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People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

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Re: People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also depends on the court in question. Ie in my recent criminal Jury experience; if i were to pretend deepfakes were used then it wouldn't be on the prosecution to prove that the video is without a doubt real, but rather that a "reasonable person" would believe that the video is real. Which is quite open to interpretation. For a Jury i think it would come down to how convincingly the defense argued that the video…

I think the reasonable person standard is used for evaluating whether someone's behavior is okay. Like, if you tased someone because they were suspicious, the question would be whether a reasonable person would conclude they were suspicious based on what they did. I think you're thinking of reasonable doubt?

Yeah, reasonable doubt applies in "well maybe aliens completely replaced the body and mind of this person before he did this thing recorded on fifteen different phones."

Arguing that a video randomly was deepfaked would go a lot further if you could show other evidence that such was happening.

Re: People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like the main point - it's not that court won't accept a deepfake defense, but you would have to prove that it was faked, just like any other convincing evidence

Doesn't this also mean that a deepfake presented as evidence of crime makes you guilty until proven innocent?

> Doesn't this also mean that a deepfake presented as evidence of crime makes you guilty until proven innocent?

It means the same thing that's always been true remains true. If a prosecutor (or one side in a civil case) presents fake evidence that is convincing to the court, the other side will have to prove the evidence to have been faked. Adding machine learning to the equation and calling the fakes "deep" doesn't change that basic reality.

Consider everyone who has ever had drugs/weapons planted on them by the cops. As a society we assume most of the people claiming it happened are lying, but some of them are telling the truth and some of that subset actually manage to prove it (usually because the cops managed to record themselves doing it). If the authority figures trusted by the courts intentionally present false evidence then you are stuck not having to prove your innocence but having to prove the evidence to be false or at least untrustworthy.

Re: People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring expert witnesses is what lawyers do when it comes to anything remotely specialized. Deepfakes are nothing new in this regards.

The new thing is that fakes that could convince an ordinary person that they're real were in the realm of state intelligence agencies, and now they're in the realm of anyone with a computer. Which causes the probability that a given video is fake to go from negligible to significant. It's also not clear if experts always can tell if something is a fake or not, if it was created by an algorithm which is less than a ye…

On topic though, this doesn't make "It could be fake," a reasonable defense. Sure, the surface area will get larger, but we have that problem across all digital media at this moment. Deepfakes are no longer unique.

The courts will have to deal with it one way or another, and right now expert witnesses is the tool they have, and the tool defendants will need to use.

Re: People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's trying to get out of having to make any definitive statement about if it's a real video or not. How do you propose to prove if he actually remembers or not? > It's doubtful Musk would be willing to claim this one was fake - there are a lot of witnesses that could be dug up. But then the prosecution doesn't need the video because they would have all of these witness, so why should it be admissible if it can't b…

> How do you propose to prove if he actually remembers or not? He doesn't have to remember it for it to be good evidence. If he wants to say "I don't think I would've said that", go for it. > But then the prosecution doesn't need the video because they would have all of these witness, so why should it be admissible if it can't be authenticated? The video is perfectly good evidence (and its age and provenance make it…

> He doesn't have to remember it for it to be good evidence.

He doesn't have to remember it for it to be bad evidence either.

> If he wants to say "I don't think I would've said that", go for it.

But then what are you trying to hold him to? A subjective opinion?

> The video is perfectly good evidence (and its age and provenance make it pretty reputable). If the defense contests its veracity, that's when you start going to witnesses.

The defense will always contest its veracity if the burden is on the prosecution to prove it and they haven't. The point is that they should have to prove it.

Sometimes they'll be able to.

Re: People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like the main point - it's not that court won't accept a deepfake defense, but you would have to prove that it was faked, just like any other convincing evidence

Isn't this backwards in criminal court? Wouldn't the onus be on the prosecution to prove that the video was real? This sounds ridiculous since we lived most of our lives in the video-is-real era that has sort of been coming to an end. I recall the Kyle Rittenhouse trial had an interesting take on this where the defense asked to throw out upscaled video which contrary to every police procedural TV show is a lot like j…

I'm surprised that old emails count as evidence. An email file is just text - text that anyone can write/edit/fake.

Re: People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are informative links. Sure. But that doesn't mean they have to prove it wasn't manufactured by martians 50 million years ago just because the other side brought up that possibility just to bring the piece of evidence in to the trial.

Exactly, the standard is "reasonable doubt", not "any harebrained possibility whatsoever".

I complement you for spelling "harebrained" correctly.

Re: People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

#138
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, just that you can't hand wave away all video evidence by saying "deepfake". It's no more "guilty until proven innocent" than a signed confession means you're guilty unless you prove it fake; that's the whole point of a trial.0

It also depends on the court in question. Ie in my recent criminal Jury experience; if i were to pretend deepfakes were used then it wouldn't be on the prosecution to prove that the video is without a doubt real, but rather that a "reasonable person" would believe that the video is real. Which is quite open to interpretation. For a Jury i think it would come down to how convincingly the defense argued that the video…

The jury is supposed to make all the decisions with respect to weighing evidence once it’s admitted. The standard for admitting evidence is very low if it can be authenticated, and it’s basically “is it relevant and does it have an impact on the questions the jury will be asked to ultimately come to a conclusion on without unduly prejudicing the jury in some way.” The jury’s decision must meet the standard of liability (more likely than not, clear and convincing, no reasonable doubt, etc.)

So it’s entirely possible for a ton of evidence to come in that none of it meets what you’d consider the “no reasonable doubt” standard and for a jury to consider all that suspicious evidence to be true enough that they can convict someone under the “no reasonable doubt” standard.

Re: People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new thing is that fakes that could convince an ordinary person that they're real were in the realm of state intelligence agencies, and now they're in the realm of anyone with a computer. Which causes the probability that a given video is fake to go from negligible to significant. It's also not clear if experts always can tell if something is a fake or not, if it was created by an algorithm which is less than a ye…

On topic though, this doesn't make "It could be fake," a reasonable defense. Sure, the surface area will get larger, but we have that problem across all digital media at this moment. Deepfakes are no longer unique. The courts will have to deal with it one way or another, and right now expert witnesses is the tool they have, and the tool defendants will need to use.

> On topic though, this doesn't make "It could be fake," a reasonable defense.

Why not?

If you go into court claiming you have a contract with someone but you have nothing notarized or even signed, you're the one who has to provide evidence of your claim. A video is no longer sufficient to do that because any plaintiff or internet troll now has the ability to convincingly fabricate one. It's no more proof of anything than the plaintiff making an unsubstantiated claim.

> The courts will have to deal with it one way or another, and right now expert witnesses is the tool they have, and the tool defendants will need to use.

Why should it be the defendants who have to pay for the expert instead of the plaintiffs?

Re: People are trying to claim real videos are deepfakes

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you propose to prove if he actually remembers or not? He doesn't have to remember it for it to be good evidence. If he wants to say "I don't think I would've said that", go for it. > But then the prosecution doesn't need the video because they would have all of these witness, so why should it be admissible if it can't be authenticated? The video is perfectly good evidence (and its age and provenance make it…

> He doesn't have to remember it for it to be good evidence. He doesn't have to remember it for it to be bad evidence either. > If he wants to say "I don't think I would've said that", go for it. But then what are you trying to hold him to? A subjective opinion? > The video is perfectly good evidence (and its age and provenance make it pretty reputable). If the defense contests its veracity, that's when you start goi…

> But then what are you trying to hold him to? A subjective opinion?

He needs to make a claim about the evidence in question if he thinks it's fake. (He doesn't. He knows it's a genuine video.) Again, a vague assertion that "sometimes people make deepfakes about me" doesn't cut it.

> The defense will always contest its veracity if the burden is on the prosecution to prove it and they haven't.

The defense is highly unlikely to make the claim that a seven year old video on a prominent channel with top industry reporters didn't happen. Plenty of pieces of evidence get entered into the court's records without being contested.

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