U.S. Special Forces Want to Use Deepfakes for Psy-ops

Special Operations Command, which is accepting proposals on these capabilities through 2025, did not respond to a request for comment. Though Special Operations Command has for years coordinated foreign “influence operations,” these deception campaigns have come under renewed scrutiny. Special forces would use this faked footage to “generate messages and influence operations via non-traditional channels,” the document adds. Ethical considerations aside, the legality of militarized deepfakes in a conflict, which remains an open question, is not addressed in the SOCOM document. At an April 2018 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Kenneth Tovo of the Army Special Operations Command assured the assembled senators that American special forces were working to close the propaganda gap.