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The US Military is Funding an Effort To Catch Deepfakes and Other AI Trickery (technologyreview.com)
The Department of Defense is funding a project that will try to determine whether the increasingly real-looking fake video and audio generated by artificial intelligence might soon be impossible to distinguish from the real thing -- even for another AI system. From a report: This summer, under a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the world's leading digital forensics experts will gather for an AI fakery contest. They will compete to generate the most convincing AI-generated fake video, imagery, and audio -- and they will also try to develop tools that can catch these counterfeits automatically. The contest will include so-called "deepfakes," videos in which one person's face is stitched onto another person's body.
Rather predictably, the technology has already been used to generate a number of counterfeit celebrity porn videos. But the method could also be used to create a clip of a politician saying or doing something outrageous. DARPA's technologists are especially concerned about a relatively new AI technique that could make AI fakery almost impossible to spot automatically. Using what are known as generative adversarial networks, or GANs, it is possible to generate stunningly realistic artificial imagery.
Rather predictably, the technology has already been used to generate a number of counterfeit celebrity porn videos. But the method could also be used to create a clip of a politician saying or doing something outrageous. DARPA's technologists are especially concerned about a relatively new AI technique that could make AI fakery almost impossible to spot automatically. Using what are known as generative adversarial networks, or GANs, it is possible to generate stunningly realistic artificial imagery.
No need to fake it. Our citizenry expect it, because the United States is turning into a full blown Idiocracy, and both the left and right are bring drawn into it, compelled by moronic (but good sounding to one group of people) views.
P.s. the whole point of the GAN paradigm is that it can produce more convincing fakes by first improving the algorithm that detects fakes and then splicing the improved version into the system.
You think it'll be acceptable when kids can make and share real-looking videos of their teachers getting plowed by Ron Jeremy?
Supports deep fakes.
She said so this morning at a Disney press conference.
How about -- in 10 years time nobody will be able to believe anything they read, hear, or see, at which point democracy becomes unworkable. As Jefferson famously said, a properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate -- but it's nearly impossible for anyone to be well-informed when every valid piece of information is competing with a cloud of equally-plausible forgeries, and even people operating in good faith can no longer discern what is or isn't real.
We are already seeing this occurring, with segments of society breaking off into their own enclosed media-bubbles, the walls of which become increasingly impermeable to inconvenient facts or reasoning, as any evidence that would traditionally cause them to adjust their worldview now simply gets dismissed as 'fake'. I see no reason to think it won't get worse over time.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Creating or sharing photo-realistic AI generated porn should be sexual assault.
I prefer that we leave the definition of sexual assault alone.
In a rape joke culture, it's already hard enough to get actual sexual assault (i.e.: a physical assault with a sexual intent) taken seriously.
We don't need something that isn't a physical assault masquerading as a sexual assault, giving people the idea that sexual assault isn't serious.
Picture this: A few days before the election, a new video has "Candidate A" speaking at a satanist convention, disparaging the flag, mom, and apple pie. Totally fake, but how can Candidate A fight back?
Too obviously and explicitly fake. The best way to do it is something small and subtle, enough to simply cause confusion that, if released a week or so before the election, is fresh enough in everyone's mid to sway independents and undecideds to your preferred candidate. Maybe the candidate doing/talking about doing drugs, or domestic violence, sexual assault, taking bribes, etc. Something that isn't huge but would take a while to investigate and repudiate. No amount of fake video will sway partisans on either side, but it doesn't take much to give those in the middle a little nudge.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The solution is simple: A well-informed electorate.
Okay, but that's begging the question -- how do you gain (or maintain) a well-informed electorate when the forgeries have become so realistic that distinguishing between a forgery and an authentic piece of information takes more skill than most people possess? Simply demanding that people become exponentially smarter isn't going to make them so, no matter how severely we chastise them.
Usually when people realize they don't have the skill to make a reliable determination about something for themselves, they look to a knowledgeable expert (or at least, a trustworthy authority figure) to help them make the right determination... but here again we now run into the same problem -- who is actually a valid expert or a trustworthy authority figure, and who is faking it? And even if the person in question is valid and trustworthy, how does the average person verify that what they are hearing that person say are things that person actually said, and not clever forgeries designed to mislead people?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
how does the average person verify that what they are hearing that person say are things that person actually said, and not clever forgeries designed to mislead people?
A public key signature by the person doing the talking ?
Go read up on the Spanish-American War, the Opening of Japan, Native American/German-American/Japanese-American Internment, etc. The frothing masses have always been fed whatever narrative makes them back the currently desired course of action since the founding of this 'fair country'. If you go back further you can find the same action going on all over the world, only overshadowed by rebellions when the narrative was disrupted by facts on the ground, usually resource shortages or labor abuses so prevalent that word of them got around the propaganda and everyone knew someone who could verify it with boots/letters from the ground.
The news/internet of today is no different. The only way to divest yourself of the propaganda is to have a network of trusted individuals, some of whom are in the affected regions who can report on what is actually going on there, just like has always been true. If you or someone you know has not met them in person and spent time with them, they are just as unreliable as the news or a reporter.
You really need to get some perspective.
How is making a (technically sophisticated) even in the same league as attacking someone?
What about people who happen to look like famous people? Are they banned from making porn? Twins?
Get a grip. If you are so fragile that you can't live with the idea of someone using your image in ways you don't like, you clearly have few actual problems to complain about.
People near you are being attacked, starving and dying of preventable diseases. Your imaginary problems are not worth the electrons I am using to debate them.
More interesting implication of this, is that now you could get away with actually speaking at a satanist convention, disparaging the flag, mom, and apple pie. Because you could just claim it is fake news.