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Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

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Re: Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

#161

Post by xiphias2 »

tomarr wrote: post #157
michaelt wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blockchain could provide a timestamp, but it's hard to see how that would help. Every type of video authentication system I've ever heard proposed can be defeated by simply pointing a 'trusted' video camera at a screen playing a fake video.

I suppose you could have 'trusted devices' where upon taking pictures/videos a hash of the file is committed to blockchain. Although a privacy nightmare. This obviously wouldn't solve the 'no fake videos' problem but would least mean 'this video isn't fake' for a select subset. There could be tiers of information in the future where this audited media is weighted higher.

Commiting a timestamping hash is not a privacy nightmare, as you don’t need to reveal the evidence until you need to use it for proving what happened.

Re: Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

#162

Post by undersuit »

lefstathiou wrote: post #20

Part of me feels that the widespread proliferation of deep fakes can potentially be positive. Seeing will no longer be believing and society will be forced to look at things with a more critical and skeptical eye or with a higher level of diligence. Value should also shift back to more legitimate sources. The transition will certainly suck though.

You're spot on. It's going to be hard and difficult.

The complete breakdown in privacy described in 'The Light of Other Worlds' really changed my worldview. I am and will remain to be a proponent of personal privacy, but the world isn't going to respect that. We need to seriously start considering taking back some of our power. Example: UK CCTV footage, that should be public domain. The knowledge of those that access the footage, public domain too. Then include public education about the dangers of performing activities in the public. That someone might use the footage to steal your credit card shouldn't be a reason to hide this data. That someone could stalk another individual through the network isn't an excuse to hand over the data to the government.

Re: Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

#163

Post by undersuit »

netwanderer3 wrote: post #49
lefstathiou wrote: post #20

Part of me feels that the widespread proliferation of deep fakes can potentially be positive. Seeing will no longer be believing and society will be forced to look at things with a more critical and skeptical eye or with a higher level of diligence. Value should also shift back to more legitimate sources. The transition will certainly suck though.

Make-A-Wish Foundation can really benefit from this technology by sending these "heartfelt" deepfake videos of famous celebrities and idols to dying kids, hoping to cheer them up. Is it an ethical thing to do? You be the judge!

Hallmark shares surge on the introduction of the Custom Celebrity Holiday Greetings Digital Card Series.

Re: Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

#164

Post by proverbialbunny »

TimMurnaghan wrote: post #2

It still looks wrong. There's still some of the floating/stuck-on head feeling about it. Or is that just because we already know it's fake from the headline? (... and the way that the flag moves is totally wrong .../s).

If you're not old enough to tell what Nixon was really like, then you don't have that comparison. You wouldn't suspect it was a fake without being told.

However, there are some clear give-a-ways that may or may not stick around, priming at least myself into identifying a deep fake from not: His movements do not line up with the way muscles work in the human body. In a single direction it works, but how he bounces back would cause a lot of neck strain, so no one would do that.

Re: Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

#165

Post by mikevp »

DonHopkins wrote: post #158
Reason077 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could blockchain give us a secure audit trail for digital video clips?

Well blockchain can solve any problem, and everyone working with it is totally reputable and competent, so what could possibly go wrong?

cf. XKCD -- "Bury it in the desert. Wear gloves."

Re: Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

#166

Post by jrockway »

Bartweiss wrote: post #107
jdietrich wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Deepfakes is just a scary new word for what people would call "CGI" or "VFX". "Ryzen 3950x" is just a scary new word for "z80" or "6502". Deepfakes don't provide any fundamentally new capability, but they do reduce the cost and time required to create a convincing fake video by multiple orders of magnitude. That completely changes the threat model, from "our propaganda rival occasionally releases a fake video that…

> Deepfakes don't provide any fundamentally new capability I'm not sure this is entirely true, although your larger point is quite good. People have been faking video since the dawn of video, yes. But for several decades, a clear, high-res video of a specific person has been pretty much inviolate. Faking a steady closeup of a president or famous actress would have been unthinkable - no VFX hoax ever convincingly impe…

> no VFX hoax ever convincingly impersonated Nixon

Because nobody really cares about Nixon. People fake UFO videos because they're clickbait. You can hit and run and make $10,000 on YouTube revenue before someone debunks you.

The reason political campaigns aren't using VFX to make their opponents look bad is because someone would eventually figure it out and the backlash would be immense. Additionally, it's not even necessary. People do fine planting conspiracy theories and taking advantage of people's disinterest in fact checking to say whatever they want, all without investing any effort in video production.

I predict that deepfakes will be nothing but a series of amusing "I can't believe they thought they could get away with that" stories.

Re: Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

#167

Post by eutropia »

larnmar wrote: post #151
eutropia wrote: post #34

We should be less worried about overt propaganda like DeepFakes and more worried about the assumptions baked into the media of all imperialist nations, the misdirection, and the selection of "what" to report on. States have been lying to us since time immemorial, and they don't need fancy video evidence to do it. But this is a cool demo, and since the Genie is out of the bottle, this can be a great tool. You could us…

What is a non-“imperialist” nation, and what makes you think their media is any better? The rest of your comment I agree with, but attributing it to “the media of imperialist nations” instead of just being a property of media organisations in general, is wrong.

I mean states which are ruled democratically rather than by elites. This means that the implicit bias in a democratic media is that of serving the people and exposing truth rather than covering for corpo-fascists and state-sponsered terrorism. There's such a thing as genuinely good reporting and integrity in journalism (even in authoritarian states)- it just needs to also be free of coercion and aware of the frame of reference that it exists in.

Re: Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

#169

Post by larnmar »

eutropia wrote: post #167
larnmar wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a non-“imperialist” nation, and what makes you think their media is any better? The rest of your comment I agree with, but attributing it to “the media of imperialist nations” instead of just being a property of media organisations in general, is wrong.

I mean states which are ruled democratically rather than by elites. This means that the implicit bias in a democratic media is that of serving the people and exposing truth rather than covering for corpo-fascists and state-sponsered terrorism. There's such a thing as genuinely good reporting and integrity in journalism (even in authoritarian states)- it just needs to also be free of coercion and aware of the frame of…

I was fourteen once too, kid.

I know the world looks simple when you’re out there forming your very first political opinions, but it’s really not. The world isn’t some simple struggle between good guys and bad guys, it’s an incomprehensibly complicated overlap between lots of people acting in response to various incentives that they themselves don’t understand.

I recommend keeping your mind open and your mouth shut as you learn a bit more about how the real world works; hopefully before you’re old enough to vote.

Re: Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life

#170

Post by friendlybus »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #164
TimMurnaghan wrote: post #2

It still looks wrong. There's still some of the floating/stuck-on head feeling about it. Or is that just because we already know it's fake from the headline? (... and the way that the flag moves is totally wrong .../s).

If you're not old enough to tell what Nixon was really like, then you don't have that comparison. You wouldn't suspect it was a fake without being told. However, there are some clear give-a-ways that may or may not stick around, priming at least myself into identifying a deep fake from not: His movements do not line up with the way muscles work in the human body. In a single direction it works, but how he bounces bac…

Yeah the acting is off. The mouth doesn't seem to carry the same gravitas and tension that his eyes do.

Also there's a line across his cheek in the closeup and the bottom left hand corner of the mouth fades into a blurry mess once or twice. The deepfake look generates blurry results for blending.

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