Apple Granted Patent for Deepfakes Based on Reference Images:
Remember how entire governments have been pressing tech companies to tackle the deepfakes permeating their online platforms? Well, they have even more work cut out for themselves now. On Tuesday the US Patent Office granted Apple a patent for "face image generation with pose and expression control"—AKA deepfakes—based on reference images.
According to patent documents first spotted by Patently Apple, Apple's technology uses machine learning to create synthetic images of human faces based on a reference image provided by the user. Once the tech has generated a synthetic face, it can manipulate that face to create changes in expression. Given a reference image or "target shape" depicting a whole person (not just a face), the image generator can also create synthetic images in which the reference person is posed differently.
The generator's neural network is trained to constrain generation enough that the synthetic image can convincingly look like the reference person, not an entirely new—or simply "inspired—creation. These constraints are incorporated using a generative adversarial network (GAN) in which multiple synthetic images are generated, after which a discriminator attempts to determine which images are real or synthetic. The discriminator's findings are then used to further train both the generator and the discriminator.
[...] Others think Apple could be working towards an app or feature that puts a "fun" or "convenient" twist on deepfakes. If that ends up happening, at which point does the [...] proposed AI Bill of Rights get involved?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2022, @07:35PM (1 child)
or does using ML wave majik fairy dust over this?
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Wednesday October 26 2022, @11:58AM
I thought prior art was undermined in law years ago with "updating" of patent regulation years back? somebody who remembers the details please clarify. I though it was more 1st to file now than before.
I'm fine with 20 years of a patent being used to sue broad uses of deepfakes; Apple is a good choice for that task. Maybe during that span laws can be created to help with the problem?? Detection tools are unlikely in the long run since it becomes another game of two computers playing chess approaching indecisive outcomes.
Not that good fakes is a huge problem; we've already proven that the gullible half the population can be sold blatant delusions are easier using other known sciences in evil ways. Who needs fakes when you can effortlessly get people to believe the world is flat? Get Faux News involved and it goes up to 1/3 the public... Reason itself is under assault and science has been turned into an empty buzzword for about half. "Narrative" is the new word for everything as objective reality dies in this postmodernist dominated world (used by "both sides" but currently more harmfully by so-called conservatives.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2022, @12:39AM
I bet it's a defensive patent. At first.