Slashdot Mirror
Algorithm Automatically Spots 'Face Swaps' In Videos (technologyreview.com)
yagoda shares a report from MIT Technology Review: Andreas Rossler at the Technical University of Munich in Germany and colleagues have developed a deep-learning system that can automatically spot face-swap videos. The new technique could help identify forged videos as they are posted to the web. But the work also has sting in the tail. The same deep-learning technique that can spot face-swap videos can also be used to improve the quality of face swaps in the first place -- and that could make them harder to detect. The new technique relies on a deep-learning algorithm that Rossler and co have trained to spot face swaps. These algorithms can only learn from huge annotated data sets of good examples, which simply have not existed until now. In semi-related news, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) says it's "fighting back" against the dangers posed by new face-swapping technologies that have been used to digitally superimpose the faces of its members onto the bodies of porn stars.
"SAG-AFTRA has undertaken an exhaustive review of our collective bargaining options and legislative options to combat any and all uses of digital re-creations, not limited to deepfakes, that defame our members and inhibit their ability to protect their images, voices and performances from misappropriation. We are talking with our members' representatives, union allies, and with state and federal legislators about this issue right now and have legislation pending in New York and Louisiana that would address this directly in certain circumstances. We also are analyzing state laws in other jurisdictions, including California, to make sure protections are in place. To the degree that there are not sufficient protections in place, we will work to fix that..."
"SAG-AFTRA has undertaken an exhaustive review of our collective bargaining options and legislative options to combat any and all uses of digital re-creations, not limited to deepfakes, that defame our members and inhibit their ability to protect their images, voices and performances from misappropriation. We are talking with our members' representatives, union allies, and with state and federal legislators about this issue right now and have legislation pending in New York and Louisiana that would address this directly in certain circumstances. We also are analyzing state laws in other jurisdictions, including California, to make sure protections are in place. To the degree that there are not sufficient protections in place, we will work to fix that..."
So, can the algorithm create a face swap that even it couldn't detect? I think this may be something of a Zen koan.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"fighting back" against the dangers posed by new face-swapping technologies that have been used to digitally superimpose the faces of its members onto the bodies of minimum scale movie extras.
FTFY.
Have gnu, will travel.
Where is the "danger" in that? Porn stars usually have great bodies, so you'll end up looking great. And you don't have to worry about leaked sex tapes anymore because you always have plausible deniability.
I think the real reason the screen actor's guild is so up in arms about this is because it makes it much easier for movie producers to mix and match acting ability with looks: they can go for an unknown actor and paste exactly the kind of face on him they want. And licensing your face to be pasted on an unknown actor isn't as lucrative as acting yourself.
They correctly used the term algorithm instead of AI.
Actually, I am waiting the first defense attorney to get an expert to say the criminal caught on camera wasnâ(TM)t the accused. It was a face swap.
Until Emma Watson's photo got superimposed onto Kiera Knightly's body with a photoshopped cock in its mouth.
but the algorithm said "Whoah! Whoah! ONE face at a time!"
I hear the porn stars are pissed that their bodies are "swapped" onto ordinary actors' faces.
When the singularity happens A-list Hollywooders never have to litigate sex tapes, and they can collect royalties for their likeness. Chart please.
If it can spot face swaps and flag them, it can be used to train the face swap algorithms to make them better.
Is anyone else imagining this technology being used the other way to put their favourite porn star faces on non-porn movies?
Am I the only one seeing a Butlerian Jihad on the way?
Some grad student figured out a way to get a PhD for watching pornography all the time!
#DeleteChrome
Why are they trying to break one of the laws of the internet? Arrest those fucks.
It's clear that the SAG is on this because there is a massive amount of money at stake. The real story here is that, should we evolve the technology to the point where no AI or person can detect it, there is a real hazard to liberty. Political enemies could be placed (virtually) in embarrassing or illegal positions, surveillance footage of crimes could be faked, criminals could go free by claiming their surveillance footage was faked. This really shakes the core of things we've learned as "truth." We've known photos were able to be faked, with various amounts of success/believability, for a long time, but the idea of producing videos that can't be detected as fakes is crazy.
You can't put it back in the box. And in any event, was liberty less endangered when all we had was the printing press? Who is to say that the newspapers weren't providing fake news. After all, how was it possible to travel to the sources of the stories? We just had to take it on blind faith.
So everyone who believed in "truth" is now getting a rude awakening that everything is and always was assertion.
Here's another example: I was talking to a Spanish friend about the defeat of the spanish armada by the brits. He said what?!?!? the armada was lost at sea. Which got me to thinking. Who is to say who is correct? The brits or the spanish. Even if you were alive at the time you would have had to be physically present to be able to see it. Then what you tell people afterwards depends on how much of a liar you are.
So dumb, please stop with that descriptor. We get that you did something hard.
I've seen thousands of liberty narratives, in all manner formal dress and dishabille.
Have I ever seen a narrative about liberty which frames liberty as something we're lucky to have only because we we gifted a milieu of sufficient objective agreement (and this only through the magic social pixie-dust of unfakeable images?). No, I have not.
Libertarian defendant: But your honour, I rendered all these faultlessly realistic videos of my sworn enemies engaging in plausible criminal behaviours for my own personal enjoyment in the privacy of my own home!
Judge: If we had found ricin on your premises, that wouldn't be a good excuse. I fail to see much real difference here. Both of these activities are equally terrible hobbies.
———
This is the new equivalence: sticks and stones can break your bones, whereas misaligned zeros and ones can get your bones clad in an orange prison jumpsuit. The privacy of your own home shall not remain sufficient cover for certain categories of sticks, stones, sick zeros, and icky ones.
———
Suppose the Feds broke into Guy Fawkes' house on a search warrant and find all the gunpowder stocked in his basement.
Guy Fawkes: I'm just a novelist, for cripes sake!
Justice: Right. You need to stockpile actual gunpowder in your house, in large quantities, to write a novel?
Guy Fawkes: But the realism! The closer I surround myself with the elements of my diabolical plot, the more I really get into the mindset of my traitorous protagonist.
Justice:Well then, consider this a joint trial: you and your "fictional" protagonist on the docket together. How's the realism feeling now?
Guy Fawkes: Perhaps I should have bargained for a larger advance.
Justice: You had a publisher lined up?
Guy Fawkes: Just a figure of speech, your honour; I was, er, planning to self-publish all along.
Privacy is sacrosanct up to a point: try not to get a boner over activities identical to planning a real crime.
———
Scratch a libertarian, uncover a slippery-sloper.
The slippery slope of government overreach just came hard aground on the equally slippery-slope of reputation sabotage.
That's the real story here: all viable solutions now contain a term that reeks of "up to a point"-ism, distilled from the scandalous snot rag of social consensus (yes, most people agree on this point; the quibbles begin when you wade into the finer points about what to actually do about this).
Dumbest idea ever: that there's no way to constitutionally triage government overreach. We can't yet do this in social democracy for much the same reason that African states suffering under the legacy of tinpot dictators in the dark aftermath of colonial excess have a lot of trouble adopting democratic institutions western democracies now take for granted.
If the Central African Republic can some day fully embrace democracy, then Sweden and Britain and Singapore can someday manage to fully embrace government overreach triage. Hard, but doable.
And thus there will eternally remain certain earthbound activities where privacy is no excuse.
———
And then, all the fake incrimination porn will beam down from asteroid-belt outlaws. Meanwhile, Ceres shall overtake the Cayman Islands as the solar system's foremost tax haven.
And then one day the President of China wakes up on a foul mood and mutters (audible, just off camera) "nice asteroid you've got there, shame if something happened to it." A week later, a largish well-developed asteroid mysteriously disintegrates, and practically overnight the deluge of fake incrimination porn