Live data from Hacker News

Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

github.com

241–250 of 282 posts

Re: Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

#241
post #78
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When that idea was originated, the advice was more like: "Don't trust what you see on the Internet. Trust instead what you read in a reputable daily newspaper, or Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw on the nightly news, or BBC World News." Today, the Internet, especially the part which is not trustable, has nearly finished killing most of the "trustworthy" news sources, by outcompeting them for ad dollars - by being way bet…

This isn't just ads, trust in the mainstream media, itself, is very low [1], deservedly so in my opinion. The continuous lies by omission, the outright incorrect headlines/articles that they edit after a day, the lock-step messaging, alignment, and avoidance of topics, pushed by their respective political parties/billionaire owners (6 companies own 90% of media [2]), made me switch to more independent journalists. [1…

> switch to more independent journalists.

I have no objection to this -- I follow a few that I would say meet that definition well and which I trust. But boy do I worry that for 90% of the population, this translates to picking a bunch of enthusiastic propagandists whose bias is far worse than MSNBC, Fox News, or CNN ever were. I assume our craven and corrupt political parties will increasingly focus on propping up "independent journalists" who repeat their talking points for them.

Re: Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

#242
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty hard problem to tackle when you can point an "authenticated" camera at a really nice screen and snap a 'definitely real' photo of anything a screen can display :(

There's probably a technical solution, such as the camera manufacturer cryptographically signing a GPS location and timestamp together with the pixels. Like all DRM it will probably be broken though, and more importantly, would anyone (even e.g. a newspaper editor) care enough to verify the signature?

GPS? No problem, they can take their hi-DPI monitor and their secure camera to the sidewalk in front of the White House lawn and play the AI video they made of soldiers shooting protestors.

Re: Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

#243
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough. While I would kind of wish AI could be reliably detected, deep down I know this is impossible and it would be pretty bad if we had, say, a prosecution that succeeded because "this 'provably-non-AI' photo places you at the scene of the crime" because only a few underground people know how to remove a watermark.

I also wonder if being able to prove that an image or video isn’t AI generated would lend credence to it, while in reality there are other methods to produce falsified video.

Well, you just have to convince the jury. The defense attorney will try to throw up all the reasons it could be falsified, but the prosecutor will say "All of that is unlikely - the defense attorney would like you to believe that farfetched story, but this is still a compelling piece of evidence." This is how it always is with any kind of testimony and evidence.

Re: Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

#244
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The watermarking should be on those things we want to verify as something that was not generated or manipulated. Something you'd add to, for instance, cameras. Putting them on the generated/manipulated is backwards as you can never get every model to watermark.

That model is equally bad though. Given that you're writing this in a discussion about gen AI watermarks, how in the world did you come up with the idea that Gen AI wouldn't be able to add a watermark?

Not that they "wouldn't be able".. that they wouldn't do it. For Gen AI watermarks to be useful all Gen AI systems need to add them and the incentives aren't there for that to happen. On the other hand the incentives are there for the non-generated sources to add it so they can differentiate themselves from the Gen AI media.

Re: Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI itself has non-malevolent uses, but this doesn't. It's designed for negative uses. ROT13 decryption does not have the same issues, and is not a good parallel here. Again, we're talking about a specific tool with specific use cases; a general algorithm being able to be used for negative ends is not the same as a tool being designed to be used for negative ends. I also haven't mentioned banning anything; that's all…

what I've been trying to convey to you here with ROT13 analogy is that we're better off knowing that something is broken. ROT13 is a piece of shit, and so is SynthID. whether the author's intentions were noble or malicious is utterly irrelevant.

> we're better off knowing that something is broken

This is not a new insight, and it doesn't add anything to the discussion. It's effectively a platitude.

This project is absolutely not motivated by a wish to inform, and it's disingenuous to prevaricate around that; there are countless ways to inform that don't endorse.

Re: Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

#246
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When could you ever trust pixels?

You and I did whenever we assumed the pixels were an upload of a digitized photo taken with an actual camera of, say, a historical event, or something in nature (e.g. some rare bird), a birthday party, etc. The photo could be staged (e.g. Cottingley Fairies), it could be altered physically (like cutting or painting over, e.g. Stalin), it could be cropped intentionally to tell a different story (plenty of examples), a…

Photoshop is older then the web...

Re: Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what I've been trying to convey to you here with ROT13 analogy is that we're better off knowing that something is broken. ROT13 is a piece of shit, and so is SynthID. whether the author's intentions were noble or malicious is utterly irrelevant.

> we're better off knowing that something is broken This is not a new insight, and it doesn't add anything to the discussion. It's effectively a platitude. This project is absolutely not motivated by a wish to inform, and it's disingenuous to prevaricate around that; there are countless ways to inform that don't endorse.

there is no discussion. your opinion on the matter is irrelevant, same as mine. genai will be misused in every way imaginable, and there's nothing anyone can do about this. no regulations, no laws, nothing will stop it now.

for fuck's sake, Photoshop existed for how many years now? you would be a fool to trust any random photo to be genuine at any point in time. yes, yes, yes, back then only the people who had spent a few days learning it could do it, and now everyone can. that makes no difference whatsoever.

Re: Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

#249
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn’t win because of DRM. They won because of the regulations that grant a monopoly for a specific term in the form of a copyright. Society has recognized that incentivizing creative acts requires a temporary grant of monopoly to ensure the necessary scarcity to make money and recover the costs of creation. The real problem is Disney keeps expanding that time period so things never enter the public domain

This is again conflating at least two things and this is so prevalent in this context. Let us not conflate how annoying DRM:s are to us users that buy the things, with pirates thinking they somehow have a right to use any software without paying fairly for it. I would even go as far as to say that you pirates are the reason I have to have a DRM in the shit I bought and paid for.

I am not sure how I am conflating two things, it would be helpful if you could expand or connect to my argument. Perhaps I am misunderstanding.

My argument is that the grant of monopoly is a regulatory decision and the real cause of "winning". No amount of DRM would confer the same benefit because the ability to bypass it through piracy would be totally legal with no economic or other consequences and so a robust cracking and distribution ecosystem would emerge. Thats a drastically different story than when napster gets shut down, and limewire gets shut down and pirate bay gets shut down every time it relaunches. Imagine a world where there is are 1000 pirate bays

Re: Remove-AI-Watermarks – CLI and library for removing AI watermarks from images

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we're better off knowing that something is broken This is not a new insight, and it doesn't add anything to the discussion. It's effectively a platitude. This project is absolutely not motivated by a wish to inform, and it's disingenuous to prevaricate around that; there are countless ways to inform that don't endorse.

there is no discussion. your opinion on the matter is irrelevant, same as mine. genai will be misused in every way imaginable, and there's nothing anyone can do about this. no regulations, no laws, nothing will stop it now. for fuck's sake, Photoshop existed for how many years now? you would be a fool to trust any random photo to be genuine at any point in time. yes, yes, yes, back then only the people who had spent…

None of that is relevant to the conversation; it is genuinely like you are pasting from a random discussion a decade ago.

We're not talking about Photoshop, because it's not a parallel here. We're not talking about trust in authenticity. These are points you have plucked from the ether. Please reread my earlier comments.

Post reply on HN