A day before voting for 288 assembly seats in Maharashtra on Wednesday, former Pune IPS officer Ravindranath Patil accused NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule and Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole , of misappropriating Bitcoin in 2019 and using that money in the assembly elections.
The former IPS officer alleged that then Pune Police Commissioner Amitabh Gupta and former Deputy Commissioner of Police Bhagyashree Nautke, who was in-charge of the cybercrime investigation, were also involved in the Bitcoin scam.
Later, BJP released several audio files as proof of this alleged fraud. These audio files were claimed to be the voices of Supriya Sule, Nana Patole, Amitabh Gupta and Gaurav Mehta, an employee of an audit firm ‘Sarthi Associates’. However, many people have claimed that these audios are generated by AI. While Ajit Pawar claimed that one of these voices was that of his sister and the other was that of a person he had worked with.
At the same time, Supriya Sule termed this voice as generated by AI. Meanwhile, ED raided Gaurav Mehta’s house in Raipur.
Are these audios generated by AI?
The India Today Fact Check team analyzed these audio files using 3 AI detection tools. The first tool is TrueMedia, created by Oren Etzioni, a professor at the University of Washington. The second is the Deepfake-O-Meter from the University at Buffalo and the third is the Deepfake Voice Detector made by the company Hiya, which scans calls for spam and fraud.
It is important to note that the results of these tools are not always accurate.
What emerged in these tools
True means:
TrueMedia uses three different detectors to verify the authenticity of an audio sample. According to this tool, it is clear from the four audio samples that this audio is generated by AI. However, this tool did not provide much clarity on Nana Patole’s alleged audio sample.
DeepFake-O meter:
DeepFake-O-Meter has six detectors. Four of these detectors identify the alleged audio of Supriya Sule, Amitabh Gupta and Gaurav Mehta as generated by AI with more than 80 percent confidence. However, his confidence level for Nana Patole’s alleged audio sample was relatively low. But three of its six detectors said with more than 80 percent confidence that it was AI.
Hello deepfake voice detector:
According to information provided by Hiya’s Deepfake Voice Detector, the alleged samples of Supriya Sule, Amitabh Gupta and Gaurav Mehta were generated by AI. While the tool was not sure about the alleged voice of Nana Patole. What is important is that Nana Patole’s alleged audio sample lasts only six seconds. This small audio sample may not be large enough for the tools to analyze. This may be the reason why the tools showed less confidence in it.
what the experts say
Let us tell you that India Today is a part of the ‘Deepfake Analysis Unit of the Countering Disinformation Alliance’ (DAU), which has a panel of technical and artificial intelligence experts. The DAU analyzed all the audio samples and concluded that three of the viral audio clips were generated by AI. However, the clarity in Nana Patole’s audio was a little less. Experts said two factors could be responsible for this. Firstly, the audio clip is short and secondly, its language is Marathi, for which the tools are not prepared.
What did Supriya Sule say while verifying the facts?
NCP leader Supriya Sule reacted to this fact check. He said I am an honest and direct server, my policy is not dirty. BJP is trying to defame me. I have sent a notice to BJP.
