'Deep fakes': How to know what's true in the fake-Obama video era

guest · Oct 11, 2019

These deepfake celebrity impressions are equally amazing and alarming
An actor used deepfake tech to convincingly mimic 20 celebrities
October 11, 2019
https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/11/deepfake-celebrity-impresonations/

Actor Jim Meskimen partnered with deepfake artist Sham00k to make his celebrity impressions a little more realistic. Meskimen and Sham00k shared the results in a YouTube video, and honestly, they're pretty remarkable.
The video speaks to Meskimen's talent as an impressionist but also to the capability of deepfake software. It proves how well the tech is able to blur the line between what's real and what isn't. Though, it still takes a ton of work.

According to Sham00k, the full video took just over 250 hours of work, 1,200 hours of footage, 300,000 images and close to one terabyte of data to create.
While everyone is up in arms over fake news, deepfakes are developing as the next frontier.
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Victek · Oct 12, 2019

mood said: ↑

These deepfake celebrity impressions are equally amazing and alarming
An actor used deepfake tech to convincingly mimic 20 celebrities
Click to expand...

Yes, this is a good one. Here's the same video on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rPKeUXjEvE

guest · Oct 15, 2019

A Deepfake Deep Dive into the Murky World of Digital Imitation
October 15, 2019
https://threatpost.com/a-deepfake-deep-dive-into-the-murky-world-of-digital-imitation/149131/

About a year ago, top deepfake artist Hao Li came to a disturbing realization: Deepfakes, i.e. the technique of human-image synthesis based on artificial intelligence (AI) to create fake content, is rapidly evolving. In fact, Li believes that in as soon as six months, deepfake videos will be completely undetectable. And that’s spurring security and privacy concerns as the AI behind the technology becomes commercialized – and gets in the hands of malicious actors.

But now, “I believe it will soon be a point where it isn’t possible to detect if videos are fake or not,” Li told Threatpost. “We started having serious conversations in the research space about how to address this and discuss the ethics around deepfake and the consequences.”
[...]
But despite these efforts, deepfake prevention efforts at this point are still reactive rather than proactive, meaning that once the bad deepfakes are live, the damage will still be done, according to Kothanath. Until that issue can be fixed, he said, the extent of damage that a deepfake can cause remains to be seen.
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guest · Oct 22, 2019

Amazon joins Facebook and Microsoft to fight deepfakes
October 22, 2019
https://thenextweb.com/artificial-i...ns-facebook-and-microsoft-to-fight-deepfakes/

Deepfakes have come across as serious problems this year and big companies are now paying attention. Amazon announced today it’s joining the DeepFake Detection challenge (DFDC) driven by major corporations such as Facebook and Microsoft to boost efforts to identify manipulated content.

The company is going to contribute $1 million in AWS credits over the next two years to researchers.
Amazon said researchers have to apply for a grant of a minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $10,000. It’ll also help researchers with experts from the Amazon Machine Learning solutions lab to get started.
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guest · Oct 31, 2019

DeepFakes: When seeing isn’t believing
Is the world as we know it ready for the real impact of deepfakes?
October 31, 2019
https://www.welivesecurity.com/2019/10/31/deepfakes-seeing-isnt-believing/

Deepfakes are rapidly becoming easier and quicker to create and they’re opening a door into a new form of cybercrime. Although the fake videos are still mostly seen as relatively harmful or even humorous, this craze could take a more sinister turn in the future and be at the heart of political scandals, cybercrime, or even unimaginable scenarios involving fake videos – and not just targeting public figures.

We have also seen apps making deepnudes turning photos of any clothed person into a topless photo in seconds.
There is also evidence that the production of these videos is becoming a lucrative business especially in the pornography industry
Furthermore, cybercriminals will definitely use this technology more to spearphish victims. Deepfakes keep getting cheaper to create and become near-impossible to detect with the human eye alone.

Finally, social media platforms need to realize there is a huge potential threat with the impact of deepfakes because when you mix a shocking video with social media, the outcome tends to spread very rapidly and potentially could have a detrimental impact on society.
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guest · Nov 6, 2019

Adobe's About Face AI can identify if a photo was altered
November 6, 2019
https://www.techspot.com/news/82667-adobe-about-face-ai-can-identify-if-photo.html

Working with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Adobe has created a tool that uses its signature Sensei AI to detect if and how a photo has been altered. The company claims that it is twice as accurate at detecting manipulation as humans.
Codenamed “Project About Face” because it focuses on facial images, the machine learning algorithms examine a photo pixel-by-pixel and generate a heat map showing which ones have been altered.

Adobe’s technology could be used to identify and expose such fakery. However, there is one downside preventing that use.
About Face only works on images that have been made with Adobe Photoshop.
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guest · Nov 12, 2019

Twitter is asking for your help in the battle against deepfakes
Social media platforms are racing to fight the spread of fake content
November 12, 2019
https://www.zdnet.com/article/twitter-is-asking-for-your-help-in-the-battle-against-deepfakes/

"Help us", started Twitter's VP of trust and safety Del Harvey, as she announced that the social media has come up with a new draft policy to tackle the spread of deepfakes on its platform.
The company is urging Twitter users to provide some feedback on the new strategy, which will then be reviewed and adjusted, before being added to the Twitter Rules.

The new policy would let Twitter include a label next to tweets sharing what it has identified as manipulated content. The platform would also warn users before they share or like tweets that contain such labelled media, and provide links to sources explaining why they believe the media is fabricated.

"We want to hear from you," Harvey continued, calling for Twitter users to complete a survey about the new policy.
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guest · Nov 18, 2019

Scarily good deepfake alert
November 18, 2019
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/18/ai_roundup_151119/

Speaking of deepfakes, here’s a creepy video of a roundtable discussion featuring top Hollywood actors and directors discussing the future of cinema with streaming services.

The conversation between Robert Downey, Jr. , George Lucas , Tom Cruise, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Goldblum. But there’s a catch, the whole thing - apart from the moderator Mark Ellis - has been faked.
The mouth movements match up to the speech, their facial expressions look pretty realistic, and it’s frankly terrifying.
You can see it for yourself below.
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Victek · Nov 19, 2019

mood said: ↑

Scarily good deepfake alert
November 18, 2019
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/18/ai_roundup_151119/
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I agree with you that it's creepy, but there's still a ways to go before the tech will be believable; I don't find this video very convincing.

guest · Nov 29, 2019

China makes it a criminal offense to publish deepfakes or fake news without disclosure
Mirroring new California law on political ads
November 29, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/29...et-rules-fake-news-disclosure-virtual-reality

China has released a new government policy designed to prevent the spread of fake news and misleading videos created using artificial intelligence, otherwise known as deepfakes. The new rule, reported earlier today by Reuters, bans the publishing of false information or deepfakes online without proper disclosure that the post in question was created with AI or VR technology. Failure to disclose this is now a criminal offense, the Chinese government says.

The rules go into effect on January 1st, 2020, and will be enforced by the Cyberspace Administration of China.

“With the adoption of new technologies, such as deepfake, in online video and audio industries, there have been risks in using such content to disrupt social order and violate people’s interests, creating political risks and bringing a negative impact to national security and social stability,” the CAC said in a notice to online video hosting websites on Friday, according to the South China Morning Post.
China’s stance is a broad one, and it appears the Chinese government is reserving the right to prosecute both users and image and video hosting services for failing to abide by the rules.
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LockBox · Nov 29, 2019

Now, this is truly scary. How will be able to determine reality?
From MIT:
Nixon Announcing Death Of Apollo 11 Astronauts

This was actually written in case of disaster with the moon mission.
MIT creates, 50 years later, a video of Nixon delivering the eulogy.
This is only the beginning and end — the entire speech is being released to documentary film festivals. It’s MIT’s warning about deep fakes. Wow.

Burgund says he hopes viewers of “In Event of Moon Disaster" come away with an appreciation for the power that deepfake videos can hold and also an awareness for how they can be used to form false narratives.

"We are trying to communicate that deepfakes are kind of a continuation --or an extension, if you will — of a continuum of misinformation that we all should be aware of and should have our ears tuned to, if we can," Burgund says.

guest · Dec 7, 2019

Deepfake Porn Is Evolving to Give People Total Control Over Women's Bodies
People are creating a new kind of nonconsensual pornography by combining deepfakes with 3D avatars
December 6, 2019
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...-give-people-total-control-over-womens-bodies

A lineup of female celebrities stand in front of you. Their faces move, smile, and blink as you move around them. They're fully nude, hairless, waiting for you to decide what you'll do to them as you peruse a menu of sex positions.
This new type of nonconsensual porn uses custom 3D models that can be articulated and animated, which are then made to look exactly like specific celebrities with deepfaked faces.

Until recently, deepfake porn consisted of taking the face of a person—usually a celebrity, almost always a woman—and swapping it on to the face of an adult performer in an existing porn video. With this method, a user can make a 3D avatar with a generic face, capture footage of it performing any kind of sexual act, then run that video through an algorithm that swaps the generic face with a real person's.

The results are surreal.
"I feel like this was one of the creepiest deepfake videos I've seen," one user commented on the video. "It looked like you had the actresses trapped inside paralysed bodies where all they could move was their eyes."
When we asked the creator about the ethical implications of creating a fake pornographic video of someone without their consent, they suggested it wasn't a problem "Because deepfakes are as the name suggests fake, not real."
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guest · Dec 17, 2019

Reuters, Facebook Journalism Project Create E-Learning Course on Deepfakes
The multimedia publisher and the social network take aim at manipulated media
December 17, 2019
https://www.adweek.com/digital/reut...roject-create-e-learning-course-on-deepfakes/

Multimedia news publisher Reuters teamed up with the Facebook Journalism Project on an e-learning course aimed at helping newsrooms more easily detect deepfakes and manipulated media.

Identifying and Tackling Manipulated Media contains tips on identifying and rejecting manipulated video, images and audio to help curb the spread of misinformation.
The course uses real-world examples, hypothetical cases and insights into the evolving technology that is used to create and detect manipulated media.

Reuters said in a release, “The spread of inaccurate and misleading information is a significant and growing global problem. [...] Staged events, recycled video, deceptive editing, tampering and the recent rise of artificial-intelligence-driven deepfake videos all pose a fundamental threat to an informed democracy.”
Julia Bain, global strategic initiatives lead for news partnerships at Facebook, added, “We need to work across industries to better identify and address manipulated media. Partnering with Reuters to launch this free e-learning course is an important step to help journalists spot this type of content so that we can stop the spread of misinformation online,”
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guest · Dec 31, 2019

The problem with deepfakes? People don't care what's real
December 31, 2019
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/deepfakes-reality-fiction

I explained that deepfakes are videos which use technology to make a person appear to say or do something that they didn’t say or do.
He was not particularly fazed by this and went on to imagine things that he might get a fake President Trump to say. I found that alarming. In 2020, children will have to be taught new digital skills around trust.

But the reason why deepfakes are more concerning is not the technical sophistication per se – it is the human factor. People see what they want to see or believe. Our desirability bias means we tend to believe first, then look for things that support those beliefs.
My worry is whether, amidst a constant stream of misinformation, he will care about figuring out what's real. The danger is that we will regard almost all information as untrustworthy, a state of mind that Aviv Ovadya, a media researcher and founder of the Thoughtful Technology Project, calls "reality apathy".
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In 2020, we will find ourselves in a cat and mouse game of deception and detection, and we will need to teach our children and ourselves how to separate the factual from the fake – and to care about doing so.
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Victek · Jan 1, 2020

mood said: ↑

The problem with deepfakes? People don't care what's real
December 31, 2019
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/deepfakes-reality-fiction
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Yes, the crazy thing is many people are already believing things that are demonstrably false. Improving the ability to detect faked information won't make any difference to them.

guest · Jan 3, 2020

ByteDance & TikTok have secretly built a Deepfakes maker
January 3, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/03/tiktok-deepfakes-face-swap/

TikTok parent company ByteDance has teamed up with one of the most controversial apps to let you insert your face into videos starring someone else.
TechCrunch has learned that ByteDance has developed an unreleased feature using life-like Deepfakes technology that the app’s code refers to as Face Swap. Code in both TikTok and its Chinese sister app Douyin asks users to take a multi-angle biometric scan of their face, then choose from a selection of videos they want to add their face to and share.

The Deepfakes feature, if launched in Douyin and TikTok, could create a more controlled environment where face swapping technology plus a limited selection of source videos can be used for fun instead of spreading misinformation. It might also raise awareness of the technology so more people are aware that they shouldn’t believe everything they see online.

“These deepfake apps might seem like fun on the surface, but they should not be allowed to become trojan horses, compromising IP rights and personal data, especially personal data from minors who are overwhelmingly the heaviest users of TikTok to date.”
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guest · Jan 7, 2020

Facebook's new policy bans deepfakes from the platform
The new policy doesn't apply to all edited videos
January 7, 2020
https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/07/facebook-deepfake-rules/

Facebook has introduced a new set of rules that bans deepfakes on the platform. The policy specifically targets videos edited using artificial intelligence or machine learning to make them look authentic and to the point that average users can't easily determine that they're not real.

According to an earlier report by The Washington Post, Facebook is rolling out the rules ahead of the 2020 presidential elections to help prevent the spread of disinformation on the platform. As the publication notes, though, they won't actually get rid of all fake videos on the social network, such as the infamous 'drunk Nancy Pelosi' video.

"If we simply removed all manipulated videos flagged by fact-checkers as false, the videos would still be available elsewhere on the internet or social media ecosystem. By leaving them up and labelling them as false, we're providing people with important information and context," its announcement reads.
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Facebook: Enforcing Against Manipulated Media

guest · Jan 8, 2020

Facebook’s deepfakes ban has some obvious workarounds
January 8, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/interface/...fakes-ban-loopholes-parody-satire-cheap-fakes

Still, some doubts lingered. Nina Jankowicz, who has a book coming out this year on Russian disinformation operations, said she is “still more worried about cheap fakes than deep fakes. Crudely edited, deliberately misleading videos and images are still effective, and they’re still allowed on most platforms.”

There’s one last workaround to Facebook’s new rule: comedy. For good reason, Facebook permits people to post satire and parody. Unfortunately, this rule is often exploited by fake-news purveyors and other sites adept at straddling the line between comedy and misinformation.
Surely some of the people who shared the article knew that the Babylon Bee is a satirical site. But read the comments in the original Facebook post and you’ll see that just as many seem to believe the article is real.

Joe Biden’s campaign struck a similar note: “Facebook’s policy does not get to the core issue of how their platform is being used to spread disinformation, but rather how professionally that disinformation is created.”
Still, Monday’s action doesn’t preclude the company from addressing some of these nuances down the road.
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TheVerge: Facebook’s deepfake ban isn’t winning over critics

guest · Jan 15, 2020

Facebook’s problems moderating deepfakes will only get worse in 2020
New tools will make deepfakes more accessible and less obviously harmful
January 15, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/15/...-apps-tools-2020-facebook-reddit-social-media

Last summer, a video of Mark Zuckerberg circulated on Instagram in which the Facebook CEO appeared to claim he had “total control of billions of people’s stolen data, all their secrets, their lives, their futures.” [...] Facebook allowed it to stay on the platform. According to the company, it didn’t violate any of its policies.

For some, this showed how big tech companies aren’t prepared to deal with the onslaught of AI-generated fake media known as deepfakes. But it isn’t necessarily Facebook’s fault. Deepfakes are incredibly hard to moderate, not because they’re difficult to spot [...]
Banning deepfakes altogether would mean removing popular jokes like gender-swapped Snapchat selfies and artificially aged faces.

“If you take ‘deepfake’ to mean any video or image that’s edited by machine learning then it applies to such a huge category of thing that it’s unclear if it means anything at all,” Tim Hwang, former director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative, tells The Verge.
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Reddit, meanwhile, didn’t mention AI at all, but instead said it will remove media that “impersonates individuals or entities in a misleading or deceptive manner.” It’s also created an exemption for “satire and parody,” [...] — a broad caveat that gives its mods a lot of leeway.

Although many reports in recent years have treated “deepfake” as synonymous with “political misinformation,” the actual definition is far more broad. And the problem will only get worse in 2020.
If deepfakes become commonplace and unremarkable, then people will “get comfortable with the notion of what this technology can do,” he says.
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Social media platforms have happily engaged in the debate over deepfake moderation, but as Facebook and Reddit’s recent announcements show, these efforts are mostly a sideshow.
The core issues have not changed: who gets to lie on the internet, and who decides if they’re lying? Once deepfakes cease to be believable as an existential threat to truth, we’ll be left with the same, unchanging questions, more pressing than ever before.
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guest · Jan 17, 2020

SenseTime’s AI generates realistic deepfake videos
January 17, 2020
https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/17/sensetimes-ai-generates-realistic-deepfake-videos/

Deepfakes — media that takes a person in an existing image, audio recording, or video and replaces them with someone else’s likeness — are becoming increasingly convincing. In late 2019, researchers at Seoul-based Hyperconnect developed a tool (MarioNETte) that could manipulate the facial features [...]

[...] it’s able to better handle media it hasn’t before encountered. And the results are impressive, albeit worrisome in light of recent developments involving deepfakes.

The researchers acknowledge that their system could be misused or abused for “various malevolent purposes,” like media manipulation or the “dissemination of malicious propaganda.” As remedies, they suggest “safeguarding measures” and the enactment and enforcement of legislation to mandate edited videos be labeled as such.

“We also encourage the public to serve as sentinels in reporting any suspicious-looking videos to the [authorities]. Working in concert, we shall be able to promote cutting-edge and innovative technologies without compromising the personal interest of the general public.”
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guest · Feb 5, 2020

Alphabet’s Jigsaw created a tool that detects doctored images
Assembler will help journalists spot misleading photos in an era of fake news
February 4, 2020
https://www.engadget.com/2020/02/04/jigsaw-detects-doctored-images/

As image editing software and AI-assisted tool become increasingly powerful, journalists need a way to spot doctored images. Jigsaw, which is owned by Alphabet, forecasts emerging technology-based threats and works to curb their effects.
Its latest creation, Assembler, spots the signatures of image manipulation using seven different "detectors," helping reporters to vet the authenticity of the images they publish.

For example, the clone tool creates repeated patterns in an image that may be virtually undetectable to the untrained eye, but -- to a computer -- are clear indications of manipulation. Assembler specifically looks for these common giveaways, as well as signs from more advanced forms of image manipulation, like deepfakes.
According to Jigsaw CEO, Jared Cohen, Assembler is still in its early stages of development, and will only be available to journalists and fact checkers.
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Jigsaw details Assembler tool for detecting manipulated images, new research publication

Meanwhile, Jigsaw also announced The Current — a research publication that “illuminates complex problems through an interdisciplinary approach.” The first issue is on “exposing the architecture of disinformation campaigns.”

Our first issue is, as you might have guessed, all about disinformation — exploring the architecture of disinformation campaigns, the tactics and technology used, and how new technology is being used to detect and stop disinformation campaigns.
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Jigsaw: Disinformation is more than fake news

guest · Feb 5, 2020

Twitter: We'll kill deepfakes but only if they're harmful
February 5, 2020
https://www.zdnet.com/article/twitter-well-kill-deepfakes-but-only-if-theyre-harmful/

Twitter has rolled out new rules to tackle the use of deepfakes to deceive people and in March it also starts adding labels to certain tweets containing manipulated media.

The company will remove manipulated media, including deepfakes, but only if the content is likely to cause harm, such as threats to the physical safety of a group or person, or if the tweet creates a risk of mass violence or widespread civil unrest.
That is, if it is significantly and deceptively altered, shared in a deceptive manner, and if it's likely to cause harm.

"You may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm. In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context," it says in the terms, which offer a link to a more detailed explanation of its removal policy.
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guest · Feb 9, 2020

Facebook and Twitter won't delete Trump's deceptively edited Pelosi video
February 8, 2020
https://mashable.com/article/nancy-pelosi-trump-edited-video-facebook-twitter/

Facebook and Twitter are once again pretending there's nothing wrong with deceptive behavior in politics.

It has amassed 4.7 million views on Twitter and 2.5 million views on Facebook thus far.
Within hours, CNBC reports, Pelosi's team asked Facebook and Twitter to take the video down due to it being misleading, making it appear as if Pelosi was ripping up the praise of these Americans. Soon, the tiff became public with Pelosi's deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill taking to Twitter to voice his concerns.

Facebook declined to give an official comment to Mashable, but Stone confirmed the video does not violate the policy.
Hammill asked Stone "what planet he's living on," and urged again to take the video down. It remains up on both Facebook and Twitter.
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guest · Feb 12, 2020

Facebook will pay Reuters to fact-check Deepfakes and more
February 12, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/12/reuters-facebook-fact-checker/

Eye-witness photos and videos distributed by news wire Reuters already go through an exhaustive media verification process. Now the publisher will bring that expertise to the fight against misinformation on Facebook.
Today it launches the new Reuters Fact Check business unit and blog, announcing that it will become one of the third-party partners tasked with debunking lies spread on the social network.

The four-person team from Reuters will review user generated video and photos as well as news headlines and other content in English and Spanish submitted by Facebook or flagged by the wider Reuters editorial team.
Facebook will then use those conclusions to label misinformation posts as false and downrank them in the News Feed algorithm to limit their spread.

“I can’t disclose any more about the terms of the financial agreement but I can confirm that they do pay for this service” Reuter’s Director of Global Partnerships Jessica April tells me of the deal with Facebook.
Baker acknowledged criticism of how slow Facebook is to direct hoaxes and misinformation to fact-checkers.
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guest · Feb 17, 2020

Back to the Future deepfake inserts Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland
This is impressive. And disturbing
February 16, 2020
https://www.cnet.com/news/back-to-the-future-deepfake-inserts-robert-downey-jr-and-tom-holland/

Thanks to the help of video manipulation technology, Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland appear as Marty McFly and Doc Brown respectively in a scene from 1985's Back to the Future. And it works. The two could play the roles one day if Hollywood gorges itself and does a remake.
Downey Jr. is popular with deepfake artists. His Iron Man has also been rejigged to be Tom Cruise.

But while movie casting swap-outs can be amusing, deepfake technology is a troubling beast. It involves forging videos to make someone appear to be doing or saying something they never did.
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