Artificial intelligence expert weighs in on fake home invasion TikTok prank
Police warn parents about TikTok AI trend
Round Rock police are warning the community about a viral TikTok trend where users are creating AI-generated images of home intruders to prank roommates, neighbors and parents.
ROUND ROCK, Texas - Round Rock police are warning the community about a viral TikTok trend where users are creating AI-generated images of home intruders to prank roommates, neighbors and parents.
The joke went a little too far over the weekend, with officers responding to multiple calls after parents dialed 911 falsely, believing their children to be in danger.
Expert weighs in on TikTok prank
Dig deeper:
"I think this is a wakeup call for all of us, a canary in the coal mine, if we're having the police being diverted because parents are being tricked by videos their kids are sending that are deep faking a home invasion, just imagine someone with a really malicious intent and how they could potentially manipulate," said Ken Fleischmann, Professor and Interim Associate Dean for Research in the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin.
Fleischmann is also the chair-elect of Good Systems, a campus-wide research team focusing on the ethical use of artificial intelligence.
He says as technology becomes more widely available, it's likely that trends like these will become more common.
"It's something that we need to be increasingly aware of," said Fleischmann.
Round Rock police warn of social media hoax trend
A viral social media trend where teens are staging fake home invasions has reached Central Texas, according to the Round Rock Police Department.
Researchers affiliated with Northwestern University published a guide last year, identifying clues people can use to distinguish between synthetic media and the real thing.
Those clues include anatomical issues, such as missing or extra body parts, stylistic misalignments such as skin that looks plastic or cartoonish, functional implausibilities such as unusable structures or floating objects, violations of physics such as inaccurate shadows and inconsistent reflections, and sociocultural red flags such as historical inaccuracies or unlikely scenarios.
But Fleishmann says the technology is improving so fast that many of these clues are already becoming less common in today's AI-generated media.
"Technology is advancing at a really rapid rate, so the giveaways are really starting to go away," said Fleishmann. "There's not a 100% effective way to be able to determine if it was actually an authentic video or if it was doctored or manipulated in some way."
Viral fake home invasion trend causing 'misuse of emergency services': police
Round Rock police say its officers have responded to two hoax calls related to a viral social media trend where teens are staging home invasions with AI-generated images and texts to their parents.
That's why Fleishmann says it's important to consider the source of the media, and he warns against sharing or reposting content that may not be authentic, as it could continue the cycle of misinformation.
Fleishmann also says anyone who is posting media that was generated by AI — whether that's images, videos or text — has a responsibility to disclose it as such.
"There are enough worrying possibilities that it's entirely possible that we'll look back and regret that we didn't have the ability to detect them better and more quickly and more accurately," said Fleishmann.
Why you should care:
Knowingly making a false report to law enforcement is a criminal offense in Texas. But as Fleishmann points out, one of the issues with this trend is that the people calling 9-1-1 believe the danger is real.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Bryanna Carroll