House holds hearing on "deepfakes" and artificial intelligence amid national security concerns
The House Intelligence Committee heard from experts on the threats that so-called "deep fake" videos and other types of artificial intelligence-generated synthetic data pose to the U.S. election system and national security at large. Witnesses at Thursday's hearing included professors from the University of Maryland, University at Buffalo and other experts on AI and digital policy.
In a statement, the committee says it aims to "examine the national security threats posed by AI-enabled fake content, what can be done to detect and combat it, and what role the public sector, the private sector, and society as a whole should play to counter a potentially grim, 'post-truth' future," during Thursday's hearing.
[...]In his opening remarks, Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff said the spread of manipulated videos presents a "nightmarish" scenario for the 2020 presidential elections -- leaving lawmakers, members of the news media and public "struggling to discern what is real and what is fake."
Schiff urged that "now is the time for social media companies to put in place policies to protect users from misinformation, not in 2021 after viral deepfakes have polluted the 2020 elections. By then, it will be too late."
See also: Deepfake videos could 'spark' violent social unrest
Lawmakers grapple with deepfake threat at hearing
'AI is not the cause, it's an accelerant. The pace of change is challenging' Experts give Congress deepfakes straight dope
Deepfake Video of Mark Zuckerberg Goes Viral on Eve of House A.I. Hearing
Previously: House Intelligence Committee to Hold Hearing on "Deepfakes"
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House Intelligence panel to examine 'deepfake' videos in June
The House Intelligence Committee has slated a hearing in June that will examine a series of national security matters, including the threat of videos manipulated by artificial intelligence (AI) that look strikingly real, a panel aide said.
The congressional hearing on June 13 will be one of the first to primarily focus on so-called deepfakes, which experts and lawmakers say pose a major disinformation threat heading into the 2020 election.
The hearing comes amid a spotlight on a fake video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that made its way across Facebook and other social media platforms in late May.
This video, which was viewed millions of times, was edited in a way that made her appear to slur her words. While the video was not made with advanced AI technology, experts say that will be the next step in the disinformation threat.
See also: The 2020 campaigns aren't ready for deepfakes
[Editor's note: This story has an interesting viewpoint given the proliferation of "Deep Fake" videos we recently covered here. I see it as a portent of discussions to come. How much can we trust reporting? How much slanting and posturing of "reports" and "studies" are going to be promulgated in the lead-up to the next presidential election? Is this item all a bunch of crap or an indication of things we can expect to come? How much can we trust, and how to we go about assessing the veracity of what is presented to us by not only the main-stream media, but also social media, too? We hereby disclaim any assurance as to the credibility of the accusations made here and present it solely as an example of what may be coming -- and an opportunity to practice techniques at validating/corroborating or challenging/refuting it. The story submission appears after the break.]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @05:44PM (1 child)
with no term limits, who can serve as long as the will of the people demands it!
He will have perfect blonde hair and the skin of an oompa loompa, and he will be the bestest leader of all time!
*puff puff cough cough*Duuuude, that is a triiiip!
:)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @06:46PM
So a bottle-blond Kim Jong-un then...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @05:54PM (7 children)
The only difference is if it's pre-scripted fakeness, or if they had to fix it in post :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @06:01PM (6 children)
Wrong.
We all love cynicism around here, but culturally it is getting to be a bit much. Cynicism has gone the hipster route, time to reassess and take on the hard job of at least trying to sort through the bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @06:03PM (1 child)
In any news story you read that you have any first-hand knowledge of, even from a 'credible' news outlet,
how much did they get wrong?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday June 14 2019, @06:29PM
When I've had first hand knowledge, the news story was accurate about what they presented, but the context was trimmed in a way calculated to create most emotional reaction.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 14 2019, @07:21PM (3 children)
Nobody on S/N would ever be cynical.
So why is Sanders leaving? Did someone ask her to tell a lie that is so big that even she won't tell it?
Similarly, as this sentence demonstrates, nobody on S/N would ever use sarcasm.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 14 2019, @08:14PM (1 child)
She has been on the job for nearly 2 years, an eternity in the Trump White House and in that position specifically. Now she can kick back for a while and get ready to become Governor of Arkansas.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 15 2019, @01:47AM
The Sarah Sanders "deepfakes" are going to come out real soon, and when they do they won't be pretty*.
* unless you have a fetish for ugly chunky women, which I do.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday June 14 2019, @09:16PM
I bet she was just waiting for the deepfake technology to get reliable enough, that she can just talk remotely and they can just overlay the dialog onto whoever they hire.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @06:03PM (1 child)
We've suffered this with still images for years. You might as well try to ban Photoshop and all equivalents.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 14 2019, @06:05PM
Still images? Meh.
Grade school level video editing? We're going to have to dox you.
AI deep fakes? Enemy of the state.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @06:06PM (6 children)
- who decides what is true?
- how much would it cost to do this?
thought so.. next item on the business agenda..
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 14 2019, @07:23PM (4 children)
"What is truth?" -- Pontius Pilate question to Jesus.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 4, Funny) by NotSanguine on Friday June 14 2019, @07:53PM (2 children)
--Kehlog Albran, The Profit
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @09:42PM (1 child)
errr...
That wasn't nearly as clever as it thinks it was...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday June 14 2019, @09:56PM
Clever? Are you daft, man?
You gotta go over the top and end with a rimshot [wikipedia.org] so the punters know when to laugh.
Sheesh!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 15 2019, @01:48AM
What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets. But enough talk...have at you!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Saturday June 15 2019, @01:45AM
On the long run, the reality. You may not like the consequences if your view aren't aligned with that bitch.
For those who try otherwise, everything they have and are and then some extra collateral damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by fustakrakich on Friday June 14 2019, @06:07PM (7 children)
Sorry, but that would imply that it hasn't happened.
The future is fun! ... The future is fair! ... You may already have won! ... You may already be there!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Friday June 14 2019, @07:35PM
Exactly. It's already a post-truth and post-laws future.
Truth is handled by screams of "Fake News" and the disingenuous debate of alternative facts. Laws don't need to be followed anymore, because they're just tools of the opposition, and therefore don't need to be heeded. Or more exactly, laws will only be applied to the opposition.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Friday June 14 2019, @07:51PM
The willingness to accept this future is already here. Who needs Post Truth when you have Alternative Facts?
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Friday June 14 2019, @08:51PM (4 children)
For last 10000 or more years the humanity didn't care much about truth so Post-Truth Era is already in full swing..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday June 14 2019, @10:34PM (3 children)
Oh, for the past 10000 years people cared deeply about "truth." They just had different standards for it compared to the scientific-empirical definitions of today.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday June 15 2019, @04:21AM (2 children)
"Science" is our word for our attempt to verify truth by observation and experiment.
And it often conflicts with religion.
My tagline exactly states my take on it. And took a lot less words too.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday June 16 2019, @01:32PM (1 child)
I think you said almost exactly what I did.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday June 16 2019, @09:49PM
I guess I am still seething over a discussion I had with a "Man of the Cloth" who seemed to have convinced his flock to base their lives on hearsay.
My attempts to verify his claims was seen as a demonstration of my lack of faith.
I left, considering his flock the intellectual equivalent of washing machine agitators ... All they did was hold their hands up and wag back and forth. But they didn't even do a wash of clothing. Just made a lot of noise.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @06:36PM (5 children)
We are already living in Post-Truth society. WMDs anyone? And it goes back hundreads, and thousands of years.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @07:21PM (4 children)
We never lived in any 'Truth' society in the first damn place. Lying has been standard operating procedure for almost all elements of human society going back before written history.
That's why people who tell the truth are so hated -- it's such a shocking departure from the norm.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 14 2019, @08:09PM (1 child)
Kirk: He lied. Everything Harry tells you is a lie. Everything Harry tells you is a lie.
Mudd: Now listen carefully, Norman. I'm lying.
--Star Trek TOS: "I, Mudd" [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday June 14 2019, @10:07PM
Damn Cretans! Unfortunately, most humans are not logical enough for the paradox to even bother them, if they even notice it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @01:49AM
You are a liar, mister, and I'll be expecting you in the fields at dawn.
(does this act enough as a counter-example?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 15 2019, @01:19PM
Tells truth here, can confirm.
(Score: 3, Troll) by Ayn Anonymous on Friday June 14 2019, @07:25PM (1 child)
"Deepfakes" ? You mean WTC building 7
The World Trade Center building dozens of demolition and explosives experts say was brought down ?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 14 2019, @08:15PM
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/10/11/turing-recreates-lunar-landing/ [nvidia.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday June 15 2019, @01:28PM (2 children)
Is this all because that guy circulated that video of Nancy Pelosi, slightly slowed down to make her sound drunk?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 15 2019, @01:36PM (1 child)
Yesh.
AFAIK, the hearing wasn't planned before that "controversy". Here is an announcement from June 7:
https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=657 [house.gov]
I want to recheck my timeline, but yeah, it looks like a direct response to Pelosi getting egg on her face from a stupidly simple video edit. How embarrassing.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday June 15 2019, @02:54PM
Sigh, that's what I thought.
I wish we had an opposition party in the US that was not comprised of soulless egotists, narcissists, and identitarians together in a giant writhing mass of clusterfuck.
More and more I think we should treat government service like other countries treat the universal draft--everyone has to serve. People would understand the system much better and be much more likely to pay attention to its decisions and actions after having served. Most shenanigans now are possible because the public does not pay attention and doesn't get how the system works.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 15 2019, @05:44PM
Yeah we've had that since the 80s if not before. "Future." How very naive.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...