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Avatarify lets users run realtime deepfakes on live video calls
- qznc 6y agoVoice fake has been done already as well. https://github.com/CorentinJ/Real-Time-Voice-Cloning https://github.com/CorentinJ/Real-Time-Voice-Cloning
- Der_Einzige 6y agoAs someone whose tried this repo extensively with politican sound clips (I wanted to troll buddies on discord) - it kinds blows. Don't get me wrong - it's really neat but the results are far less good than one may expect. Sometimes it almost works, and then it's just totally absurd. Long pauses, voices that don't sound compelling, total failures on female voices. It's great in theory but it showed me that there's a ton of work to be done with voice cloning. Props to the author for using UMAP to seperates voices though Also lol at the demand being so high that there are open issues of people offering to pay others to install this on their machine. Freelancing opportunities show up in the strangest of places...
- forgingahead 6y agoReal Time Voice Cloning certainly has iffy output, but it's probably the most popular because it provides the easiest plug-and-play experience with even a simple UI to get started. The author says he's working on a more polished toolkit called Resemble.AI, but I've never tried it. https://www.resemble.ai/ https://www.resemble.ai/ There's certainly a market out there for just beautifying existing repos to making it easier for non-scholars to get going. Even having a Colab Notebook ready to click-and-start is quite powerful -- probably a big reason why First Order Model (source paper to the original story) got so much traction so quickly.
- abledon 6y agocould you post some examples with dropbox of the 'less than stellar' results you were getting?
- Der_Einzige 6y agoFind audio clips of trump speaking Try running then through this See what you get. To be fair, I was trying this repo almost a 6 months ago so updates may have improved it.
- anigbrowl 6y agoVoice fake can copy timbre but not intonation or many other stylistic features.
- system2 6y agoI wish deepfake could get the mouth part right. It's been the biggest challenge since the first CGI face animations and is always the giveaway.
- Lex-2008 6y agoGood answer to the question asked in a different comment regarding detecting such fakes!
- blackdogie 6y agoI’m sure we will see more and more of this. One question is when they get so good, how can people figure out that it’s a deep fake or a real human? Will we have captchas for videos soon ? sigh
- coder1001 6y agoGood question, maybe sign your videos with a key? Or perhaps another neural network to distinguish the real from the fake?
- elwell 6y agoYeah, the real reason Zoom should be actually be E2E encrypted.
- mikepurvis 6y agoAuthenticity is about signing more than encrypting. But having that actually work would require a robust key distribution system that's actually usable by the general public.
- Der_Einzige 6y agoIsn't that already done? They're called generative adversarial networks...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- stingraycharles 6y agoIf I understood it correctly, deepfakes are relatively easy to detect by software if you know what you’re looking for. I can imagine video conferencing software can implement this, and display a warning in similar ways that phishing emails are currently handled.
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- sytelus 6y agoThis is the best application of deep fakes I have seen! If someone was selling deep fakes for StarTrek/StarWar, it would be hot cake among crowd here, except for too many Kirk and Picards might be seen in meetings.
- jessaustin 6y agoMore meetings should definitely start with arguments about who gets to use which avatar. "I only took Riker because my boss is on the call!" "Geordi is already taken; you have to be Wesley!"
- odnes 6y agoAll the new mobile banks seem to do their ID verification/KYC using video selfies. Interesting to consider whether deepfakes are being used in wild to fool these systems and commit fraud.
- perf1 6y agoThey try to mitigate this. They ask you for example to move your hands around your face and bend your ID card.
- james_s_tayler 6y agoJust apply the same technology to mitigate their mitigation. Arms race all the way down.
- Waterluvian 6y agoThe way that the mouth and eyes move, but that the rest of the face is pretty static, is actually really charming to me. It betrays that it's a fake, which I think makes it easier to be a fun joke.
- hanniabu 6y agoReminds me of the chuckecheese robots
- scarface74 6y agoThat’s simple. If you are trying to fool someone.... “My internet speed is very low. I know the video is choppy”.
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoWhich is the line taken by the guy who made his own video call bot shown in social media recently. https://redpepper.land/blog/zoombot/ https://redpepper.land/blog/zoombot/
- ourmandave 6y agoCouldn't I just wear an N-95 mask? Once the pandemic is over, I'm never using Zoom again anyway.
- scarface74 6y agoYou’re never working remotely or do you plan to use a different app/service?
- antongribok 6y agoAnd good news... this works with other services, not just Zoom.
- forgingahead 6y agoActual Github repo for this called Avatarify: https://github.com/alievk/avatarify https://github.com/alievk/avatarify Original repo code that Avatarify is based on called First Order Model: https://github.com/AliaksandrSiarohin/first-order-model https://github.com/AliaksandrSiarohin/first-order-model Short video demonstrating First Order Model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUfJOQKdtAk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUfJOQKdtAk
- noworriesnate 6y agoThis is pretty funny. I wonder, how hard would it be to use tech like this to make it look like you are looking the camera “in the eyes”?
- smartinspereira 6y agoApple is doing this on FaceTime with the latest iOS. Pretty neat feature, makes Video calls more personal.
- noworriesnate 6y agoYou're right, I didn't know about that. Thanks! Link: https://9to5mac.com/2019/07/03/facetime-eye-contact-correction-in-ios-13-uses-arkit/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/07/03/facetime-eye-contact-correcti...
- jlokier 6y agoMicrosoft has it too: https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/03/microsofts-ai-powered-eye-gaze-tech-is-exclusive-to-the-surface-pro-x/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/03/microsofts-ai-powered-eye... Seems they've been working on it since 2002: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/eye-gaze-correction-for-video-telecommunications/ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/eye-gaze-co...
- pakinterference 6y agoAt first I thought it was someone with TDS that could bring up Trump in a completely unrelated article ("Russians saying things to get him elected") but then I looked up and the author is a Pakistanti lady (see the tribune article). I guess this is Pak interference then?
- pm_me_ur_fullzz 6y agoNice, now I can pass my Binance verification with fake KYC more easily
- mikece 6y agoSounds like it would be with a few minutes of fun on a daily status call during these work-from-home days of quarantine. For the time being the goofiest it’s gotten was someone using a virtual webcam that allowed for green-screen and looping video of the Max Headroom background... Which reminds me, though slightly off topic, if there’s virtual webcam software whose sole point is to keep a log of all of the applications using the built-in camera or mic. That might be useful.
- k__ 6y agoFinally a solution for daily standups. I can pay someone to attend meetings all over the world, by just impersonating me.
- m3kw9 6y agoTheoretically you can deepfake yourself but then be not at the place, just pipe in your voice. Prob be accomplished by linking it to some Twilo API
- barbecue_sauce 6y agoWhy would you do remote work even more remotely?
- crispyporkbites 6y agoSo you can go to the office ;-)
- mdeligoz 6y agoHey guys! I'm one of the founders of Impressions, the first mobile deepfake app on a phone. Try it out and give us your thoughts. Right now it's out for IOS but Android is on route. Here's our website https://impressions.app https://impressions.app
- jsjohnst 6y agoVery weak output I’ve seen so far. Trying another before passing judgment, but honestly this is so obviously fake output so far. Edit: now done three images, all well lit face, no dramatic movements, and the output is just terrible.
- mdeligoz 6y agoIt really depends on lots of factors. Lighting, angle, face type, the celebrity you choose and your facial hair. If you're squinting your eyes for example, you won't get decent results. DM me your ID from under settings so I can give you credits to play with.
- yodon 6y agoI strongly recommend you read up on "Likeness Rights" (as in celebrity likeness rights) - they are a big deal, particularly for any product that is available within the state of California (which has extremely strong laws around them). As your product stands today you will be sued and you will lose because you are absolutely using celebrity likenesses to sell your product in the Apple Store. It doesn't matter whether the images you generate are debatably non-celebrity or not because you're using the likeness of specific celebrities to sell the app. For reference on Likeness Rights, one of Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob movies has an entire sub-plot that revolves around the financial significance of likeness rights.
- JimDabell 6y agoIt would be interesting to see how far you could get using deepfakes as a method for video call compression. Train a model locally ahead of time and upload it to a server, then whenever you have a call scheduled the model is downloaded in advance by the other participants. Now, instead of having to send video data, you only have to send a representation of the facial movements so that the recipients can render it on their end. When the tech is a little further along, it should be possible to get good quality video using only a fraction of the bandwidth.
- peter_d_sherman 6y agoI second the already expressed sentiments! An utterly brilliant great idea!
- lambdaba 6y agoExcellent idea and we'll surely be seeing something like this, there are AR apps that already map facial expressions to avatars. Downside could be some uncanny valley if the models are not very high quality. But if I had to make a prediction, I'd expect we'll get much more value from higher bandwidth, ultra high definition streaming and features like 3d cameras / virtual reality. I think we have a tendency to really underestimate how important high definition is for human communication.
- 4lun 6y ago> I'd expect we'll get much more value from higher bandwidth, ultra high definition streaming and features like 3d cameras / virtual reality. I think we have a tendency to really underestimate how important high definition is for human communication. Low latency is probably more important to me. Recently I seem to have a 3 second delay on many VC calls at work (and just for me it seems), and I either end up interrupting people or feeling reluctant to talk at all since it becomes impossible to time gaps and conversations right. Despite that I get a crystal clear HD picture for all participants, but I'd happily sacrifice video quality (in fact I'd accept audio only in some cases) to get a more real time experience (disabling video doesn't seem to have any effect).
- searchableguy 6y agoI am just waiting for someone to build a deep_nude_realtime_zoom plugin so I can finally tell people that we should take digital security, privacy and identity seriously.
- buboard 6y agoThat would give everyone an alibi and make them care even less about privacy.
- searchableguy 6y agoI really wonder what government agencies will do with deepfakes. Will they doctrine evidence like they do now at a greater scale? They already distribute CP, encourage people to believe in Russian conspiracies, troll, encourage violence and the list goes on. So fucked up that we think it is normal.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoIf it truly becomes commonplace, then there is a chance video of any kind will lose some of its visual impact. Having seen enough of these, people will hopefully be more cautious about assuming videos are true.
- A_No_Name_Mouse 6y agoAbsolutely. I could do my video conference calls naked and blame the result on my new deep fake software. Hell, I can even do that now without having the software. My colleagues are nerdy enough to assume such software already exists
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ravenstine 6y agoI seriously wonder how this will affect online dating. Not that I've dated in quite a few years, but even if I wanted to, I wouldn't go back because last time I did, the proliferation of obnoxious Instagram filters and photoshopping made the experience unenjoyable. Fake people aren't appealing. I would bet that the ease at which the average person can deep fake will only make matters much worse. There will always be a demand for Tinder, Match, Bumble, etc., but they will be strictly used for hookups.(I know some will say that's what they are already for, but people are always making that argument for every dating app, thus I can't take that opinion very seriously) Actual dating will have to either go back into being more in-person or require a third-party to handle photography.
- postingawayonhn 6y agoWhy do you think people would use fake pictures on mass. If they wanted to create a profile with pictures that aren't themselves then surely it's easier to just steal someone else's?
- ravenstine 6y agoBecause they already do, to some extent. Now this is my own experience and intuition, but I would say that at least 15% of people's photos on dating apps are doctored in some way. I know some might dispute this, but I've seen enough questionable artifacts in such photos that I believe quite a few of them are artificially flattering. This isn't even including those puppy-face photos. And yes, already there are people who outright steal other people's photos. I've been on many dates where the person looked nothing like the photos. There are a few problems with these kinds of fakery. If you are simply touching up photos to make them more flattering, that takes a lot of work that the average person doesn't want to do. There's AI that can make you look sexier, but said AI is often inconsistent, and isn't that good at arbitrarily modifying features. People who might want to use photos of people who aren't them may have a moral hangup from using someone else's likeness, and that prevents them from going ahead with it. Deepfake technology solves both of those problems. You can use it to change your eyes, your hair, the shape of your face, consistently at every angle, and possibly I real time. More people would feel comfortable using a likeness that isn't theirs because they don't feel like they are stealing, especially if they have no intention of meeting people in real life. I'm not saying that all or even most people would use this technology in dating, but it would require only an appreciable portion of an audience to be dishonest to cause many people to throw in the towel. These are just my crazy theories, so maybe I'm way off base. Soon we will have deepfaking that is easy to use and requires minimal training, and I believe they will be used often and eventually be normalized in society.
- zengid 6y agoOk so how about an app that does the opposite of this, and can prove that the video/audio data hasn't been tampered with since it was created? I don't think it would need much more than public/private key encryption, and a blockchain ledger to record every-time the data was transmitted from one user to another. Thoughts?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 0x62 6y agoHow would you prevent against a deepfake program presenting itself as a camera? From your applications perspective, it's raw data directly from the camera but there's no guarantee the camera is just a camera.
- zengid 6y agoThe "secure video stream" would probably need to be baked into the hardware, like Apple's Secure Enclave https://support.apple.com/guide/security/secure-enclave-overview-sec59b0b31ff/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/secure-enclave-over...
- 101404 6y agoFrom the site's text: > and plenty of Americans and Russian's willing to use whatever means necessary to ensure Trump gets re-elected That is not what the Russian attacks are about. In fact, the maker of the site seems to have fallen for the attacks himself. The attacks are about dividing society. Radicalizing people towards the left and right. The "Trump haters" are just the same as the "Trump fanatics". The author, by implying that the "bad guys" are just one site, is playing into the hands of the Russian trolls. Its exactly what the attacks are trying to achieve.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- DFHippie 6y agoBoth things can be true. They don't really care for Trump personally, they just want to sow discord, but Trump is a great way to sow discord. Non-Russian-aligned intelligence agencies were pretty unanimous in their assessment that Putin was trying to get Trump elected and that they troll both extremes of the political spectrum.
- 101404 6y agoWasn't there an investigation that found no evidence on that?
- gumby 6y agoFinally, the solution to the “haircut problem” with videoconferencing. My gf spends 3-4 hours in meetings every day and is quite concerned about this.
- zaroth 6y agoAny hope of being able to run this on a machine with an AMD GPU?
- dawnerd 6y agoI don’t understand why everything thinks they have to be on video for every single meeting. I never turn on my webcam. It makes no difference to the outcome of the call.
- jeffnappi 6y agoIt is most important in calls with 6+ participants. It gives folks a chance to signal that they have something to say when many times a call may be dominated by one or two individuals. Perhaps there are other approaches for that particular case such as a button to 'raise your hand', however, many people have friendly relationships with their colleagues and simply enjoy seeing them when conversing.
- redhale 6y agoA lot of information can be transmitted through non-verbal communication (e.g. facial expressions). Do you look at the faces of other people on the call with you who do have their cameras turned on? If so, why?
- dawnerd 6y agoNope since someone is usually presenting their screen anyways.
- jonny383 6y agoI guess we should all start wearing blindfolds in face-to-face meetings because it will make no difference to the outcome of the meeting.
- rglullis 6y ago81 comments at the moment and not one single mention of Infinite Jest?! How disappointing...
- jessaustin 6y agoI read that over 20 years ago; could you explain the relevance? deepfakes or something similar would have fit right in with "the entertainment" etc., but I don't recall that happening... In general I find that adding an oblique reference is more appreciated on HN than simply name-dropping a particular fictional work.
- rglullis 6y agoIn the book there is a long passage about how video calls were initially very popular, but after a while people realized that with video calls they were supposed to be looking to the screen all the time and how that led to unnecessary anxiety - e.g, on the telephone you could talk on the phone while clipping your nails, on the video it would never happen. There is also a part where people had to start worrying about their looks on the screen, so that led to a cottage industry of virtual make-up, stand-ins to pose in front of the camera while you could stay away, etc. After everyone realizes that no one is actually in front of the camera anymore, people start going back to regular phone calls.
- rkagerer 6y agoI wanted to play with this, but ran into an error upon starting a Miniconda prompt after a fresh install of Miniconda3 on Win7: ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'conda' It's triggered by this line in conda-script.py: from conda.cli import main Same thing happened when I tried installing Anaconda instead. Any suggestions? ---- EDIT: To get this to work, I had to remove a PYTHONHOME environment variable lingering from an old (but still valid) Python install (see https://github.com/conda/conda/pull/9239 https://github.com/conda/conda/pull/9239), and set CONDA_DLL_SEARCH_MODIFICATION_ENABLE=1 to avoid mkl_intel_thread.dll issues. Leaving my comment here for anyone else who gets stumped.
- jcims 6y agoI had a different set of challenges on Windows 10 - Miniconda installer suggests you don't add it to the path, so i didn't but install_windows.bat assumes you do - There is something with windows permissions happening with the installer, where it can't access the network and can't run the conda activation process. I didn't spend any time figuring this out, i just execute dthe command from the (short) batch file one by one and it worked fine. - i had to add 'fomm' to PYTHONPAT in order for it to find sync_batchnorm.
- ctoth 6y agoAnd the Cam industry was never the same.
- deegles 6y agoI would love to use this with an avatar of myself so that I don’t have to get dressed up for calls!
- Andrex 6y ago"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."
- skanga 6y agoThis is a posting about an article (inputmag) about another article (vice) about a git repo. Wow.
- bawana 6y agoI ran this on ubuntu 18.04. It took a little work to get around a small bug that will be squashed when the v412loopback library gets officially rebuilt but here is a solution https://github.com/alievk/avatarify/issues/37#issuecomment-614503547 https://github.com/alievk/avatarify/issues/37#issuecomment-6... anyway, on a 4930k at 4.5 ghz i am seeing reasonable performance(~30fps) but minimal cuda utilization(titan pascal). The biggest issue is that you need a well lit, stationary face for it to properly map features of the jpg you are using to substitute for your face. Also the jpg needs clearly identifiable features. Even then, the amount of facial expression is subdued (for example closing your eyes is not properly processed). I seem to recall software about 10 years ago where you drew line segments of corresponding features on 2 images and the jpg was then mapped onto the video. It was more accurate and expressive than this is but did require time to set up.