A profile of UC Berkeley professor Hany Farid, the world's leading digital forensics expert for 20+ years, who says he is now struggling to identify deepfakes
The emails began to arrive on a Sunday morning, as the worst ones often did. Hany Farid opened the first message at his home …
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World's Top Digital Forensics Expert Can't Spot AI Fakes Anymore
UC Berkeley's Hany Farid, who spent 20+ years detecting manipulated media, admits AI-generated fakes now outpace his expertise.
Hany Farid has a problem. The UC Berkeley professor has been the planet's go-to digital forensics expert for more than two decades. Now he's admitting something uncomfortable: AI-generated fakes are getting too good for even him to reliably detect.
Farid, profiled by the New York Times, has built his career on spotting manipulated images and videos. He's been the expert other experts call. But the rapid advancement of generative AI has fundamentally shifted the battlefield.
The implications are staggering. If the world's foremost authority on digital fakery can't consistently tell real from synthetic, what chance does anyone else have? Courts, newsrooms, and governments all depend on the ability to verify authenticity.
This isn't a hypothetical future problem. It's happening now, one Sunday morning email at a time.