This startup claims its deepfakes will protect your privacy:
As the saying goes: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. Now, if someone in a video clip is the same race, gender, and age as you, has the same gestures and emotional expressions as you—and is, in fact, based on you—yet doesn't exactly look like you ... is it still you?
No, according to Gil Perry, co-founder of Israeli privacy company D-ID. And that, he claims, is why his startup works. D-ID takes video footage—captured by a camera inside a store, for example—and uses computer vision and deep learning to create an alternative that protects the subject's identity. The process turns the "you" in the video into an avatar that has all the same attributes but looks a little different.
The upside for businesses is that this new, "anonymized" video no longer gives away the exact identity of a customer—which, Perry says, means companies using D-ID can "eliminate the need for consent" and analyze the footage for business and marketing purposes. A store might, for example, feed video of a happy-looking white woman to an algorithm that can surface the most effective ad for her in real time. (It's worth noting that the legitimacy of emotion recognition has been challenged, with a prominent AI research group recently calling for its use to be banned completely.)
Examples of D-ID's "smart anonymization" service show varying levels of success at obscuring identity in video. In one demonstration, former British prime minister David Cameron looks a bit like David Cameron with a mustache. In another still image, a woman looks somewhat different, but the two images still seem disconcertingly similar. In a third, Brad Pitt does become unrecognizable.
D-ID would not name particular customers that use its technology, but Perry said the company mainly works with retailers, car companies, and "large conglomerates that deploy CCTV in Europe." Ann Cavoukian, a D-ID advisory board member and former privacy commissioner for the Canadian province of Ontario, says the solution is "a total win-win."
Other experts, however, say that the company misinterprets Europe's General Data Protection Rule, doesn't do what it's supposed to, and—even if it does—probably shouldn't be doing it anyway.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 24 2019, @10:49AM (1 child)
Is it something of the same nature as voice changer [wikipedia.org] / artistic use of a vocoder [wikipedia.org]?
If so, I might have a use for it once I get to the "you have failed me for the last time" [youtube.com] or the "my reign of terror was legendary" [youtu.be] stages, but before...?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday December 25 2019, @11:27AM
I think they have that wrong, it should actuallybe:
At least that's what Uncle Dad used to tell me.
(Score: 4, Informative) by barbara hudson on Tuesday December 24 2019, @11:15AM (4 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday December 25 2019, @12:40AM (3 children)
That's for the courts to decide, not some random person on SN.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday December 25 2019, @01:03AM (2 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 25 2019, @04:43AM (1 child)
You own third-party video footage of your meatbag husk? Probably just a hoser anachronism.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Wednesday December 25 2019, @10:55AM
It's one way to get on the sex offenders registry. And if you're doing revenge porn, you deserve it.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Tuesday December 24 2019, @12:01PM (1 child)
If a company thinks that they can alter your image and use it without your consent, then you can reproduce their products, alter them a bit of course, and sell it as yours. I am totally OK with this.
Israelis gonna israeli.
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 24 2019, @01:15PM
Bad goybot does not have Intel Inside.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Tuesday December 24 2019, @04:47PM
gtfo that is not even a thing
https://archive.ph/aSHRw [archive.ph]
https://archive.is/NZFSt [archive.is]
https://archive.is/9AP2G [archive.is]
https://archive.is/SiNIS [archive.is]
(Score: 2) by progo on Thursday December 26 2019, @06:16PM
What are they selling? Does this assume that you can only recognize someone in video by their face? What about all the other ways people and animals recognize people, some of which are recorded clearly in video?