Researchers Have Figured Out How To Fake News Video With AI (qz.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: A team of computer scientists at the University of Washington have used artificial intelligence to render visually convincing videos of Barack Obama saying things he's said before, but in a totally new context. In a paper published this month, the researchers explained their methodology: Using a neural network trained on 17 hours of footage of the former U.S. president's weekly addresses, they were able to generate mouth shapes from arbitrary audio clips of Obama's voice. The shapes were then textured to photorealistic quality and overlaid onto Obama's face in a different "target" video. Finally, the researchers retimed the target video to move Obama's body naturally to the rhythm of the new audio track. In their paper, the researchers pointed to several practical applications of being able to generate high quality video from audio, including helping hearing-impaired people lip-read audio during a phone call or creating realistic digital characters in the film and gaming industries. But the more disturbing consequence of such a technology is its potential to proliferate video-based fake news. Though the researchers used only real audio for the study, they were able to skip and reorder Obama's sentences seamlessly and even use audio from an Obama impersonator to achieve near-perfect results. The rapid advancement of voice-synthesis software also provides easy, off-the-shelf solutions for compelling, falsified audio. You can view the demo here: "Synthesizing Obama: Learning Lib Sync from Audio"

Comments

Now Trump can deny anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Good job!

Re:Now Trump can deny anything

[skids]

I think they'd need more footage than they have of him actually talking about "adoption"... and to train it on Russian.

Though they do have plenty of footage of him talking about golf and grandchildren...

Re: Now Trump can deny anything

[Anonymous Coward]

CNN's stock price just skyrocketed!

Re: Now Trump can deny anything

[Anonymous Coward]

Fake AI from fake researchers.

You don't need A.I. for that.

[Narcocide]

Call me when they can get the A.I. to reliably produce real news broadcasts.

Re:You don't need A.I. for that.

[Anonymous Coward]

how much did you get from Breitbart and the Koch brothers for that?

ain't nothin' true no more

[turkeydance]

slide guitar

I'm sure it will improve

[93 Escort Wagon]

But when I watched the video, I kept seeing places where the lip/mouth movements did not jibe with what was being said. As is, it's not going to convince anyone who's paying attention.

Of course, nowadays almost everyone is staring at their cell phone most of the time... so perhaps the bar is lower than I expect.

Re:I'm sure it will improve

[ShanghaiBill]

I kept seeing places where the lip/mouth movements did not jibe with what was being said.

If you can see the difference, a GAN can also see it ... and correct it. This is the first demo. The tech to will improve rapidly, especially since the demand for fake news is high.

Re:I'm sure it will improve

[ale2011]

especially since the demand for fake news is high.

I'm not sure they aimed at producing fake news. Otherwise they would not have designed the tool to require a voice impressionist.

Re: I'm sure it will improve

[Anonymous Coward]

H1B hindu-chimps and sand njggers.

I think you misspelled trumpanzees...

Re: I'm sure it will improve

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't require a voice impressionist. They also showed it working with an edited audio stream, which could totally change the context of what a person says. Use autotune to change inflection and manipulate pauses, and it's not so far to turn "I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse" to "I helped my uncle jack off a horse", only in damaging high definition video.

Example link

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology already seen in the wild.

It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[rsilvergun]

and that's the point. There's millions of folks out there itching for an excuse to do what they already want to do. Fake news doesn't work on people thinking critically, but you're not after those.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[sound vision]

It's likely this kind of video manipulation can be done better. When someone does do it better, we might not hear about it from "researchers" but see the videos begin to appear in the wild.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[basecastula]

Fake news doesn't work on people thinking critically, but you're not after those.

Valid point.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Mashiki]

Fake news doesn't work on people thinking critically, but you're not after those.

Not true in the least. Remember when Dateline used model rocket boosters to blow up the gas tanks on pickup trucks? You know their target audience for that show at the time was 30-45 college educated or higher. Fake news works well on anyone who's ideologically deep in a rabbit hole and wants to engage in confirmation bias.

Let's look at two cases over the last 3 years: Gamergate, where the FBI could find no incidences of harassment from anyone tied to it. Demographics educated at college level or higher, married, has family, has high disposable income, roughly 15% are female, has a significant minority quotient from all over the world to boot and aligns politically left. But the media continues on with the lie that they're harassers who pump out death threats, are worse then isis, and then scrub away those women and minorities because they don't fit the narrative(that is if the anti-gg people simply don't call them house n*iggers, or uncle toms). The media view of the people in Gamergate are: single, white, males who live in their parents basement or are virgins living alone. Nice fabrications huh?

Or you can take a look at the "Trump-Russia-Collusion" story. Which has evolved from "Russia colluded with Trump" to "his son talked with a lawyer who's visa expired that the Obama administration specifically let back in at the behest of Susan Rice" along with "Putin talked with Trump during dinner." But the entire thing has fallen apart to the point where pundits outside of the main of the party are saying "shut-up, this is hurting us more then helping." If the media has one narrative, it's very easy to see from the outside. But it sure is self-reinforcing if you're in that rabbit hole.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Baron_Yam]

>Or you can take a look at the "Trump-Russia-Collusion" story. Which has evolved from "Russia colluded with Trump" to "his son talked with a lawyer who's visa expired that the Obama administration specifically let back in at the behest of Susan Rice" along with "Putin talked with Trump during dinner." But the entire thing has fallen apart to the point where pundits outside of the main of the party are saying "shut-up, this is hurting us more then helping." If the media has one narrative, it's very easy to see from the outside. But it sure is self-reinforcing if you're in that rabbit hole.

Really? That's the example you're going with? The one where the whole last week has been detail after detail coming to light showing collusion is incredibly likely to any reasonable person?

Trump isn't a republican. He's a Trump. Republicans are just willing to stand behind him despite the fact that he's unprofessional, erratic, self-defeating, and, well, an international buffoon, because it got them power and they don't want to let go. American politics - things like the actual country don't matter so long as your team is winning.

If that weren't true you wouldn't feel that compulsion to astroturf for Trump in your post. I mean, the guy's rich off Russian money, has uncountable Russian contacts, fired a guy for not dropping an investigation into his Russian ties, had three high level members of his campaign meet with Russians on the promise of Russian government-backed dirt on his opponent, and then - when all this 'fake news' was dogging him, decided to have an extended private meeting with Putin without anyone there you could trust to corroborate the content of their discussions. And all that (believe it or not) just pales compared to the horrorshow that was his first week in office constantly bitching at the most inappropriate times that his inauguration crowd was bigger than his predecessors despite photographic proof to the contrary.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, have they started coming out with details now? I've stopped reading any stories on it because I got sick of "according to an anonymous source I got from my brothers girlfriends roommates uncles third cousin".

Care to cite these details in stories that don't include "according to an anonymous source" that are actually crimes?

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Baron_Yam]

How nice of you to, as AC, to imply I'm bullshitting.

Of course, you already know these details are coming from the people actually involved. Trump Jr. Trump's lawyer. The Russian lawyer. Various tweets from the POTUS.

And Trump financial ties to Russia are a matter of public record - or, in the case of Trump Jr., public bragging.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Mashiki]

Really? That's the example you're going with? The one where the whole last week has been detail after detail coming to light showing collusion is incredibly likely to any reasonable person?

You mean the one with the sources of "anonymous" "anonymous" "anonymous" "anonymous source" and so on? Oh yeah. Very solid sources there, just like the one about Russia hacking that electrical grid that WAPO published right.

I heard through an anonymous source that your waifu is shit. That's 100% true right?

Just because your panties are in a twist, I'll even add something that doesn't relate to it. Where Kotaku and Destructiod Turns around and lies about a mentally ill person filing multiple false DMCA's to get games taken down, and issuing death threats against those people. But Kotaku ignores the death threats that the person filing the DMCA's is sending.

But just jumping back to Trump, the only dog I've got in this race is that he's doing more for Canada then Trudeau is. But nice job on showing how much of a bubble you're really in. I'd hate to see what your comments on Andrew Jackson back in the day would have been like.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Baron_Yam]

>You mean the one with the sources of "anonymous" "anonymous" "anonymous" "anonymous source" and so on? Oh yeah. Very solid sources there,

No, Trump Jr., his lawyer, the Russian lawyer he met with, and Trump's tweets. Odd that as a Canadian you're a fanatical Trump supporter. Perhaps you're butthurt that Harper lost and Canada failed to pursue more American-style politics?

Personally I'm not aligned with any of the parties or their platforms, American or Canadian, and consider the Liberals to have been a case of 'least evil'.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not aiming for the people who can think critically, then you don't need this. Team Trump is doing just fine spreading blatant lies through Infowars, Breitbart and Fox News (though the latter is starting to show signs of a fading willingness to play ball).

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd that as a Canadian you're a fanatical Trump supporter.

It's actually not that odd. Canada is a diverse country. You're bound to find groups of people who are fanatical Trump supports as you would find fanatical Hillary supporters, and anything in between.

People like GP doesn't seem to be common or have as large of a voice because Canada isn't as strong in partisan politics as the US.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

'Least evil'.Like giving 8 Million dollars to a convicted terrorist for hurting his feelings? Without even a court order ?

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump Jr's e-mail is not an anonymous source.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

"his son talked with a lawyer" ... and his campaign manager. And this son-in-law who declared on his security clearance form that he didn't have any such meetings, who has now emended his form 3 times. All of them in a meeting that was described as "part of the support" from the Russian government for Trump?

There's a more meat to the story than you are suggesting. It never was merely "Russia colluded with Trump", but posed as a question: "*DID* Trump or his campaign collude with Russia as part of the broader Russian election interference attempts?" I think most people accepted from the possibility that Trump himself could be completely oblivious and innocent of what his campaign might have been doing. That fits his level of engagement and general cluelessness very well. That doesn't mean he or is campaign are off the hook if he personally wasn't involved, especially if there have been subsequent efforts to hide the fact or to interfere with the investigation. You've still got people like Mike Flynn who were (to put it generously) sloppily given clearance to one of the highest intelligence-related positions in the land despite having foreign lobbying entanglements both from past Russia payments and Turkey that were not disclosed. If he could get through the (obviously flawed) vetting process of the campaign, then who else could, if the Russians were trying to interfere (which they were)? Then there's the very-close-to-obstruction efforts of Trump to fire the person doing the investigation, and during the campaign his calls for the Russians to "maybe find Hillary's e-mails". It's something crazy out of political Alice in Wonderland, but it happened.

It's a damned mess that has to be resolved even if Trump personally did not collude, and even that conclusion is uncertain given the weird pandering that Trump has displayed all along for Putin and the one item in the Republican platform that the campaign wanted changed (relating to Ukraine and Russia). Stuff's not normal and deserves careful investigation. If nothing is found, good. But all that's been found so far is even more undisclosed contacts and questionable stuff.

About the most generous you can be is to say these guys were naive and being thoroughly played by the Russians, and were too stupid to be transparent about their mistake from the beginning. If they were innocent, then right after that meeting in which they got "nothing" they should have called the FBI and said "oops". Instead we've had months of denials and lies. Alternatively they were hoping to be doing exactly what it looked like they were planning from that e-mail (i.e. colluding with a hostile foreign power for political gain), and when they didn't get what they wanted they pretended it never happened.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can take a look at the "Trump-Russia-Collusion" story. Which has evolved from "Russia colluded with Trump" to...

Here's my understanding of the current narrative...

So, most countries throughout history have been dictatorships where a small, mostly hereditary, ruling class lorded it over and exploited everyone else. But, as Abraham Lincoln noted in his Gettysburg Address, the USA was founded to be different from the aristocracies of Europe - having instead a government of, by, and for the (ordinary) people. With that in mind, there's this idea that the USA should try to promote freedom and democracy around the world - helping governments that respect human rights and the rule of law - and not helping governments that violate human rights with dictators, and their inner circle, who corrupt the rule of law to use their power for their own personal gain.

Of course, Putin is fundamentally a dictator who is kept in power largely by an elite inner circle who have become fabulously wealthy through massive government corruption. To the extent that Americans believe in freedom and democracy and human rights and the rule of law, Putin is pretty much the opposite of what Americans are supposed to support.

Anyway, there was this Russian guy, Magnitsky, who exposed some of the corruption of Putin and his inner circle - so Putin had Magnitsky tortured and killed. And so the USA then slapped some sanctions on Putin and his inner circle with the Magnitsky Act - which made Putin absolutely furious. So Putin retaliated by banning adoptions of Russian babies by American couples (Russia had been the place to go if you wanted to adopt a white baby from a poor country).

Now, that all happened a few years back. But fast-forward to the present. Putin had his personal representative, Natalia Veselnitskaya, in the USA lobbying to repeal the Magnitsky Act. And one key thing she does is to meet (in June) with Trump's campaign team to ask them whether Trump would work to get the Magnitsky act repealed if he happened to get elected. Of course, we don't know the details of what was said - but it's pretty clear what the answer was. And so, somewhere in this time-frame, Russia also hacked into the Democratic National Committee email servers - and then released damaging emails (via WikiLeaks) a month later in July.

TL;DR Putin had his people ask Trump's people whether they would get rid of sanctions for Putin's human rights violations. And then, once Putin got the answer he wanted, Putin released emails that were damaging to Hillary that had been obtained from hacking into the Democratic National Committee email servers.

Now, is that technically "collusion"? I don't know enough about the details of the relevant laws to say. But it sure is very very sleazy.

Re:It'll convince people who want to be convinced

[Mashiki]

No, Trump Jr., his lawyer, the Russian lawyer he met with, and Trump's tweets.

You mean that meeting that lasted less then 20 minutes? How funny that the facts don't fit your version of reality especially after it's all been publicly aired.

Odd that as a Canadian you're a fanatical Trump supporter. Perhaps you're butthurt that Harper lost and Canada failed to pursue more American-style politics?

Want to show me that fanatical support? Canada could do more with perusing US style politics, especially weakening of federal powers towards the public and provinces. Actually guaranteeing land ownership(something we don't have in Canada), and having actual freedom of speech. Again something we don't have in Canada. We have "speech which is permitted under law."

Personally I'm not aligned with any of the parties or their platforms, American or Canadian, and consider the Liberals to have been a case of 'least evil'.

The same liberals that have simply rolled from one scandal to another everytime that they're in power? Under Chretien it was Adscam, under Trudeau Jr., it's pay-for-play and multiple ethics violations. Under Trudeau Sr., it was the night-of-long-knives. Yes, less evil there...

Perhaps you should ask yourself how well it's reflecting in the province of Ontario, where the provincial Liberals are expected to be a non-party by July of next year.

Using Obama might have been a mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Fred Astaire? Paul Newman?

Re:Using Obama might have been a mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Dom Deluise?

Re:Using Obama might have been a mistake

[ArchieBunker]

Larry Bud Melman?

Re:Using Obama might have been a mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump? Wait... uncanny valley even in reality. I mean... orange? Really?

Re:Using Obama might have been a mistake

[fustakrakich]

He already plays Trump...

Fake Research

[Anonymous Coward]

"You didn't build that."

Still looks fake

[Anonymous Coward]

FAKE!

This shit's getting way too dangerous.

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when something similar happened a few years ago when it came to changing the video/voice on pre-recorded media. What I fear, is a 1984 situation where people in power change what context to suit their agenda. What happened, won't necessarily be what happened.

Progress, but not yet out of the Uncanny Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot of progress I see, but watching the video, the artificial bit still looks a bit creepy and weird. We're not out of the uncanny valley for this sort of thing yet.

True Test

[Anonymous Coward]

The true test is if it can fool experts and their systems designed distinguish video editing such as in reported UFO videos.

Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, now we can make a video of our current president saying some crazy shit ... oh wait.

Re: Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, an honest to goodness lol. Thanks for that. :)

Re:Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

No, now we can actually make him presidential !!!!!!

That's the best you've got?

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like dog shit. Superdelux on YouTube does a better job.

See?

[Anonymous Coward]

*That* is why we need regulation, not because HAL is imminent (which it isn't). Can you imagine if either side had this ability during the last election? Yowza.

Sources say

[Anonymous Coward]

Sources say the news has been doing this for years. Eleven anonymous people all say they helped fake news at CNN, Fox and the Washington Post for years without anyone realizing it simply by using the citogenesis process to create stories out of thin air.

The Running Man

[Lije Baley]

Pretty soon somebody's gonna get framed and end up on a deadly game show, and not that rip-off version with the whiney kids.

Re:The Running Man

[PoopJuggler]

The Apprentice?

Max Headroom...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meet Min Obama.

Obligatory

[fred911]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...

Just a more polished version.

Oh yeah.

[dohzer]

Oh yeah, Obama is definitely the one I'd be using the software on first. Definitely not the "grab her by the pussy" speech, no way.

Re:Oh yeah.

[Mal-2]

They probably started this research while Obama still was president, and besides, they probably liked him. If there's anyone who can use the "fake video" defense now, it's him -- even if it's someone else's work. In that way, they've done him a favor.

Re:Oh yeah.

[Anonymous Coward]

If this 'AI' came up with an actual Trump speech, people would think it broken.

Lipreader says no.

[mykro76]

I'm deaf and have been lipreading for more than 40 years. I can confirm these videos are not lip-readable - many words are only half formed (one syllable where there should be two) and the mouth transitions are too jerky. It's a good attempt and I'm positive the tech will just keep getting better, but right now, it's not there yet.

Re:Lipreader says no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are it's more than good enough to feed the typical viewer, who will be very quick to "inform" you that not only is lip-reading inaccurate but that you're just a crackpot trying to make shit up to feel better about being crippled.

Then they'll remind you that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia and that you'd know this if you could understand news.

Re:Lipreader says no.

[Gussington]

I'm deaf and have been lipreading for more than 40 years. I can confirm these videos are not lip-readable - many words are only half formed (one syllable where there should be two) and the mouth transitions are too jerky. It's a good attempt and I'm positive the tech will just keep getting better, but right now, it's not there yet.

The scary part is that the 'yet' is probably only a couple of years away. Then imagine a world where anyone can create their own production of any person saying anything they like.

This One Already Does It

[NicknameUnavailable]

And a bit more, though I could see the tech in the article being combined to give more realistic effects without the face actor in some scenarios.

They call this news??

[FrankHaynes]

I've seen recent news broadcasts and the only thing that would mimic them successfully would be Artificial Stupidity.

Nothing new

[holophrastic]

A long time ago, news was spoken, and you decided to believe, or not to believe, the person telling the tale.

A while ago, news was written, and you decided to believe, or not to believe, the author writing it.

Somewhere along the way, more and more people began to presume that everything is true -- maybe because most of it was, or maybe because they were just that stupid.

Congrats! Those times are over.

Now, once again, you get to spend more time evaluating the source than the content. Enjoy!

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere along the way, more and more people began to presume that everything is true -- maybe because most of it was, or maybe because they were just that stupid.

That would be the media monopolization period and the convincing deceit of Walter Cronkite. Local papers were accurate because their audience knew the events. National papers were coordinated, and had accurate sports pages because people who read the sports page already knew most of the answers. TV news had 3 different logos, but they generally agreed.

That is what journalists remember as the "golden age", when no one with any influence doubted them.

Re:Nothing new

[Gussington]

A long time ago, news was spoken, and you decided to believe, or not to believe, the person telling the tale.

A while ago, news was written, and you decided to believe, or not to believe, the author writing it.

Somewhere along the way, more and more people began to presume that everything is true -- maybe because most of it was, or maybe because they were just that stupid.

Congrats! Those times are over.

Now, once again, you get to spend more time evaluating the source than the content. Enjoy!

I think you have that wrong. A long time a go there was a cost to distributing information, so only a few could do it, and those people sent consistent messages (rightly or wrongly). Over time the information source was mostly reliable so trust was developed. Now information is free to create, distribute and imitate, and the messages are inconsistent and unreliable. This creates a situation where no information can be trusted. Not even smart people will have the means to validate the information since the validation sources can also be easily faked. the result is no information is trusted, thus information becomes worthless. I feel a prophecy of doom coming on...

Re:Nothing new

[mjwx]

A long time ago, news was spoken, and you decided to believe, or not to believe, the person telling the tale.

There are some news sources that are still written in a way to present facts, rather than opinions and allow the reader to make up their own mind.

These are often derided as "biased lefty propaganda" by those who are used to the Fox News style of "pissing on your back and telling you its raining" presenting opinions rather than facts.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to have to ask, were you actually alive "a long time ago"? Because I wasn't, but I have read some history books. Like how the 1920s were the golden age of yellow journalism. It wasn't trusted. Seriously, with all the information on "nostalgia goggles", why do people continue to think that the world of yesteryear was any different than the world of today? The news lied in the past to push a political agenda just like they do today. The news wasn't consistent back then, people didn't agree with politicians. War happened. Basically every problem we have today is something like the n-teenth billion time it's happened in the history of the world.

Let me save you some money

[merky1]

Instead of investing time on this, just go to reddit / 4chan and wait a few minutes. This whole "fake news" debacle is really just the same old trolls with new outfits.

It doesn't matter anymore

[bussdriver]

They can easily fool 33% of the nation with flat out lying why do they need to fake anything. Trump Jr can admit a meeting happened, release evidence and still have 1/3 believe it never happened! Trump really could shoot somebody out in the street on TV and not do any worse in the polls.

that's "convincing" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Guy looks creepy.

Wha't the value of this ? You use AI to manipulate the video of a puppet you bought on last elections ?

Why fuck around with this ?
Just make him do what he was paid for !

After singing on a playback we got lying on a playback...

it's just things he said

[gl4ss]

out of context.

with a rendered bobblehead? why the fuck would you need that.

just take them out of context and boom, there you have it.

About suckers and tricksters

[CustomSolvers2]

When using software and mainly when being in internet, convincingly faking anything is very difficult or even impossible. Simply because there are usually many ways to reliably confirm any issue. The most curious bit is that the most afraid-to-be-tricked (= the most ignorant individuals) are the ones making the smallest effort to avoid such an outcome. People falling for fake anything in internet are usually the ones blindly trusting in the first thing appearing in front of their faces; behaviours which seem to support ideas like these people really deserving to be lied.

DISCLAIMER: I never lie or try to trick anyone into anything. In fact and as explained in one of my last posts, I am having lately an extremely honest and direct attitude in each single aspect of my (software development) activity, what seems to have provoked the curious consequence of the unmotivated fears of some people to unmotivatedly grow even stronger (not precisely concerned; I am actually kind of enjoying so much stupidity).

DISCLAIMER 2: I don't defend criminal/dishonest activity of any kind. I don't feel much sorry for people suffering the consequences of their negligence or even dishonesty (the scenario of the sucker seriously thinking that is tricking the trickster seems quite common) either.

DISCLAIMER 3: even by forgetting about all what I am writing above and other relevant issues like training/validating the algorithm, the linked video seems quite fake to me.

Autist says no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Being on the autism spectrum, I have a tendency to focus on peoples' mouths when they speak. I would characterize the quality of the generated content as abysmal.

One of the major giveaways is that phonemes which involve the lips interacting with teeth are way off. Just not even close. The word "visited" looks for all the world like what's being said is "dizited". How can they generate a 'd' motion for a 'v' sound and still have the balls to publish their paper, let alone make any sort of claims that it's believable? It's absolutely galling, precisely because it's only accurate enough to fool people who want to be fooled, leaving those of us who know better shouting weakly from the proverbial back of the room.

Re:Autist says no.

[nazrhyn]

"Galling" might be a bit strong; this is definitely an incremental improvement over some previous techniques. You're also making a soft implication ascribing nefarious intent to this research that I'm not sure is reasonable.

Foreigners says no.

[Zaatxe]

I grew up in a country where most foreign shows and movies are shown dubbed on TV. The result videos look exactly like a dubbed movie to me. My brain automatically says "this is not the original audio from this footage" when watching this.

Face2Face already this this a year ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohmajJTcpNk

And much more realistically too...

But Face2Face means any news organisation can produce FAKE video of anybody saying anything they want them to, and the public will believe it (and why wouldn't they?).

"Fake news" is a term invented by the MAINSTREAM MEDIA to try to stop dissenters' publication of the truth from being believed by the public...

Obligatory Star Trek Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Romulan Senator Vreenak: "It's... a... FAAAAAKE!"

German researchers did this last year

[Harald Paulsen]

https://qz.com/654669/nothing-...

A research team has created software that allows them to control the face of anyone in any video. Using advanced facial recognition, it looks at about 15 seconds of any face in a video and creates a 3D model of that face in real time.

Commence Running Man!

[midifarm]

The predictions are here!

Pelevin predicted this

[stiebrs]

Full-parliament renders from Generation P coming to countries of your choice soon

Block chain to the rescue?

[Aristos Mazer]

Sci-fi author Ian Banks had this problem in his futuristic The Culture novels. His solution: have repositories of record scattered everywhere that any recording device would upload to in real time. The repository would cryptographically sign the recording then download it back to the recording device. That provided both the sequence ordering and verifiability for the recordings at any future date. Banks wrote that before the arrival of block chain tech. The crowdsourced signing ability of the block chain is being used for things far beyond digital currency already. Seems like we need recording devices that can add hashes of their recordings to the block chain so that there is a record of where and when a given video was shot that cannot be falsified or denied. If we get to the point where most commercial recorders are using that service, we could once again have verifiable news. Seem viable?

Already exists

[Anonymous Coward]

There is already a company who exists to service our three letter agencies. They've been around for at least a decade now. Their entire business exists to do exactly this and to simulate voice for specific people.

After the Wikileaks assassination attempt and embassy action by Obama it was feared this company was used to fake Assange's interview.

The technology already exists and has been in active use for the state for at least a decade now.

Another chunk taken out of free will

[computerchimp]

How can we have free will when our world is artificially shaped to manipulate us?
There is something to be said for the time when we had to dwell in caves.

Artificial Intelligence you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

AI doesn't exist... I deduce that humans in the future have created a time machine and AI, also, they've come here to confuse us.

Um.. if you're engaging in confirmation bias

[rsilvergun]

you've already stopped thinking critically...

Re:Um.. if you're engaging in confirmation bias

[Mashiki]

you've already stopped thinking critically...

Sentence unclear. Contains supposition only, contains no argument. I sure hope you're not a programmer by trade.

'V' fail. It might have helped if at least

[PJ6]

one of the researchers was a native English speaker.