There’s been widespread concern regarding the misuse of artificial intelligence due to the viral circulation of a deepfake video featuring Rashmika Mandanna.
Not just Amitabh Bachchan, several of Rashmika Mandanna’s friends and colleagues have come out to support the actor, whose deepfake video went viral, making many believe it was the actor who featured in it. The actor has reacted to the video, and now many celebs such as Mrunal Thakur, Naga Chaitanya and Chinmayi Sripaada have come forward to talk about the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI).
Mrunal Thakur’s Instagram stories
Mrunal Thakur penned a note on Instagram Stories late Monday night. It read, “Shame on people who resort to such things, it shows that there is no conscience left at all in such people. Thank you @rashmika_mandanna for speaking up, for addressing this issue that so far we have seen glimpses of but a lot of us chose to remain silent. Everyday there are morphed, edited videos of female actors floating around on internet zooming into inappropriate body parts. Where are we heading as a community, as a society? We may be actresses in the “limelight” but at the end of the day each one of us are human. Why aren’t we talking about it? Don’t remain silent, now is not the time”.
Naga Chaitanya’s statement
Naga Chaitanya had written in reaction to Rashmika’s tweet on Monday, “It’s truly disheartening to see how technology is being misused and the thought of what this can progress to in the future is even scarier. Action has to be taken and some kind of law has to be enforced to protect people who have and will be a victim to this. Strength to you.” Rashmika thanked him for supporting her.
Singer Chinmayi Sripaada penned a note on X to spread awareness about the issue. She wrote on X, “Several months ago, a video of one of our most favourite actors in an AI avatar performed to Kaavaalaa from Jailer released – only it wasn’t her. It was a Deep Fake. Nobody knows for sure whether Ms Simran had consented in advance to her likeness to be used in the Deep Fake AI rendering of Kaavaalaa. She shared it on her social media pages as well.”
She continued, “Now a deepfake Rashmika video surfaces and I just saw her Instagram story where she genuinely looks disturbed – In a country where women’s bodies are exploited everyday, Deep Fake is going to be the next weapon they use to target and harass and blackmail girls to extort, blackmail and rape; Their clueless families in one small village or town is not going to understand when the so called maanam / or honour is at stake. Loan apps harass women borrowers with photoshopped images of their faces over porn photos and they can’t deal with that. But a Deep Fake is going to be tougher for the usual untrained eye to spot. Everyone doesn’t have high-res displays. I truly hope there is a nationwide awareness campaign that can kickstart urgently to educate the general public about the dangers of deepfakes for girls and to report incidents instead of taking matters into their own hands.”
Rashmika’s post
Reacting to her note, Rashmika wrote on X, “Thank you @Chinmayi for creating awareness on this, hoping strict action is taken and regulated guidelines are put into place.”
Rashmika had penned a note on Monday in which she said how hurt she was over a viral deep fake video. “But if this happened to me when I was in school or college, I genuinely can’t imagine how could I ever tackle this,” she had written in the note while calling for strict action in this regard.
Disclaimer: Except the headline and synopsis, this story has been taken from the HT News Service.