TY - JOUR
T1 - The Ethical Implications of Prosocial Synthetic Resuscitation
T2 - Analysing User Comments to a Deepfake Campaign Addressing Intimate Partner Violence
AU - Lowenstein, Hila
AU - Steinfeld, Nili
AU - Rosenberg, Hananel
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s).
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - In recent years, the ‘digital resurrection’ of the deceased through Deepfake technology has become a reality accessible to the general public and has raised profound ethical discussions in society. While the academic literature focuses primarily on regulatory and political implications, the public reception of digital resurrection remains largely unexplored. Furthermore, much of the public discourse around Deepfakes centres on their malicious applications, despite the potential for digital resurrection to serve prosocial purposes. This study focuses on an Israeli campaign called ‘Listen to My Voice’ (2021), which ‘resurrected’ women murdered by their partners, having them ‘tell’ the stories of the abusive relationships that preceded their deaths. An analysis of viewer responses shows that the campaign elicited strong reactions straddling the line between technology and ethics. Quantitatively, most comments supported the use of Deepfakes, given the importance of the cause and the impactful messaging. Qualitatively, two key themes emerged: one technical, indicating that visceral realism sparked both emotional connections and fundamental misunderstandings of the technology itself. The second highlighted an ethical tension between desires to protect autonomy and justifications for posthumously using an individual’s likeness for positive aims. The findings suggest Deepfakes’ technical attributes, particularly tangibility, significantly shape its ethical reception—a phenomenon we term ‘the ethics of technological misunderstanding’.
AB - In recent years, the ‘digital resurrection’ of the deceased through Deepfake technology has become a reality accessible to the general public and has raised profound ethical discussions in society. While the academic literature focuses primarily on regulatory and political implications, the public reception of digital resurrection remains largely unexplored. Furthermore, much of the public discourse around Deepfakes centres on their malicious applications, despite the potential for digital resurrection to serve prosocial purposes. This study focuses on an Israeli campaign called ‘Listen to My Voice’ (2021), which ‘resurrected’ women murdered by their partners, having them ‘tell’ the stories of the abusive relationships that preceded their deaths. An analysis of viewer responses shows that the campaign elicited strong reactions straddling the line between technology and ethics. Quantitatively, most comments supported the use of Deepfakes, given the importance of the cause and the impactful messaging. Qualitatively, two key themes emerged: one technical, indicating that visceral realism sparked both emotional connections and fundamental misunderstandings of the technology itself. The second highlighted an ethical tension between desires to protect autonomy and justifications for posthumously using an individual’s likeness for positive aims. The findings suggest Deepfakes’ technical attributes, particularly tangibility, significantly shape its ethical reception—a phenomenon we term ‘the ethics of technological misunderstanding’.
KW - Deepfake
KW - artificial intelligence
KW - intimate partner violence
KW - synthetic media
KW - technological acceptance
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85205900219&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/09732586241276984
DO - 10.1177/09732586241276984
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AN - SCOPUS:85205900219
SN - 0973-2586
JO - Journal of Creative Communications
JF - Journal of Creative Communications
ER -