An investigation by researchers at Stanford Internet Observatory discovered more than a thousand LinkedIn profiles using fake facial images created using artificial intelligence.
Renée DiResta and Josh Goldstein from the Stanford Internet Observatory made the discovery after DiResta was contacted by someone on LinkedIn named Keenan Ramsey. While it looked like a normal software sales pitch at first glance, upon further investigation, DiResta realized that the face in the profile image appeared fake due to the central positioning of the eyes and the vague background. After which it became apparent that Ramsey was an entirely fictitious person.
This prompted the researcher to initiate an investigation with her colleague Josh Goldstein on the number of computer-generated or deepfake images on the professional networking platform. Deepfakes use a form of artificial intelligence to combine and superimpose existing images and videos to make fake images of people or frame a person for doing or saying something that they have not.
And people on social media use faces from LinkedIn to appear like users with specific demographic characteristics while spreading disinfo… https://t.co/j4cSwgX0qs
— @[email protected] on Mastodon (@timnitGebru) March 28, 2022
From the recent examples, it looks like this technology has entered the corporate world. According to NPR, many of these profiles with AI-generated images appear to be for marketing and sales purposes. However, when someone connects to one of these fake profiles, they end up speaking to a real salesperson.
Many of these companies listed as employers on the profiles with AI-generated images, said that they used external vendors to contact potential customers on LinkedIn. Among such vendors is AirSales, which claims to hire independent contractors to provide marketing services. These contractors then create deepfake LinkedIn profiles at their own discretion.
According to LinkedIn’s professional community policies, the existence of such fake profiles or entities is prohibited on the platform. A community report on LinkedIn’s transparency page claimed that the platform had removed over 15 million fake accounts in the first half of 2021, with most of them removed thanks to the platform’s automated defenses.
