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This! One of the most ridiculous notions in articles about this when it first started coming out was "We should ban this technology!" and reddit started deletin

by zodPod 9y ago

This! One of the most ridiculous notions in articles about this when it first started coming out was "We should ban this technology!" and reddit started deleting threads that contained links to download the scripts and apps. Do these people still really not understand that's not how this works? Has the Streisand effect not been proven enough yet for the general populous?

wjoe 9y ago
One headline I saw yesterday said that these fake videos had been "deleted from the internet". I don't think they know how the internet works.
slg 9y ago
By that logic why should we ban any technology? Everyone here is unanimously against child porn even though we understand that it is already out there and that there is no way to put a complete stop to it. How are deepfakes that different? The truth is this technology is dangerous in the wrong hands. I don't know if that means there needs to be laws created regarding it, but I know that the difficulty in stopping it shouldn't be used as an excuse to not even debate that possibility.
- babygoat 9y ago
  Unlike the production of child pornography, the act of writing this code didn't destroy lives. It seems quite different.
  - atomicUpdate 9y ago
    What if your face is deepfake'd onto one of the people in the child porn? My first impression is that would destroy your life if it was released.
    - nullifidian 9y ago
      Society has to come to an understanding that mere existance of a video that hasn't been cryptographically authenticated by special camera equipment is no longer evidence of anything.. Like it is with digital photography.
      - locopati 9y ago
        lies don't work that way - people will believe a live even when offered evidence that it is a lie and the first imprint of the lie seems stronger than the correction of the truth
      - doorbumper 9y ago
        Which society is this? I'd be surprised if more than 5% of all people even know that the concept exists.
        nullifidian 9y ago
        >5% of all people even know that the concept exists. I believe more than 5% are familar with the concept photorealistic computer graphics. Machine learning based face transfer is just a newer iteration that significatnly reduced cost. Same goes for synthetic voice.
        andai 9y ago
        More like 0.5%
- cortesoft 9y ago
  So we ban child porn to try to curb the production of more of it. Its production is what is harmful, and we do everything we can to reduce its production, which involves trying to reduce the demand by making it illegal and arresting people who obtain it. It has no legitimate use, so there is no collateral damage when we ban it. Banning this technology would be more like banning cameras, since they can also be used to create child porn. However, it would be even LESS effective than banning cameras, because we are talking about a software algorithm. Also, you say this technology is 'dangerous in the wrong hands.' Why is that the case? I think the only reason is because it has the possibility of decieving people into thinking it is real. The real way to reduce this risk is to either spread the idea that all video is suspect, and you can't assume who you see on video is who it appears to be, or to perfect technology that can instantly detect when this system has been used. If you are able to easily distinguish between true and false video, isn't the entire danger mitigated?
  - slg 9y ago
    >So we ban child porn to try to curb the production of more of it. Its production is what is harmful, We also ban computer generated child porn even though there is no victim involved in the production of that. If you use this deepfake technology and stick an 18 year old's face on a porn video it is legal but if you do the same thing with a 17 year old it isn't. The production of those two videos is the same. The only difference is the potential victim if the video became public. >The real way to reduce this risk is to either spread the idea that all video is suspect, and you can't assume who you see on video is who it appears to be, or to perfect technology that can instantly detect when this system has been used. That sounds great in theory, but people don't work like that. We are built to believe what we see. We all know that almost every magazine cover has been mercilessly Photoshopped and yet the images on those covers have still been shown to have a strong influence on people's own body image.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      > If you use this deepfake technology and stick an 18 year old's face on a porn video it is legal but if you do the same thing with a 17 year old it isn't. The production of those two videos is the same. The only difference is the potential victim For reference, artificially created child porn (e.g. in mangas, or in other ways created) is in a legal grey zone in many areas, including Japan and Germany. It is absolutely illegal in other, e.g. Sweden.
- jdminhbg 9y ago
  Child pornography isn’t a technology, it’s a product. This would be like banning cameras because you can use them to produce child pornography.
- ProblemFactory 9y ago
  What makes this technology fundamentally different from and more dangerous than Adobe Photoshop?
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    Today it's being used to swap faces; arguably you can do that with PS, but this tech goes way beyond a simple still-image face swap. The swap is a "reconstruction" of the face at multiple different angles, taking on the characteristics of the original facial movements, tilt of the head, etc. In a video - way beyond what would be easily possible using PS or other "manual technology". But today - it's just a face. However, nothing says that an entire person's body couldn't be swapped in the future. Nor that the system couldn't "dream" new scenarios for the background, etc. Or that it could be done real-time, with full-on voicing in the other person's voice, etc - looking, doing, and saying things they never said - perhaps even in a place they've never been. In the future, you could easily take someone else's entire person, and have them do jumping jacks in your living room while singing Jingle Bells - and it would likely look like an original video. The only reason it's not being done now is the amount of processing power that would be needed to do it; gobs more than what most people can afford (along with the time and power needs - just note that for some of those facial swaps it takes hours of processing on a decent system for just a few seconds of video). I'm not saying this tech is evil or should be banned, however; I think the tech is very neat and can open up some exciting possibilities for future products and uses. To that end, it's exactly like Adobe Photoshop, which is why it should be explored and played with, rather than banned.
everdev 9y ago
I don't think banning is the solution, but with stiff enough financial or criminal consequences for publishing a deepfake without the person's consent or without using a "DeepFake" watermark it would certainly influence the way it's currently being used. Right now, no one's coming after the creators, but one big libel suit that gets enforced or the government passing a law would change this space significantly.
- xamuel 9y ago
  The only thing that would accomplish would be to make people less aware of the problem so when the actual bad guys do actual bad things, fewer people would spot it.
- hux_ 9y ago
  It will probably just get produced in China or Iceland or someplace. Putin must be already dedicating super computing time. Can't wait for the next election cycle.
prepend 9y ago
Interesting. What’s the basis for the ban? It’s a fake video, it’s not even direct copyright infringement since it’s generated.
- zodPod 9y ago
  It's funny you say that because when you see deletions of it it's typically a copyright claim. I'm not sure if they're claiming ownership of the person's face or using the face that they're typically stealing another video to put this face on to bring it down but ultimately that seems to be one of the most prominent take downs.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  If it's generated based on copyright-protected sources, it may be a violation of the copyright on the protected sources. Might also in certain circumstances violate right of publicity and/or defamstion laws to publish it, independent of whether the creation was a violation of copyright.
silentguy 9y ago
Streisand effects have huge survivorship bias.
na85 9y ago
FYI: populous is an adjective. The word you're looking for is populace.
divanvisagie 9y ago
Axe technology is here to stay, everyone knows how to build an axe so it's pointless having laws against murder. /s

by zodPod 9y ago

wjoe 9y ago

One headline I saw yesterday said that these fake videos had been "deleted from the internet". I don't think they know how the internet works.

slg 9y ago

By that logic why should we ban any technology? Everyone here is unanimously against child porn even though we understand that it is already out there and that there is no way to put a complete stop to it. How are deepfakes that different? The truth is this technology is dangerous in the wrong hands. I don't know if that means there needs to be laws created regarding it, but I know that the difficulty in stopping it shouldn't be used as an excuse to not even debate that possibility.

babygoat 9y ago
Unlike the production of child pornography, the act of writing this code didn't destroy lives. It seems quite different.
- atomicUpdate 9y ago
  What if your face is deepfake'd onto one of the people in the child porn? My first impression is that would destroy your life if it was released.
  - nullifidian 9y ago
    Society has to come to an understanding that mere existance of a video that hasn't been cryptographically authenticated by special camera equipment is no longer evidence of anything.. Like it is with digital photography.
    - locopati 9y ago
      lies don't work that way - people will believe a live even when offered evidence that it is a lie and the first imprint of the lie seems stronger than the correction of the truth
    - doorbumper 9y ago
      Which society is this? I'd be surprised if more than 5% of all people even know that the concept exists.
      - nullifidian 9y ago
        >5% of all people even know that the concept exists. I believe more than 5% are familar with the concept photorealistic computer graphics. Machine learning based face transfer is just a newer iteration that significatnly reduced cost. Same goes for synthetic voice.
      - andai 9y ago
        More like 0.5%
cortesoft 9y ago
So we ban child porn to try to curb the production of more of it. Its production is what is harmful, and we do everything we can to reduce its production, which involves trying to reduce the demand by making it illegal and arresting people who obtain it. It has no legitimate use, so there is no collateral damage when we ban it. Banning this technology would be more like banning cameras, since they can also be used to create child porn. However, it would be even LESS effective than banning cameras, because we are talking about a software algorithm. Also, you say this technology is 'dangerous in the wrong hands.' Why is that the case? I think the only reason is because it has the possibility of decieving people into thinking it is real. The real way to reduce this risk is to either spread the idea that all video is suspect, and you can't assume who you see on video is who it appears to be, or to perfect technology that can instantly detect when this system has been used. If you are able to easily distinguish between true and false video, isn't the entire danger mitigated?
- slg 9y ago
  >So we ban child porn to try to curb the production of more of it. Its production is what is harmful, We also ban computer generated child porn even though there is no victim involved in the production of that. If you use this deepfake technology and stick an 18 year old's face on a porn video it is legal but if you do the same thing with a 17 year old it isn't. The production of those two videos is the same. The only difference is the potential victim if the video became public. >The real way to reduce this risk is to either spread the idea that all video is suspect, and you can't assume who you see on video is who it appears to be, or to perfect technology that can instantly detect when this system has been used. That sounds great in theory, but people don't work like that. We are built to believe what we see. We all know that almost every magazine cover has been mercilessly Photoshopped and yet the images on those covers have still been shown to have a strong influence on people's own body image.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    > If you use this deepfake technology and stick an 18 year old's face on a porn video it is legal but if you do the same thing with a 17 year old it isn't. The production of those two videos is the same. The only difference is the potential victim For reference, artificially created child porn (e.g. in mangas, or in other ways created) is in a legal grey zone in many areas, including Japan and Germany. It is absolutely illegal in other, e.g. Sweden.
jdminhbg 9y ago
Child pornography isn’t a technology, it’s a product. This would be like banning cameras because you can use them to produce child pornography.
ProblemFactory 9y ago
What makes this technology fundamentally different from and more dangerous than Adobe Photoshop?
- cr0sh 9y ago
  Today it's being used to swap faces; arguably you can do that with PS, but this tech goes way beyond a simple still-image face swap. The swap is a "reconstruction" of the face at multiple different angles, taking on the characteristics of the original facial movements, tilt of the head, etc. In a video - way beyond what would be easily possible using PS or other "manual technology". But today - it's just a face. However, nothing says that an entire person's body couldn't be swapped in the future. Nor that the system couldn't "dream" new scenarios for the background, etc. Or that it could be done real-time, with full-on voicing in the other person's voice, etc - looking, doing, and saying things they never said - perhaps even in a place they've never been. In the future, you could easily take someone else's entire person, and have them do jumping jacks in your living room while singing Jingle Bells - and it would likely look like an original video. The only reason it's not being done now is the amount of processing power that would be needed to do it; gobs more than what most people can afford (along with the time and power needs - just note that for some of those facial swaps it takes hours of processing on a decent system for just a few seconds of video). I'm not saying this tech is evil or should be banned, however; I think the tech is very neat and can open up some exciting possibilities for future products and uses. To that end, it's exactly like Adobe Photoshop, which is why it should be explored and played with, rather than banned.

everdev 9y ago

I don't think banning is the solution, but with stiff enough financial or criminal consequences for publishing a deepfake without the person's consent or without using a "DeepFake" watermark it would certainly influence the way it's currently being used. Right now, no one's coming after the creators, but one big libel suit that gets enforced or the government passing a law would change this space significantly.

xamuel 9y ago
The only thing that would accomplish would be to make people less aware of the problem so when the actual bad guys do actual bad things, fewer people would spot it.
hux_ 9y ago
It will probably just get produced in China or Iceland or someplace. Putin must be already dedicating super computing time. Can't wait for the next election cycle.

prepend 9y ago

Interesting. What’s the basis for the ban? It’s a fake video, it’s not even direct copyright infringement since it’s generated.

zodPod 9y ago
It's funny you say that because when you see deletions of it it's typically a copyright claim. I'm not sure if they're claiming ownership of the person's face or using the face that they're typically stealing another video to put this face on to bring it down but ultimately that seems to be one of the most prominent take downs.
dragonwriter 9y ago
If it's generated based on copyright-protected sources, it may be a violation of the copyright on the protected sources. Might also in certain circumstances violate right of publicity and/or defamstion laws to publish it, independent of whether the creation was a violation of copyright.

silentguy 9y ago

Streisand effects have huge survivorship bias.

na85 9y ago

FYI: populous is an adjective. The word you're looking for is populace.

divanvisagie 9y ago

Axe technology is here to stay, everyone knows how to build an axe so it's pointless having laws against murder. /s