The identification game

Deepfakes and the epistemic limits of identity

Bibliographic Data

ID10815083
AuthorsCarl Öhman (0000-0002-8887-5324, Uppsala University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume200
Issue4
Publication date2022-07-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSynthese (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0039-7857 • E-ISSN: 1573-0964
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11229-022-03798-5
OpenAlexW4287578524
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited22

The fast development of synthetic media, commonly known as deepfakes , has cast new light on an old problem, namely—to what extent do people have a moral claim to their likeness, including personally distinguishing features such as their voice or face? That people have at least some such claim seems uncontroversial. In fact, several jurisdictions already combat deepfakes by appealing to a “right to identity.” Yet, an individual’s disapproval of appearing in a piece of synthetic media is sensible only insofar as the replication is successful. There has to be some form of (qualitative) identity between the content and the natural person. The question, therefore, is how this identity can be established. How can we know whether the face or voice featured in a piece of synthetic content belongs to a person who makes claim to it? On a trivial level, this may seem an easy task—the person in the video is A insofar as he or she is recognised as being A. Providing more rigorous criteria, however, poses a serious challenge. In this paper, I draw on Turing’s imitation game, and Floridi’s method of levels of abstraction, to propose a heuristic to this end. I call it the identification game . Using this heuristic, I show that identity cannot be established independently of the purpose of the inquiry. More specifically, I argue that whether a person has a moral claim to content that allegedly uses their identity depends on the type of harm under consideration

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Face (sociological concept) · Harm · Identification (biology) · Identity (music) · Imitation · Linguistics · Sociology · Computer Science · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology