Deepfakes are a Different Kind of Threat to Democracy

Glenn Gaffney, a former CIA officer who headed the agency's science and technology division, discusses the rise of deepfake videos and the need for tools to discern the truth in what we are seeing.

Glenn Gaffney spent more than 30 years working in the intelligence world as a CIA officer, including as the Director of Science and Technology. To him, the heart of intelligence work is being able to discern truth, even though others may use techniques to make it hard to discover the truth. Now the Executive Vice President of InQTel Labs, a nonprofit organization created to ensure national security agencies have access to innovative technologies, he continues his work as an expert in emerging technologies.

Gaffney spoke with Lindsay Lloyd, the Bradford M. Freeman Director of the Human Freedom Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute; Chris Walsh, Senior Program Manager in the Human Freedom Initiative; Andrew Kaufmann, Host of the Bush Institute podcast, The Strategerist