Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

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GrosseAdmiralFox
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Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

Post by GrosseAdmiralFox »

There are positive uses for deepfake technology like making digital voices for people who lost theirs or updating film footage instead of reshooting it if actors trip over their lines. However, the potential for malicious use is of grave concern, especially as the technology gets more refined. There has been tremendous progress in the quality of deepfakes since only a few years ago when the first products of the technology circulated. Since that time, many of the scariest examples of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled deepfakes have technology leaders, governments, and media talking about the perils it could create for communities.

The first exposure to deepfakes for most of the general public happened in 2017. This was when an anonymous user of Redditor posted videos that showed celebrities such as Scarlett Johansson in compromising sexual situations. But, it wasn't real-life footage—it was the combination of the celebrity's face, and the body of a porn actor fused together using deepfake technology to make it appear that something happened in real life even though it was faked. Celebrities and public figures were originally the ones susceptible to the charade since algorithms required ample video footage to be able to create a deepfake, and that was available for celebrities and politicians.

When researchers at the University of Washington posted a deepfake of President Barack Obama and then circulated it on the Internet, it was clear how such technology could be abused. The researchers were able to make the video of President Obama say whatever they wanted it to say. Imagine what could transpire if nefarious actors presented a deepfake of a world leader as a real communication. It could be a threat to world security. With cries of “fake news” commonplace, a deepfake could be created to support any agenda to fool others into believing the deepfake is an authentic representation of what someone wants to communicate.

Other high-profile examples of manipulated video include an altered video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that was retweeted by President Trump as real, that made it look like she was drunkenly stumbling over her words. In this case, the timing of the video was altered to create the effect, but many believed it was a true depiction. Two British artists created a deepfake of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talking to CBS News about the "truth of Facebook and who really owns the future." This video was widely circulated on Instagram and ultimately went viral.

Deepfake Technology Rapidly Improving

Deepfake technology is improving faster than many believed it would. In fact, researchers have created a new software tool that allows users to edit the transcript of a video to alter the words—add, change, or delete—coming out of someone's mouth. This technology isn't available to consumers—yet—but examples of what has been done illustrate the ease with which the tool can be used to alter videos.

Deep Video Portraits, a system developed at Stanford University, can manipulate not only facial expressions such as can be seen in the President Obama deepfake, but also myriad movements including full 3D head positions, eye gaze and blinking, and head rotation by using generative neural networks. Even though these videos aren’t perfect, they are incredibly photorealistic. This could be super beneficial for audio dubbing a film into another language and, as the researchers realize, could be abused as well.

Samsung’s AI lab made Mona Lisa smile and created a “living portrait" of Salvador Dali, Marilyn Monroe, and others using machine learning to create realistic videos from a single image. The system only requires a few photographs of real faces to create the living portrait which could be cause for concern for "ordinary people" who thought that they might be immune to deepfakes because there isn’t enough video footage of them to train the algorithms. Samsung’s AI shows that it can make realistic videos with more general video footage of a wide range of people rather than only use video specific to the “star” of the deepfake.

There are even more disturbing capabilities out there. A programmer launched a free, easy-to-use app called DeepNude that would take an image of a fully clothed woman and remove her clothes to create nonconsensual porn. Just days after the app’s release, the anonymous programmer shut it down. It’s hard to imagine anything but misuse for this app.

So, now that we know it's out there and getting even more realistic and easy to use, what do we need to do to protect ourselves and others from misuse? That's a huge question with no easy answers.

Should social media companies be forced to remove videos that are deepfakes from their networks? Does it matter what the intent of the video is? Is there any way to separate entertainment from maliciousness?

Some researchers suggest that it’s better for ethical developers to continue to push the envelope when it comes to this technology so they can warn what’s possible to encourage more critical analysis of video content. Others argue that this work just makes it easier for unethical people to extrapolate the learnings for their own misuse.

Also, AI might be behind deepfakes, but it can also be very instrumental in helping humans detect a deepfake. For example, software company Adobe has developed an AI-enabled tool that can now spot deepfakes of images.

However, we can't merely rely on software to do the job for us. As deepfake technology is here and getting better every day, it would be prudent for us all to remember to critically assess the authenticity of videos we consume to understand their real intent. This means not just relying on the quality of the video as an indicator of authenticity but also assessing the social context in which it was discovered—who shared it (people and institutions) and what they said about it.
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Welp, goodbye democracy since you can't keep an educated voter base with this...
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The Romulan Republic
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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

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As quick as you are to trumpet the end of democracy, lying was possible before the advent of photography. I suspect what will ultimately happen is that people will eventually just come to regard any visual documentation with suspicion, and that we will revert to eyewitness testimony or other forms of evidence being given more weight than video (or people will just believe whatever they already wanted to believe, which again, is nothing new).
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2019-07-24 03:57pm As quick as you are to trumpet the end of democracy, lying was possible before the advent of photography. I suspect what will ultimately happen is that people will eventually just come to regard any visual documentation with suspicion, and that we will revert to eyewitness testimony or other forms of evidence being given more weight than video (or people will just believe whatever they already wanted to believe, which again, is nothing new).
You can't rely on eyewitness testimony or other non-pictorial/video evidence exclusively. Those are pretty much complete and utter crap and not enough to run anything on.

Objective reality is dead with this sort of tech, and that is the least scary part.
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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

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GrosseAdmiralFox wrote: 2019-07-24 04:30pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2019-07-24 03:57pm As quick as you are to trumpet the end of democracy, lying was possible before the advent of photography. I suspect what will ultimately happen is that people will eventually just come to regard any visual documentation with suspicion, and that we will revert to eyewitness testimony or other forms of evidence being given more weight than video (or people will just believe whatever they already wanted to believe, which again, is nothing new).
You can't rely on eyewitness testimony or other non-pictorial/video evidence exclusively. Those are pretty much complete and utter crap and not enough to run anything on.

Objective reality is dead with this sort of tech, and that is the least scary part.
What you can do is assess the totality of the evidence, see what matches up and what contradicts, rather than expecting a single video to be a "smoking gun". Which is really what people should have been doing all along.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

Post by Ralin »

GrosseAdmiralFox wrote: 2019-07-24 04:30pm You can't rely on eyewitness testimony or other non-pictorial/video evidence exclusively. Those are pretty much complete and utter crap and not enough to run anything on.
People in democracies did exactly that for significantly longer than video recordings have existed. If democracy can survive newspapers accusing politicians of running operating a brothel because the owner was running against them for office that year then it can survive glorified special effects and CGI.
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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

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Ralin wrote: 2019-07-25 06:45pm People in democracies did exactly that for significantly longer than video recordings have existed. If democracy can survive newspapers accusing politicians of running operating a brothel because the owner was running against them for office that year then it can survive glorified special effects and CGI.
Ye in much faith in journalism and people in general... you are sadly mistaken given the factors involved. We live in a world where news is at one's fingertips and travels at near-light speed, where journalism is not of articles and reports anymore but of talking heads and soundbites.

Previous Journalism (especially post-Fairness Doctrine Journalism in the US) does not equal modern journalism. Much has changed with that thanks in part to the internet and social media.

Due to how competative the news scene is, it is most likely that the news networks be rags like FOX or even respected networks will post them before confirmation just so they can get that sweet ad money... and that doesn't help if the Deepfakes can't be distinguished from the real thing (and the only thing that makes them detectable is any and all flaws in the Deepfake) even with the help of more advanced software and people who spend their entire lives trying to spot the difference.

So unless you enforce counter-Deepfake rules on pretty much news and social media (fat chance for either) and get the internet out of the Wild West era kicking and screaming (and likely quite a few deaths along the way)... democracy is very much screwed.
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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

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Democracy and the rule of law predate video and even picture evidence by a very generous margin. What we will see is an evolution of the standards of evidence found to be beyond reasonable doubt. This same worry and chicken little reaction to it happened in the 1990's when the ability to fake photos was maturing. People became more sceptical of photographs but contrary to predictions they are still allowed as evidence in court. There is fakes out there that people believe, might be some real photographs dismissed as fake. This scepticism about civilization as a whole chugging along however is silly.
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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

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Avrjoe wrote: 2019-07-27 11:57am Democracy and the rule of law predate video and even picture evidence by a very generous margin. What we will see is an evolution of the standards of evidence found to be beyond reasonable doubt. This same worry and chicken little reaction to it happened in the 1990's when the ability to fake photos was maturing. People became more sceptical of photographs but contrary to predictions they are still allowed as evidence in court. There is fakes out there that people believe, might be some real photographs dismissed as fake. This scepticism about civilization as a whole chugging along however is silly.
Here's the thing, that is based on pre-internet thinking, especially the current internet. You have a lot of faith in human beings when you shouldn't. People only go with like ideas, mentalities, and people... and oh boy does the internet exemplify it in spades. Back in 1993, a study/analysis came out that the internet will only allow 'cyber-balkanization', and we've seen it over the last decade or so.

Not only that, but this is likely to also be part of basically information jamming attacks, to create information 'white noise'...

Our technological context has to be taken into account, and that context is basically flipping the bird on our assumptions and preconceptions of right and wrong.
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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

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GrosseAdmiralFox wrote: 2019-07-26 10:40pm Ye in much faith in journalism and people in general... you are sadly mistaken given the factors involved. We live in a world where news is at one's fingertips and travels at near-light speed, where journalism is not of articles and reports anymore but of talking heads and soundbites.

Previous Journalism (especially post-Fairness Doctrine Journalism in the US) does not equal modern journalism. Much has changed with that thanks in part to the internet and social media.
Yeah, there’s a huge difference: It’s way easier to research or find alternate sources on things that are happening in Washington or London than it was in early America. We’ve had mass media every bit as dishonest and out of touch with reality as Fox News in the past. The internet means that barring something like the Great Firewall you can’t stop people from watching Al-Jazeera or whatever instead
Due to how competative the news scene is, it is most likely that the news networks be rags like FOX or even respected networks will post them before confirmation just so they can get that sweet ad money... and that doesn't help if the Deepfakes can't be distinguished from the real thing (and the only thing that makes them detectable is any and all flaws in the Deepfake) even with the help of more advanced software and people who spend their entire lives trying to spot the difference.

So unless you enforce counter-Deepfake rules on pretty much news and social media (fat chance for either) and get the internet out of the Wild West era kicking and screaming (and likely quite a few deaths along the way)... democracy is very much screwed.
Or people will go from recognizing that CGI can make impossible things seem real in movies and on TV to being aware that people have started doing the same thing with news stories.
GrosseAdmiralFox wrote: 2019-07-29 06:06am Here's the thing, that is based on pre-internet thinking, especially the current internet. You have a lot of faith in human beings when you shouldn't. People only go with like ideas, mentalities, and people... and oh boy does the internet exemplify it in spades. Back in 1993, a study/analysis came out that the internet will only allow 'cyber-balkanization', and we've seen it over the last decade or so.

Not only that, but this is likely to also be part of basically information jamming attacks, to create information 'white noise'...

Our technological context has to be taken into account, and that context is basically flipping the bird on our assumptions and preconceptions of right and wrong.
You’re using a lot of words, but you aren’t saying much here beyond “Oh man, the primitive sheeple can’t handle the explosion of propaganda that THE INTERNETZ are hurling at them!”

Wake up dude, the US has had large chunks of its population at often violent loggerheads for basically our entire history.

PS, this reminds me of you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S3aH-BNf6I

To be clear, you are Donald in this analogy.
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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

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Wow... that's... undignified. I'll get back to you on that...
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Re: Forbes: The Best (And Scariest) Examples Of AI-Enabled Deepfakes

Post by FaxModem1 »

Welp, I'm not sure how Democracy survived the creation of the radio, what with the possibility of people being fooled about Martian invasions, leading to people voting for military spending against "Martian invaders". Objective reality is clearly dead with this sort of tech, and that is the least scary part.

We live in a world where news is available in people's living rooms, where journalism is not of articles and reports anymore but of talking heads and soundbites.

Democracy is very much screwed.

[/sarcasm]

To quote someone older than radio, "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
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