FAIK: Navigating AI, Deepfakes and Deception Safely, reviewed

I reviewed “FAIK, A Practical Guide To Living In A World Of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI-Generated Deceptions”, by Perry Carpenter. This publication came across as highly engaging, innovatively written, and a worthwhile read for all in our digital age.

FAIK: Navigating AI, Deepfakes and Deception Safely, reviewed

Many related publications focus on the mechanics of AI, security, and the process for handling identified issues. This easy-to-read publication was more holistic, wider in scope, yet more people focused. The author’s coverage started with an exploration of technology as a tool for good or evil. He then moves seamlessly into AI, its inflection point to good or evil outcomes, and how our general understanding of it can mitigate its risk.

A fascinating angle to this book is the human intelligence v article intelligence angle. The author explores the human art of deception that has found an accomplice in AI, and how this changes the threat landscape for us all. The book has a balanced feel to it, with each chapter containing a story, acting as a chapter anchor.

It then explores the topic behind it and offers practical takeaways to deepen the reader’s knowledge of deception using AI. This theme is present throughout the book, with quality advice on how to deal with deception, such as the SIFT method.

The author is not shy about his writing goal. He tells us it is ok to be AI curious once we understand how to deal with its deceptive dark side. I found this practical outlook to be illustrative, which made concepts easy to grasp. The forward and introduction are worth a read. It familiarizes the reader with the author’s writing style, as it lays out the book’s content in an easy to digest manner.

This publication, comprising 10 chapters, has three main parts. Chapters 1 to 3 are an overview of AI, and synthetic media (AI produced content), which includes deep fakes.

Chapters 4 to 7 are an exploration of the emerging threat landscape, which includes AI based deception, along with tactics to deal with them. Chapters 8 to 10 are about self protection, and protection for your community regarding AI. This section continues the theme of self-contained chapters, which are also linked, by topic, into a whole-of-book read.

Chapter 10, “A New Hope”, has the now familiar dramatization story as an italic opener, to be followed by an exploration, and a powerful call to action. The author tells us, “criminals have means, motive, and opportunity. But so do we”. This community collaboration against AI abusers, such as scammers, disinformation groups, plus more, makes sense.

While quality takeaways are present in every chapter, the takeaways in this final chapter go wider, yet still strike deep. They inform us of how we can protect ourselves and each other in a world filled with AI. I found the exploration of AI basics, the deception game and the quality of advice to be of enormous benefit to any reader. It humanizes the issues as it defines technological intelligence as separate from human intelligence.

Understanding AI’s adversarial dark side and its interaction with humans is key. It is how we can collaborate with AI using a wise degree of caution. That the genii is out of the bottle regarding AI is of note, as is the infection point we are now at. Taking the initiative back from bad-actors, and looking to understand AI’s dark side as much as its potential, is our best path forward.

Its potential can make or break us as a species. This book allows us to take the brave first step into AI, and why human understanding can still prevail. To do that, we need to understand the human art of deception as delivered through AI, and how AI’s potential relies on human input to drive it forward. How that happens next is up to us.

By John Mulhall @soldersee | john@authormulhall.com is a writer with Irish Tech News for over 8 years and also a Cloud Engineer, Writer, and Novelist. You can learn more about John, and his debut novel “From Terror to Valor: Echoes and Shadows” on his author site at https://authormulhall.com

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