In an earlier post I showed what I thought was an impressive video only to be informed by commenters that it was a CGI fake. So once again I had been fooled by a fake video into thinking it was the real thing. The techniques have become so sophisticated that people can now create ‘deep fakes’, where images of one person are superimposed onto videos of someone else. These are done so seamlessly that it is almost impossible for ordinary people casually watching a video to detect that the person they are seeing did not actually say or do the things that we see with our own eyes.
Apparently the software to do this does not require all that much sophistication to use and thus the potential for malicious actors to exploit it is huge. The video below explains what is going on and how some people are trying to find ways to more quickly identify deep fakes, initially focusing on all the candidates for the next presidential election whom mischief makers are most likely to target. (I think this video is real but what do I know?)
One of the most terrifying applications of this technology is to insert Nicholas Cage into every film.
The lesson to be learned is that if you come across a video that you find noteworthy for any reason, the prudent reaction is to assume it is not true until you investigate and have corroborating evidence. This is going to be a hard habit to acquire since we have got so used to thinking of video as being almost as good as being there. All these things suggest that while the internet has sped up the distribution of text, images, and videos, it has effectively slowed down the spread of actual knowledge since we now have to be skeptical.
But there is one benefit that deep fakes could provide and this is when it comes to dubbing the dialogue in films into another language. I personally am not bothered by subtitles but I know that some do not like them. But in dubbing, there is usually at least a small mismatch between lip movements and what we hear, and that can be really off-putting. With deep faking techniques, it should be possible to change the lip movements to match the spoken words in whatever language they have been translated to.
The guy hosting that video looks faked. His head doesn’t seem to fit on his neck quite right, and the edges of his jaws sometimes morph out in weird ways. I kept expecting him to cop to it at the end to illustrate his point, but then he didn’t. Hmm.
As for dubbing, all I could think of was Syncro-Vox, that old 50s technique in animation where they had an actual person’s lips spliced into the cartoon while speaking. It was creepy as fuck. Conan O’Brien used to use that for some sketches too.
Dubbing is an abomination.
I personally am not bothered by subtitles but I know that some do not like them.
I have to admit that they do not bother me. But I watch other languages often.
Considering the damage done with easily debunked rumors -- ACORN was disbanded, and then congress kept trying to eliminate it even after it was gone, the whole stupid birther movement, a Planned Parenthood in CO getting shot up, the Pizza place getting shot up, the 2016 election.
I think the U.S. is done.
Unfortunately seeing is believing for many people. These deepfake videos are convincing to all but the most thoughtful people who are willing to spend cognitive effort to challenge these videos in their own minds. There are few enough people willing to put this level of thought into videos already, but on top of that it becomes almost impossible to do for a person that already agrees with the video and it is confirming something they already believe to be true. I really believe the consequences are going to to devastating.
I am fond of watching Dr. Disillusion’s videos. He is very good at creating illusions using various CGI techniques, and has a YouTube channel where he discusses how popular videos are actually faked.
Oops. That is “Captain” Disillusion, not “Dr.” My bad.
Mano,
There is an outside chance that this could actually be good for American politics.
If video becomes so untrustworthy that voters reject it all, then politicians may be forced to rely on live appearances and the networks may be deprived of their single largest source of revenue
Jeff
How’s that working out for newspapers and textual websites?