anything 00:21:33.410 --> 00:21:36.170 that you'd like. But earlier in the podcast, 00:21:36.349 --> 00:21:39.670 we referenced using fake or I would say generative 00:21:39.670 --> 00:21:44.730 AI in this case more ethically for marketers 00:21:44.730 --> 00:21:50.009 or creators or businesses that do want to use 00:21:50.009 --> 00:21:54.369 these tools in a professional and ethical way. 00:21:54.599 --> 00:21:58.119 So what are some rules of thumb you would share 00:21:58.119 --> 00:22:03.119 if a business wants to use this technology? Well, 00:22:03.380 --> 00:22:07.740 sorry, I'm going to start with the ethical guidelines, 00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:10.240 the guide rails, if you will. Hypothetically, 00:22:10.319 --> 00:22:11.900 it doesn't matter if it's an internal person, 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:14.440 and I'll just say, like Nate did, I'll use myself. 00:22:14.660 --> 00:22:18.000 If you were going to use an AI avatar of myself, 00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:20.299 you need to make sure that the consent is there, 00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:22.759 that I absolutely agree that it's OK that you 00:22:22.759 --> 00:22:24.980 can use the likeness in this manner. You want 00:22:24.980 --> 00:22:27.099 to make sure you're not misleading or harming 00:22:27.099 --> 00:22:29.400 the individual or wherever you're going with 00:22:29.400 --> 00:22:32.660 it. You probably should disclose that this is 00:22:32.660 --> 00:22:35.700 synthetic media. So those just are kind of general 00:22:35.700 --> 00:22:38.559 guide rails of you should probably at least start 00:22:38.559 --> 00:22:40.920 here. But when it comes to examples, I think 00:22:40.920 --> 00:22:43.299 the best one that I have that I go that that 00:22:43.299 --> 00:22:46.319 makes a ton of sense would be marketing. So for 00:22:46.319 --> 00:22:48.460 example, in a situation like this where we would 00:22:48.460 --> 00:22:51.799 say this is very expensive for us to have myself 00:22:51.799 --> 00:22:55.079 and Nate on a podcast. And we want to limit that 00:22:55.079 --> 00:22:58.339 expense and or Nate and Todd are super busy or 00:22:58.339 --> 00:23:00.759 Nate and Todd went on a cruise in the Caribbean 00:23:00.759 --> 00:23:03.259 for a security event. Any of those reasons would 00:23:03.259 --> 00:23:05.660 be good reasons to have an AI avatar to come 00:23:05.660 --> 00:23:08.259 in and help out with the podcast. You know, another 00:23:08.259 --> 00:23:10.119 one that pops in my head is similar, right? It 00:23:10.119 --> 00:23:12.799 would be like a training situation where it's 00:23:12.799 --> 00:23:14.680 it's front of the classroom. Let me get a quick 00:23:14.680 --> 00:23:16.339 video in. That would be another good example 00:23:16.339 --> 00:23:18.789 for me. I've been trying for two years to get 00:23:18.789 --> 00:23:22.029 Todd on that security cruise. So I think that's 00:23:22.029 --> 00:23:25.490 an implication or next year we're going. So come 00:23:25.490 --> 00:23:28.470 February or so, if you see an aerial mark, this 00:23:28.470 --> 00:23:31.630 is synthetic video. You know, Todd and I are 00:23:31.630 --> 00:23:35.490 working hard on a cruise. With, I'll touch on 00:23:35.490 --> 00:23:38.430 some of the laws. So no surprise laws laying 00:23:38.430 --> 00:23:41.950 behind tech. The last time I checked, again, 00:23:42.069 --> 00:23:46.769 I'm not a lawyer and I don't. regularly stay 00:23:46.769 --> 00:23:49.250 on top of the most latest laws. But the last 00:23:49.250 --> 00:23:50.890 time I had checked, which I believe was back 00:23:50.890 --> 00:23:55.190 in May, it was not illegal to use deep fake technology. 00:23:55.529 --> 00:23:57.650 Now, you know, where it comes in to Todd's point 00:23:57.650 --> 00:24:00.269 is the things like libel and that type of stuff. 00:24:00.829 --> 00:24:04.230 It is illegal and they do call it out to use 00:24:04.230 --> 00:24:06.849 deep fake technology to influence the election 00:24:06.849 --> 00:24:11.549 campaigns and results. So the laws have already 00:24:11.549 --> 00:24:14.289 caught up to that part of it. So but yeah, in 00:24:14.289 --> 00:24:19.779 general. there are ethical guidelines that we 00:24:19.779 --> 00:24:23.640 should all adhere to. Technically, you can do 00:24:23.640 --> 00:24:27.700 most of whatever you want, right? So to your 00:24:27.700 --> 00:24:30.940 point in where you would want to use this, internal 00:24:30.940 --> 00:24:34.559 resources would be a great use of this. So how 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:38.180 much time does it take to provide internal training 00:24:38.180 --> 00:24:40.359 to your employees? That's also very expensive. 00:24:40.440 --> 00:24:43.940 We know that the cost to onboard a new employee 00:24:44.349 --> 00:24:47.390 is approximately one and a half times their salary 00:24:47.390 --> 00:24:50.130 right there's there's plenty of studies out there 00:24:50.130 --> 00:24:53.710 that you can go look at and so and the reason 00:24:53.710 --> 00:24:57.069 why is you have that initial employee and you 00:24:57.069 --> 00:25:00.009 have to take you know their mentor trainer and 00:25:00.009 --> 00:25:02.289 go run them through that entire training to bring 00:25:02.289 --> 00:25:05.670 them up to speed lost efficiencies what if you 00:25:05.670 --> 00:25:07.829 could take your written content that you've already 00:25:07.829 --> 00:25:11.829 generated and i'll pick on ai a little bit is 00:25:11.829 --> 00:25:16.250 a Copilot, Gemini, whatever platform you're using. 00:25:17.089 --> 00:25:21.930 Go generate a basic call script and how to interact 00:25:21.930 --> 00:25:25.289 with our customers, right? Now you can take that, 00:25:25.490 --> 00:25:28.269 run it into another technology that does video 00:25:28.269 --> 00:25:31.769 generation and say, turn this into a training 00:25:31.769 --> 00:25:34.930 for new employees, right? I want you to be personable. 00:25:35.029 --> 00:25:37.410 I want you to, you know, connect with them, make 00:25:37.410 --> 00:25:41.190 them feel welcome, right? Now you've essentially 00:25:41.190 --> 00:25:45.230 have a onboarding trainer that's AI driven or 00:25:45.230 --> 00:25:48.869 deepfake driven. You don't have to go pay for 00:25:48.869 --> 00:25:51.309 an employee to sit there and record those videos 00:25:51.309 --> 00:25:53.529 either. And at the end of the day, it doesn't 00:25:53.529 --> 00:25:55.349 really matter whether or not you have it or not. 00:25:55.589 --> 00:25:58.349 That's just a nice small touch to make an employee 00:25:58.349 --> 00:26:01.650 feel a little bit more welcome rather than just 00:26:01.650 --> 00:26:05.490 handing them a big document and say, read the 00:26:05.490 --> 00:26:09.220 72 pages that we wrote up for you, right? So 00:26:09.220 --> 00:26:11.819 little touches like that can go a long way. I 00:26:11.819 --> 00:26:15.839 mean, AI is amazing. We love it. It can do amazing 00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:19.400 things. As we close out here, the thing that's 00:26:19.400 --> 00:26:24.680 on my mind is, do you think there will come the 00:26:24.680 --> 00:26:28.160 bell curve and kind of the other side of this 00:26:28.160 --> 00:26:33.910 where are almost capitalizing on not using AI. 00:26:34.069 --> 00:26:36.309 Now, is there going to come a point where low 00:26:36.309 --> 00:26:41.130 tech is going to be popular? Go ahead, Nick. 00:26:41.589 --> 00:26:44.250 Yeah, sorry. I want to reference back the old 00:26:44.250 --> 00:26:47.569 podcast. I don't have the exact one. I'm subscribed 00:26:47.569 --> 00:26:50.630 to CIT's YouTube and it comes across, you know, 00:26:50.750 --> 00:26:53.769 as aerial blasts of all of our podcasts. But 00:26:53.769 --> 00:26:57.789 there was one about AI and tech. So I want to 00:26:57.789 --> 00:27:02.079 call out for CIT, right, to summarize. class 00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:06.059 that technology and automation go hand in hand, 00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:09.680 right? AI and automation go hand in hand. But 00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:12.960 at the end of the day, our customers expect a 00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:17.319 human response to be able to get the context, 00:27:17.460 --> 00:27:20.000 get the awareness, hear your frustrations with 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.980 tech, right? That's why we're here to help solve 00:27:22.980 --> 00:27:25.259 the business problems and get tech out of your 00:27:25.259 --> 00:27:28.319 way to be able to assist with that. Now, if you 00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:31.000 have to talk to an AI that's missing all that 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:34.259 rich context, that's not going to help you. So 00:27:34.259 --> 00:27:38.400 there is value of still driving the human touch 00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:41.359 to things. The value of AI and some of these 00:27:41.359 --> 00:27:43.799 deepfakes and you know, that type of stuff. Again, 00:27:44.140 --> 00:27:45.740 kind of like the training documentation that 00:27:45.740 --> 00:27:51.059 I called out is help use that to automate the 00:27:51.059 --> 00:27:53.440 efficiencies to things that don't really matter. 00:27:53.599 --> 00:27:55.920 Right, but the things that are critical to the 00:27:55.920 --> 00:27:59.359 business or critical to how people interact with 00:27:59.359 --> 00:28:03.319 you always have the human touch. Yeah, my answer 00:28:03.319 --> 00:28:06.440 would be I think it's inevitable that there will 00:28:06.440 --> 00:28:08.359 be something that comes in and it's, you know, 00:28:08.500 --> 00:28:11.420 kind of like the probably a terrible analogy, 00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:13.480 but the first one that came to mind is made in 00:28:13.480 --> 00:28:15.740 America, right? Or organic food might be another 00:28:15.740 --> 00:28:18.059 one where there was kind of this call of going 00:28:18.059 --> 00:28:22.059 back to this natural way of doing things. the 00:28:22.059 --> 00:28:24.200 actress that I mentioned earlier would be another 00:28:24.200 --> 00:28:26.140 one where you'll want to say you know this video 00:28:26.140 --> 00:28:28.400 was made with only humans only those kinds of 00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:30.619 things it seems inevitable that yeah you will 00:28:30.619 --> 00:28:33.980 definitely see some push that says I want it 00:28:33.980 --> 00:28:36.259 to be a human that I'm interacting with you know 00:28:36.259 --> 00:28:38.259 there there will be somebody like if you're using 00:28:38.259 --> 00:28:40.759 AI as a potential thing where you could potentially 00:28:40.759 --> 00:28:42.859 do this or you can use it for taking phone calls 00:28:42.859 --> 00:28:44.539 right you don't like talking to the computer 00:28:44.539 --> 00:28:46.400 and people are yelling on the phone representative 00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:50.569 representative you may find somebody I will not 00:28:50.569 --> 00:28:52.509 do business with somebody where I have to talk 00:28:52.509 --> 00:28:55.670 with an AI voice to get to a real person. I think 00:28:55.670 --> 00:29:00.450 that would absolutely happen. For sure. I think 00:29:00.450 --> 00:29:03.369 one of the other things is AI, right? It's always 00:29:03.369 --> 00:29:07.089 so validating back to you because it wants to 00:29:07.089 --> 00:29:10.490 keep you engaged, right? There's a full open 00:29:10.490 --> 00:29:14.069 AI lawsuit about this right now. It's always 00:29:14.069 --> 00:29:17.170 making you feel good to try and keep you on the 00:29:17.170 --> 00:29:20.569 platform. I'll pick on tech and on the help desk 00:29:20.569 --> 00:29:23.049 side of things as well as sometimes when you 00:29:23.049 --> 00:29:25.869 call in for support, you don't want to hear the 00:29:25.869 --> 00:29:28.950 tech go, how are you? You're having a great day, 00:29:28.950 --> 00:29:31.910 right? You just want them to go, I understand. 00:29:32.309 --> 00:29:34.450 Yeah, something's messed up. Let's let's just 00:29:34.450 --> 00:29:36.589 knock it out. Right. I don't know if the A .I. 00:29:36.589 --> 00:29:39.349 is going to get to that point and just be real 00:29:39.349 --> 00:29:42.109 with you. But that's where I think that human 00:29:42.109 --> 00:29:44.849 touch is, again, really important. We're not 00:29:44.849 --> 00:29:47.500 trying to validate. every emotion, we're just 00:29:47.500 --> 00:29:50.700 trying to touch on it, help you out, reduce the 00:29:50.700 --> 00:29:52.779 frustration, but ultimately solve the issue so 00:29:52.779 --> 00:29:54.880 you don't have to deal with it again. Perfect. 00:29:55.059 --> 00:29:57.420 Yeah, that's a great place to kind of end that 00:29:57.420 --> 00:30:00.460 highlight between balancing the human element 00:30:00.460 --> 00:30:04.480 and all of these new amazing AI tools. So thank 00:30:04.480 --> 00:30:07.799 you both for joining us this week. Thank you 00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:10.480 for joining us today. If you enjoyed this topic, 00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:13.700 please let us know. Like, subscribe, or reach 00:30:13.700 --> 00:30:18.720 out to us at info at cit -net .com or head out 00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:24.099 to our website cit -net .com slash podcast. We'll 00:30:24.099 --> 00:30:26.259 be back next week with an all new episode.