SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Imagine standing in a store when a stranger runs up to you, phone in hand, showing you a video of someone stealing your car from the parking lot. The video looks completely real \u2014 but it was made with artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Melanie Valentine says that\u2019s exactly what happened to her at a Home Depot in West Palm Beach late last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a young guy run up to me, shoving his phone in my face, saying, screaming, \u2018Someone is stealing your truck! Someone is stealing your truck!\u2019\u201d Valentine said.<\/p>\n
She says the video was convincing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was showing me a video of my husband\u2019s truck where I parked it, with a guy opening the door to the truck, getting in the truck and driving away,\u201d Valentine said. \u201cIt was very real.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the man then urged her to follow him outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was saying, \u2018follow me, follow me, we can catch them.\u2019 And that\u2019s when I was like, OK, what was happening?\u201d Valentine said. \u201cHe was very insistent. Come outside. We can catch them, you know, which of course made no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
[WATCH: Law enforcement warns of \u2018growing concern\u2019 over AI prank videos]<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Valentine says she realized something wasn\u2019t right. Later that month, she learned the same content creator had targeted several other customers at the same store.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a couple incidents at a local Home Depot where he was approaching people in the aisles,\u201d said Capt. Roy Bevell of the West Palm Beach Police Department. \u201cHe approached the man and said, \u2018Hey, here\u2019s a video of your wife outside with another person.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A police report obtained by News 6 shows Alexis Martinez-Arizala also showed an AI-generated video of a man being dragged away at a gas station in West Palm Beach. <\/p>\n
This week, the Seminole County Sheriff\u2019s Office announced Martinez-Arizala is facing charges after one of his alleged pranks targeted one of their deputies at a store in Lake Mary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s wild,\u201d Valentine said after News 6 told her about the arrest. \u201cJust the gall to do that to a police officer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Valentine says the public needs to know this kind of deception is happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that people need to be made aware that these things are going to happen, that this is going on,\u201d Valentine said. \u201cJust the way that it is being used for nefarious things, that\u2019s pretty disturbing and upsetting.\u201d<\/p>\n
How AI makes fakes look real<\/p>\n
Greg Gogolin, a professor and director of the Center for Cybersecurity and Data Science at Ferris State University, demonstrated how AI can be used to manipulate video and audio \u2014 using himself as the subject.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is created from a single photograph and a voice sample,\u201d Gogolin said, showing the News 6 team what looked like himself talking. \u201cEverything is fake. This isn\u2019t a video.\u201d<\/p>\n
All it takes, he says, is about 10 seconds of audio to create a voice clone \u2014 though Gogolin noted his own sample took about an hour to build.<\/p>\n
The barrier to entry is even lower when it comes to video.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the minimum, you need a snapshot of someone,\u201d Gogolin said. \u201cNow, you could do a screenshot. And that\u2019s why social media is such a challenge, because people post so many things out there. And if you have a single snapshot that\u2019s a reasonable quality, you can go with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gogolin said AI has existed since the 1950s, but hit a plateau before breakthroughs came from researchers at Google and Meta, and when ChatGPT launched about two and a half years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe productivity gains are so fast,\u201d Gogolin said. \u201cBased on these new models that are coming out, it\u2019s actually kind of scary where we\u2019re going to be in a very, very short period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rapid pace of change has even shifted the way Gogolin teaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I were teaching a class in machine learning last year, I would have taught it much different than the class that I\u2019m teaching right now,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, I\u2019m teaching people how to use the tools to generate the code, rather than to write the code from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n
[WATCH: Elon Musk deepfake scam costs Florida couple thousands of dollars]<\/p>\n
How to spot a fake<\/p>\n
Even a year ago, Gogolin says, spotting a fake was relatively straightforward. That\u2019s no longer the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look for is the person blinking? Little mannerisms,\u201d Gogolin said. \u201cThe models have kind of overcome that. So, it can be really hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are still some clues to watch for, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have a video that was created from a snapshot picture, it will look like that person. But the way the facial expressions and things are that are generated from AI, they\u2019re going to look different than what the person actually did,\u201d Gogolin said. \u201cNow, if you are generating something from a video to make another video, that\u2019s a little bit different. But you can also look at things, maybe like backgrounds. Voice. And this is getting harder, but listen to the voice and see if the lips actually match what\u2019s being said.\u201d<\/p>\n
When a prank becomes a crime<\/p>\n
The Seminole County Sheriff\u2019s Office says the Martinez-Arizala case highlights \u201cgrowing concerns\u201d surrounding the misuse of technology. But defining what crosses a legal line remains complicated.<\/p>\n
West Palm Beach police say if someone is in a public space, a First Amendment right to record limits what can be considered a criminal act.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not demanding any type of money or causing a police response, which is what would make it criminal,\u201d Bevell said. \u201cBut just the fact that they\u2019re approaching people and creating a moment of chaos for them is not good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gogolin says the legal system is struggling to keep up.<\/p>\n
\u201cLegislation always lags technology,\u201d he said. \u201cEven something like privacy \u2014 the laws on privacy are much stronger in Europe than they are in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Valentine believes there should be consequences.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really frustrating to me that he continued to do this after he did it to me, and he really had no consequences,\u201d Valentine said. \u201cBut until the laws change, you know, here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
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