Socioeconomic Threats of Deepfakes and the Role of Cyber-Wellness Education in Defense

In recent years, society has witnessed accelerated advancement in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies, which may be viewed as a double-edged sword. On one hand, GenAI tools can be used to create synthetic content legitimately. For example, advertising agencies may, with permission, generate celebrities’ images or videos using GenAI tools without putting them in front of cameras and thus reducing the overall cost of media construction. On the other hand, scammers may utilize GenAI tools to craft or edit artificial content (for example, texts, images, videos, or audio), so-called deepfakes, to mislead or deceive netizens with robocalls or voice cloning phishing, potentially causing detrimental consequences for society. This article briefly debates emerging socioeconomic threats of deepfakes in today’s society and how cyber-wellness (or digital media literacy) education can help netizens mitigate their risks. To the mitigate the risks of deepfakes, enhanced cyber-wellness programs are needed that empower both producers and consumers of generative AI–based content.