Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 44 to 50.

The term 'deep-fake', a combination of 'deep learning' and 'fake', refers to hyper-realistic videos created to resemble real people. Deep-fakes use neural networks that analyze extensive data sets to replicate a person's facial expressions, behavior, voice and speech patterns. By manipulating real footage and authentic-sounding audio, deep-fakes are usually difficult to detect. Much of the software used to generate them is available on the open web.

Deep-fakes came to the fore in 2017, when videos of public figures, including Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg, appeared online. While some of these were created for entertainment purposes, many, such as the fake footage of an explosion near the Pentagon, have triggered chaos and fear among the public, and even caused the stock market to dip. As Al tools have become more publicly accessible, the technology has become exploited for criminal purposes, including identity theft, fraud, violations of data privacy and intellectual property rights, and threats to national security.

In South East Asia, there have been cases of tech-savvy criminals exploiting Al technology to impersonate public figures, spread disinformation, and defraud and extort people. By taking advantage of public trust they convince their victims that they need to urgently acquiesce to their demands on their way to defrauding them of money or damaging their reputation. In December 2023, videos of Lee Hien Loong, prime minister of Singapore, and Lawrence Wong, the deputy prime minister, were circulated online to promote crypto and investment products. Also, in February 2024, the Hong Kong office of a multinational company lost US$25.6 million to a deep-fake video conference call impersonating its chief financial officer. These are just a few of the many cases in the Asia-Pacific region where Al-generated images and audio have been used for malicious purposes, including fake kidnappings, sexual abuse material and fraudulent schemes. As these criminal networks grow, deep-fake technology is becoming undoubtedly lucrative.

(Adapted from https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/deepfakes)