Who's behind the Catherine Connolly deepfake video, and why?

The AI generated video we saw this week could well be a display item for some deepfake vendor’s shop window — disturbing democracy is big business

A screenshot of the AI generated video that falsely portrays Catherine Connolly withdrawing from the presidential race. File picture

This week Ireland witnessed its first sophisticated electoral deepfake, when an AI generated video, mimicking RTÉ news, told users of Facebook and YouTube that the election had been cancelled and Heather Humphreys declared the winner, because Catherine Connolly had exited the campaign (this is not true). 

To understand what happened, and how to respond, we need to also consider why people may have gone to great efforts to get this video in front of us.