This Reality Does Not Exist: Trust in an Age of Synthetic Media
with Alexei Efros (UC Berkeley) and
Hany Farid (Dartmouth College)
AI-based tools are proving capable of fabricating or modifying imagery and audio in ways that are nearly indistinguishable from reality. How can these systems and media be detected, and how can we trust anything when everything could be faked?
The difference is democratization. It is so easy for anyone to make fake images, videos and news.
There are social media platforms to get the reach.
In a world of deep fakes that there would be plausible deniability for all video, audio and other evidence can be claimed to be fake.
In the long run, Alexei thinks we are screwed.
Hany indicates that the journalists and the public have to get more mature and sophisticated.
There is a constant arms race and the forensics and audit will always be behind but we can move the bar beyond the amateurs.
Background
Alexei A. Efros joined UC Berkeley in 2013. Prior to that, he was nine years on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University, and has also been affiliated with École Normale Supérieure/INRIA and University of Oxford. His research is in the area of computer vision and computer graphics, especially at the intersection of the two. He is particularly interested in using data-driven techniques to tackle problems where large quantities of unlabeled visual data are readily available. Efros received his PhD in 2003 from UC Berkeley.
He is a recipient of CVPR Best Paper Award (2006), NSF CAREER award (2006), Sloan Fellowship (2008), Guggenheim Fellowship (2008), Okawa Grant (2008), Finmeccanica Career Development Chair (2010), SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award (2010), ECCV Best Paper Honorable Mention (2010), Three Helmholtz Test of Time Prizes (1999, 2003, 2005), and the ACM Prize in Computing (2016).
Hany Farid, Professor, Dartmouth College. The Albert Bradley 1915 Third Century Professor of Computer Science at Dartmouth. My research focuses on digital forensics, image analysis, and human perception. I received my undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1989, my M.S. in Computer Science from SUNY Albany, and my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. Following a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, I joined the faculty at Dartmouth in 1999. I am the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and am a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.
SOURCE – Live coverage of This Reality Does Not Exist: Trust in an Age of Synthetic Media discussion at TechCrunch Robotics AI 2019, Youtube
Written By Brian Wang
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
Nice use for blockchain here, verify every frame of video with a cryptographic hash as its being recorded so that it can’t be faked.
This does not add much to the landscape, credulous people do not require the likes of deep fakes or any sort of evidence in order to believe nonsense.
We already have armed idiots raiding coffee shops looking for Hillary Clinton’s pedophile hangout due to political media lies with no basis in fact. Imagine what a video of this “hangout” would do when we cannot tell it’s not real. With the despicable political tactics used in our election system, I can think of myriad ways this could go off the rails quickly.
“Anyone who gets fooled wasn’t someone you wanted voting anyway.” They are allowed to vote whether they are qualified to or not.
Just have some fake videos telling people that the voting is postponed and not to go to the polls that day.
Anyone who gets fooled wasn’t someone you wanted voting anyway.
Goody, just what our political system needs. Expecting the voters to get sophisticated enough for this not to have a major impact is an exercise in delusion.