Original URL: As fake videos become more realistic, seeing shouldn't always be believing.
All it takes is a single selfie.
From that static image, an algorithm can quickly create a moving, lifelike avatar: a video not recorded, but fabricated from whole cloth by software.
With more time, Pinscreen, the Los Angeles start-up behind the technology, believes its renderings will become so accurate they will defy reality.
"You won't be able to tell," said Hao Li, a leading researcher on computer-generated video at USC who founded Pinscreen in 2015. "With further deep-learning advancements, especially on mobile devices, we'll be able to produce completely photoreal avatars in real time."
[...] Now imagine a phony video of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un announcing a missile strike. The White House would have mere minutes to determine whether the clip was genuine and whether it warranted a retaliatory strike.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 09 2018, @02:06PM (2 children)
It sure is handy to have all physical evidence removed from consideration, eh? That way, you can turn all legal and political contests into contests of credibility and personal belief. So, to use a completely random example, if there's a video of a cop shooting a civilian in the back, the defense can now say it was faked and it's now a question of whether the jury believes the cops or believe the dead guy who can't talk. Or if somebody unearthed a video of Donald Trump actually taking orders from Vladimir Putin, it could be safely dismissed as "fake news" by those inclined to believe Donald Trump.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 09 2018, @02:20PM
What was in the "insurance" file on Anthony Wieners laptop that the FBI tried to avoid looking at?
https://www.justice.gov/file/1071991/download [justice.gov]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday October 09 2018, @06:11PM
Fake video technology is not necessary. Anything and everything already is routinely dismissed as fake news by Trump and his acolytes. They would dismiss video of Trump and Putin, even if there were no technology to make deep fake videos. Evidence no longer matters. See: climate change, evolution, how teenagers become pregnant.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.