Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit • Hacker News Board

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#61

Post by biophysboy » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

yes_man wrote: post #16

The problem will increasingly be "whose algorithm do we believe". Internet has revealed that people believe mostly what they want to. We have seen that a large subset of people are believing Bill Gates is behind the pandemic. Why would masses somehow be more rational in picking the most rigorous and objective neural network to recognize deepfakes, than they are in making sense of the world in general? In the end we w…

This is absolutely right. I've become frustrated with people trying to fight misinformation by just telling anonymous strangers "facts". Algorithms are not going to help win the argument. There are a lot of people who hate those who they perceive to be "elite technocrats". And its not completely unwarranted!

Its a really tricky challenge. The "steady state" of conversations online is mutual distrust. Unless we handle this underlying issue, clever algorithms like this will be ignored.

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#62

Post by mooneater » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

adfhnionio wrote: post #43

I find all this concern a little bit overblown. Yes, it is a problem that we can make extremely convincing fakes, but we've had fakes that can fool non-experts for a very long time. The Soviet Union doctored a great many photographs in a way invisible to me (examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_So... ). Why are we more concerned about this fakery than about airbrushing? The solution is…

Because good fake video is now possible for the first time, good video was nearly impossible to fake. Because people believe certain leaders who are willing to use false evidence. Because the populace is not prepared to be that discerning.

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#63

Post by slg » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 5:02 PM UTC

biophysboy wrote: post #61

yes_man wrote: post #16

The problem will increasingly be "whose algorithm do we believe". Internet has revealed that people believe mostly what they want to. We have seen that a large subset of people are believing Bill Gates is behind the pandemic. Why would masses somehow be more rational in picking the most rigorous and objective neural network to recognize deepfakes, than they are in making sense of the world in general? In the end we w…

This is absolutely right. I've become frustrated with people trying to fight misinformation by just telling anonymous strangers "facts". Algorithms are not going to help win the argument. There are a lot of people who hate those who they perceive to be "elite technocrats". And its not completely unwarranted! Its a really tricky challenge. The "steady state" of conversations online is mutual distrust. Unless we handle…

I'm reminded of the Jonathan Swift quote:

>Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired

The problem that specifically deepfakes and generally fake news highlights is that the general public does not have the aptitude, knowledge, time, or motivation to be a true arbiter of facts. We have traditionally outsourced that role to journalists. As a society we have lost faith in journalistic institutions so the onus is now back on the individual. We need a way to offload that truth-finding responsibility back onto a third party that can be trusted. Any system which requires more aptitude, knowledge, time, or motivation from the general public is unlikely to work because lacking those is exactly what got us into this mess.

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#64

Post by vlovich123 » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #37

xiphias2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't digital signatures the best solution we have for this problem? Commercial entities want to have the priviledge of being able to modify the content submitted by content creators, but the culture of trusting i.e. Twitter over client verification needs to change.

Digital signatures would only match of the contents match bit for bit. This means that you can't recompress/remux/resize the video. This will probably provide a very poor ux for mobile or other bandwidth limited users. Also, if the video was used as part of another video (eg. TV broadcast), you'd either have to splice the digitally signed video into your existing stream (not modifying the bits at all), or provide the…

Why can't you have digital signatures of the original and have an ML model that can evaluate whether or not it matches? You could run a cloud service to host the signed originals and continuously update the model.

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#65

Post by biophysboy » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #63

biophysboy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely right. I've become frustrated with people trying to fight misinformation by just telling anonymous strangers "facts". Algorithms are not going to help win the argument. There are a lot of people who hate those who they perceive to be "elite technocrats". And its not completely unwarranted! Its a really tricky challenge. The "steady state" of conversations online is mutual distrust. Unless we handle…

I'm reminded of the Jonathan Swift quote: >Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired The problem that specifically deepfakes and generally fake news highlights is that the general public does not have the aptitude, knowledge, time, or motivation to be a true arbiter of facts. We have traditionally outsourced that role to journalists. As a society we have lost faith i…

The key part of your sentence being "a third party that can be trusted."

A trustworthy third party is NOT the group that is "the most smart". People trust locals that they relate to. If we are going to offload responsibility, I personally think it needs to be in the old fashioned democratic pluralism style that we had half a century ago. Local leaders know the people in the area better, and they have the time and motivation to hear the interests of more people.

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#66

Post by ben_w » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

dvtrn wrote: post #53

ben_w wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need something, but Fair Witnesses seem both exploitable and unachievable given the way human memories work.

“Expert witnesses” then?

“Expert” is a misused term, much like “exponential”.

I see the value of the press as being as much of an intelligence agency as the combined CIA, NSA, and FBI, but serving the electorate and investigating all those with power — politicians, police, military, religious, business, and so on — so that the electorate can make informed decisions.

I don’t know how to get there from here. Heck, I don’t even know if we’ve ever really been there, or if the press has always been comfortably manipulated by those with power.

But yeah, I assume genuine experts are part of the solution.

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#67

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #32

pornel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing a sarcasm mark. But seriously: at best it's going to be a big "maybe, it depends". These services bounce between PR disasters of "complicit purveyors of propaganda" and "oppressive algorithms destroying free speech", so you can't rely on them to be on either side. As deepfakes get better, the algorithms will have worse detection rate, so it'll end with Zuck testifying to congress that Facebook doesn't…

> You're missing a sarcasm mark. I don’t see any sarcasm there.

[deleted]

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#68

Post by Ijumfs » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

The deepfakes which support the officially blessed narrative will not receive scrutiny, while authentic videos will be "proved" to be deep fakes by some black box machination.

But we've known not to trust anything we didn't personally see ourselves for many decades.

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#69

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #38

korla wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the technology is too hard to understand for the masses it's unlikely to provide much resistance to desinformation campaigns.

The technology isn't hard to understand, but even if it were so what? How many people who watch a streaming video know... anything at all about how that content is delivered, at all, at any layer. The problem is, as OP noted, the existing gate keeps profit from being able to manipulate us, so convincing them to deliver signed content is extraordinarily unlikely.

[deleted]

Re: Stopping deepfake news with an AI algorithm that can tell when a face doesnt fit

#70

Post by tomxor » Sun, Aug 09, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

puranjay wrote: post #58

travisoneill1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I trust Google and FB, and I would like them to decide what is true or not for me instead of deciding myself"

Amazes me how people are okay with giving these massive corporations so much power and control over our lives - voluntarily. Most would be rightfully horrified if Walmart or Citibank was to decide what you get to watch or not tomorrow. But somehow, if Alphabet or Apple does it, it's all okay. The tech world in general needs to wake up about the overreaching power and influence tech companies have on our lives.

I can only imagine it's because what seems obvious to us is really not noticeable to 99% of people.

You have to remember we are in a little bubble of our own for better or worse, most of HN readers principles are generally aligned against this kind of centralisation and we highlight and amplify anything we see that matches; I'm guessing your average FB user is more focused on the value proposition of these services they are consuming and wont give the corporations behind them much of a thought until it hits big news.