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Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

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Re: Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

#91

Post by cheez »

teraflop wrote: post #63
JimDabell wrote: post #37

It would be interesting to see how far you could get using deepfakes as a method for video call compression. Train a model locally ahead of time and upload it to a server, then whenever you have a call scheduled the model is downloaded in advance by the other participants. Now, instead of having to send video data, you only have to send a representation of the facial movements so that the recipients can render it on…

This is a minor plot point in Vernor Vinge's excellent SF novel A Fire Upon the Deep . One of the premises of the novel's universe is that computational power is generally absurdly plentiful, but communications bandwidth over interstellar distances is not. Most communications are in plain text (modeled after USENET) but in some cases, "evocations" are used to extrapolate video and audio from an ultra-compressed data…

A main premise of the Fear the Sky trilogy as well but solved a different way. Machines representing various political factions from the home planet are uploaded with AI that mimics them emotionally and politically for all intents and purposes. I really enjoyed this book.

Re: Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

#92

Post by [deleted] »

JimDabell wrote: post #37

It would be interesting to see how far you could get using deepfakes as a method for video call compression. Train a model locally ahead of time and upload it to a server, then whenever you have a call scheduled the model is downloaded in advance by the other participants. Now, instead of having to send video data, you only have to send a representation of the facial movements so that the recipients can render it on…

[deleted]

Re: Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

#93

Post by naveen_k »

JimDabell wrote: post #37

It would be interesting to see how far you could get using deepfakes as a method for video call compression. Train a model locally ahead of time and upload it to a server, then whenever you have a call scheduled the model is downloaded in advance by the other participants. Now, instead of having to send video data, you only have to send a representation of the facial movements so that the recipients can render it on…

Pretty cool to see this here, We're essentially building something like this at http://www.stage.chat. Video communications using ultra low bandwidth powered by GANs and NLP.

Re: Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

#94

Post by DFHippie »

101404 wrote: post #73

From the site's text: > and plenty of Americans and Russian's willing to use whatever means necessary to ensure Trump gets re-elected That is not what the Russian attacks are about. In fact, the maker of the site seems to have fallen for the attacks himself. The attacks are about dividing society. Radicalizing people towards the left and right. The "Trump haters" are just the same as the "Trump fanatics". The author,…

Both things can be true. They don't really care for Trump personally, they just want to sow discord, but Trump is a great way to sow discord.

Non-Russian-aligned intelligence agencies were pretty unanimous in their assessment that Putin was trying to get Trump elected and that they troll both extremes of the political spectrum.

Re: Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

#95

Post by peterangular »

ravenstine wrote: post #55
postingawayonhn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think people would use fake pictures on mass. If they wanted to create a profile with pictures that aren't themselves then surely it's easier to just steal someone else's?

Because they already do, to some extent. Now this is my own experience and intuition, but I would say that at least 15% of people's photos on dating apps are doctored in some way. I know some might dispute this, but I've seen enough questionable artifacts in such photos that I believe quite a few of them are artificially flattering. This isn't even including those puppy-face photos. And yes, already there are people…

> These are just my crazy theories, so maybe I'm way off base.

You absolutely are not. From my experience I'd say about 30%+ of the pictures that were posted to OkC 2+ years ago were doctored in some major way (I'm a straight man so this anecdotally only applies to women's pictures).

Using your "own" picture that's doctored is easier to justify for these folks vs. just using someone else's. Also, these people are still going on real-world dates, so if they look like an entirely different person they're taking on more risk vs. using weird Instagram filters.

> I'm not saying that all or even most people would use this technology in dating

I think most wouldn't employ this sort of deceit like you posit, as MOST of people I went on dates with were totally operating in good-faith.

BUT - there will be a huge chunk of people that are happy to do the mental gymnastics to justify posting a fake picture of themselves.. and those people are exhausting.

Protip: NEVER meet up at a bar initially because it's expensive when this happens (AND IT DOES!!!). ALWAYS do an informal coffee. It is easy to keep coffee to a 15-20 minute thing and not get on the hook for at-minimum 2x $15-20 drinks. If you chose a coffee place, do so an hour or so before lunch/dinner in walkable distance to a nice restaurant. This gives you both the opportunity to keep the date going if it's a positive experience =)

Re: Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

#96

Post by mwcampbell »

mwcampbell wrote: post #41
JimDabell wrote: post #37

It would be interesting to see how far you could get using deepfakes as a method for video call compression. Train a model locally ahead of time and upload it to a server, then whenever you have a call scheduled the model is downloaded in advance by the other participants. Now, instead of having to send video data, you only have to send a representation of the facial movements so that the recipients can render it on…

I wonder if the same kind of thing is feasible for someone's voice.

Update: I did some searching and found some interesting demos of a hybrid of neural nets and more conventional DSP called LPCNet:

https://people.xiph.org/~jm/demo/lpcnet_codec/

Sure enough, it was discussed on HN when it came out last year. I think I missed it then.

For those who didn't catch this from the URL, this is by Jean-Marc Valin, of Speex and Opus fame.

Re: Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

#98

Post by rkagerer »

I wanted to play with this, but ran into an error upon starting a Miniconda prompt after a fresh install of Miniconda3 on Win7:

    ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'conda'
It's triggered by this line in conda-script.py:

    from conda.cli import main
Same thing happened when I tried installing Anaconda instead. Any suggestions?

----

EDIT: To get this to work, I had to remove a PYTHONHOME environment variable lingering from an old (but still valid) Python install (see https://github.com/conda/conda/pull/9239), and set CONDA_DLL_SEARCH_MODIFICATION_ENABLE=1 to avoid mkl_intel_thread.dll issues.

Leaving my comment here for anyone else who gets stumped.

Re: Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

#99

Post by dawnerd »

redhale wrote: post #85
dawnerd wrote: post #81

I don’t understand why everything thinks they have to be on video for every single meeting. I never turn on my webcam. It makes no difference to the outcome of the call.

A lot of information can be transmitted through non-verbal communication (e.g. facial expressions). Do you look at the faces of other people on the call with you who do have their cameras turned on? If so, why?

Nope since someone is usually presenting their screen anyways.

Re: Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls

#100

Post by undersuit »

astrobe_ wrote: post #71
blackdogie wrote: post #4

I’m sure we will see more and more of this. One question is when they get so good, how can people figure out that it’s a deep fake or a real human? Will we have captchas for videos soon ? sigh

Ask the person to turn their head left and right. Or to put on glasses. Combine simple tests like this and it becomes exponentially more complex for the gadget to pass them.

Like the Turing Test computational attack from Rick and Morty.

Rick speaking to a crowd of hologram characters: Everyone who's first name starts with an "L" who isn't Hispanic, walk in a circle the same number of times as the square root of your age times ten! - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3333830/

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