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I think this is actually a good thing. The more the average person is familiar with deepfake tech, the less likely they are to get misled.

SQueeeeeL 6y ago
I like the philosophy, but tricking people isn't very hard. Apparently, some shaking camera footage of a computer monitor was all it took to discredit a political dissident https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/world/asia/cambodia-facebook-disinformation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/world/asia/cambodia-faceb...
- mythobit 6y ago
  It seems like as soon as it confirms their bias they are willing to ignore if something is real or not.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    You say "they" like this isn't something that every single person in the world does constantly -- nobody is immune to it. Confirmation bias is just a derogatory term for people having priors.
    - makomk 6y ago
      Yeah, and it really is everyone. For example, remember when the White House Press Secretary tweeted a video that had apparently been doctored to make it look like a journalist had attacked one of their staffers? There was a really clear, convincing comparison that overlaid a semi-transparent version of that video on the original, showing that it leapt ahead in the part where his hand went near her because it had been sped up to make the interaction look more violent. Many people spread it, including YouTube debunker Captain Disillusion with this message: "Getting lots of requests on the topic, but there's nothing for me to examine. This person has examined it, very simply and clearly. And I concur." https://twitter.com/cdisillusion/status/1060564297103917056 https://twitter.com/cdisillusion/status/1060564297103917056 Now, having compared the two videos myself and not found anything like this, obviously I had a look at it - and worked out the trick almost immediately. The comparison had the overlay ahead of the original by the same number of frames the whole way through from frame 1, but it was so faint that during normal viewing the difference was only visible in fast-moving parts, creating the illusion it leapt ahead in those parts. Easiest trick imaginable, could probably have been done trivially with film a century ago, and fooled someone who'd built a career and reputation around debunking faked videos along with many others. (As for the White House video, that's a long story but the short version is that it seemed to be pretty much exactly what it purported to be, and the only actual "doctoring" was probably the obvious, intentional stuff like repeating parts of the video zoomed in.)
Spivak 6y ago
This assumes you even need to go that far to successfully mislead people. The most authoritative sources of information in the world right now today are the written and spoken word. I mean people wouldn't just lie right? For the world you're describing to make sense people would actually have to demand video evidence to believe something.
tdeck 6y ago
That still leaves the other problem - people will eventually stop believing real video evidence. Cops will claim videos of their abuse are deepfakes, and people will believe them. Politicians will claim that recordings of them soliciting bribes are deepfakes, and they'll be off the hook. Concrete evidence of misdeeds is one of our best ways to hold powerful people accountable, but with deepfakes they can simply flood the web with fake incriminating evidence and we'll become so accustomed to ignoring it that we ignore real evidence as well.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  They already had that to get people to ignore video evidence - just scream "It is out of context!" while committing acts that could never be excused under any circumstances.

SQueeeeeL 6y ago

I like the philosophy, but tricking people isn't very hard. Apparently, some shaking camera footage of a computer monitor was all it took to discredit a political dissident https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/world/asia/cambodia-facebook-disinformation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/world/asia/cambodia-faceb...

mythobit 6y ago
It seems like as soon as it confirms their bias they are willing to ignore if something is real or not.
- Spivak 6y ago
  You say "they" like this isn't something that every single person in the world does constantly -- nobody is immune to it. Confirmation bias is just a derogatory term for people having priors.
  - makomk 6y ago
    Yeah, and it really is everyone. For example, remember when the White House Press Secretary tweeted a video that had apparently been doctored to make it look like a journalist had attacked one of their staffers? There was a really clear, convincing comparison that overlaid a semi-transparent version of that video on the original, showing that it leapt ahead in the part where his hand went near her because it had been sped up to make the interaction look more violent. Many people spread it, including YouTube debunker Captain Disillusion with this message: "Getting lots of requests on the topic, but there's nothing for me to examine. This person has examined it, very simply and clearly. And I concur." https://twitter.com/cdisillusion/status/1060564297103917056 https://twitter.com/cdisillusion/status/1060564297103917056 Now, having compared the two videos myself and not found anything like this, obviously I had a look at it - and worked out the trick almost immediately. The comparison had the overlay ahead of the original by the same number of frames the whole way through from frame 1, but it was so faint that during normal viewing the difference was only visible in fast-moving parts, creating the illusion it leapt ahead in those parts. Easiest trick imaginable, could probably have been done trivially with film a century ago, and fooled someone who'd built a career and reputation around debunking faked videos along with many others. (As for the White House video, that's a long story but the short version is that it seemed to be pretty much exactly what it purported to be, and the only actual "doctoring" was probably the obvious, intentional stuff like repeating parts of the video zoomed in.)

Spivak 6y ago

This assumes you even need to go that far to successfully mislead people. The most authoritative sources of information in the world right now today are the written and spoken word. I mean people wouldn't just lie right? For the world you're describing to make sense people would actually have to demand video evidence to believe something.

tdeck 6y ago

That still leaves the other problem - people will eventually stop believing real video evidence. Cops will claim videos of their abuse are deepfakes, and people will believe them. Politicians will claim that recordings of them soliciting bribes are deepfakes, and they'll be off the hook. Concrete evidence of misdeeds is one of our best ways to hold powerful people accountable, but with deepfakes they can simply flood the web with fake incriminating evidence and we'll become so accustomed to ignoring it that we ignore real evidence as well.

Nasrudith 6y ago
They already had that to get people to ignore video evidence - just scream "It is out of context!" while committing acts that could never be excused under any circumstances.