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22 J. Ethics & Soc. Phil. 143 (2022)
Deepfakes, Deep Harms

handle is hein.journals/jetshy22 and id is 150 raw text is: Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy https://doi.org/io.z65s6/jesp.vzziz.16z8 VOL. 22, NO. 2 - JULY 2022 © 2022 Authors DEEPFAKES, DEEP HARMS Regina Rini and Leah Cohen EEPFAKES are digitally altered audio or video recordings in which one person's face and/or voice are mapped onto the body of another person, creating misleading evidence of events that never took place. Deepfake videos can be created with open-source software based on machine-learning algorithms. Currently this technology is a niche interest, mostly isolated to in- ternet pornography communities, but its use by other actors-some with still more malicious intent-is a very near technological possibility. The aim of this paper is to get out in front of that future and recognize some of the emergent harms the technology may bring about. We think that the arrival of cheap and easy-to-use deepfake technology will have a number of significantly harmful effects, at both personal and social levels. For simplicity, this paper will focus on the personal harms of deepfakes.' Put simply: What happens to a person who has been deepfaked? What sort of harm is done by being falsely represented in a deceptive recording? The structure of the paper is as follows. First, we provide a bit more back- ground on the history and technology behind deepfakes. Then we marshal a parade of horribles: several distinct ways in which deepfakes may harm their targets. These include a new form of objectifying harm that we call virtual dom- ination, in which a person's autonomy is invaded by their being represented as engaging in unconsented (and fabricated) sexual encounters; illocutionary harm, where a person is forced to engage in involuntary speech acts in order to dispute the content of deepfakes; and, most speculatively, existential trauma caused by panoptic gaslighting, when a person's memory and identity are undermined by a myriad of systemically targeted fabrications. 1. DISCOUNT DIGITAL DECEPTION The deepfake technology available to consumers superficially resembles Hol- 1 For discussion of the social and political consequences, see Rini, Deepfakes and the Epis- temic Backstop. 143

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