A sexualized deepfake video that was released to undermine her position as one of the country’s few female leaders haunts Pakistani politician Azma Bukhari.
“I was devastated when I learned about it,” said Bukhari, 48, who serves as the information minister for Punjab, the most populated province in Pakistan.
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more widely used, deepfakes—which alter real sounds, images, or videos of individuals into fake likenesses—become more realistic and simpler to create.
In Pakistan, where media literacy is low, they are being used as a weapon to publicly disparage women with sexual innuendo, which is extremely harmful to their reputations in a traditional society.