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I'm confused how courts will deal with this in the future. We are just entering the age of deep fake voices, convincing ones at least. And there are bound to be

I'm confused how courts will deal with this in the future. We are just entering the age of deep fake voices, convincing ones at least. And there are bound to be plenty of deep fakes that sound like the real person but aren't. Are we now going to be held liable for deepfakes we didn't make? I'm surprised people aren't using this more for divorces and what not. Create a deepfake of your wife and then say "Here's proof my wife was cheating"

izzydata 3y ago
Videos are easy enough to spot as fakes for now, but I've heard really convincing AI audio fakes. Audio only recordings might not be usable as evidence without additional confirmation of authenticity.
- infinitifall 3y ago
  What would "additional confirmation" look like? Are audio/video recordings I take with my phone going to be useless in a decade because deepfakes are virtually indistinguishable and there is no "additional confirmation"?
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    That is a good question, because there are two trends at play here. On the one hand, you have ever improving ability to create deepfake images, videos or audio recordings. On the other hand, AI-based retouching of photos and videos is now pretty much standard on mobile, some of it done by default and hidden from you in software. It wouldn't surprise me if the same was case with voice too. Point being, it'll take more than just looking at the source image/video/audio for signs of AI manipulation, because soon enough, all recordings will be AI-manipulated before even hitting persistent storage. In other words: everything will be deepfake by default, and the issue will turn into telling which deepfakes were done to lie about substantial aspects of reality pertinent to the case, and which ones were made to enhance some non-relevant qualities (aesthetics, compressibility, etc.).
  - Raidion 3y ago
    Useless? No. Possibly open to being faked? Yes. Lots of ways to sign photos and videos today that should make them fully verifiable in the future (assuming public/private key cryptography remains secure). For stuff that isn't signed, it's not like good old detective work can't verify in a lot of cases. Phone records, eye witnesses, additional unpublished recordings, etc. Also being verified really only matters when it comes to "truth" as defined by law. It's not like your family won't enjoy your videos of Christmas '23.
    - ranger_danger 3y ago
      a cryptographically-verified video of a phone taking a video of a screen playing another (fake) video, is not very useful though.
  - izzydata 3y ago
    Additional confirmation could simply be multiple sources reporting the same thing. Once is circumstantial, but if 10 people record something from different perspectives then it is highly likely to be real.
ianferrel 3y ago
This isn't a new problem with video, but a new twist on an old problem: manufactured evidence. One way that courts deal with it is enhanced scrutiny on disputed evidence. Like, if you show up to a court with a document that you claimed someone signed, and they claim they didn't sign it, then the court can keep digging until they figure out who is lying. They can look for witnesses. They can subpoena records from internet companies that may have been involved in a digital transmission of that document. And so on. It's still possibly to lie to courts and manufacture evidence, but most people are not going to cover their tracks well enough to do so without getting caught if the full force the court's scrutiny is turned on them. And the court finding out you lied to it is very very bad for whatever case you were trying to make.
- sharemywin 3y ago
  perjury isn't looked to kindly on in the courts.
  - DoesntMatter22 3y ago
    I've heard this is hardly ever prosecuted except in federal court
- ranger_danger 3y ago
  > if the full force the court's scrutiny is turned on them good luck doing that without severely deep pockets
splendidHaiku 3y ago
Everything will be considered fake unless it is proven authentic. How do we prove authentic? Same way we prove that a website we visit is authentic. Every recording made will be signed/hashed and be able to validate of the public key of the recording device (every phone will have a key). White House, News Orgs, etc. all will use cameras with public keys so everyone can validate. As soon as only one pixel or frequency changes, it will be invalid/fake. In the end, all will be even more trustworthy than today (there will be some kind of signed/verification label on every video/audio/media that is original/valid).
- cma 3y ago
  You could take a picture of a picture or a recording of a recording and now it is validated.
  - blondie9x 3y ago
    How would that relate to the hashing explained here?
    - theLiminator 3y ago
      I imagine the guy above is thinking any device can produce a hashed video, but I think we'll need the notion of cryptographically secure cameras or something with write once memory that has to be swapped out once in a while. The alternative being cameras that upload the hash of every clip into a server to provide non repudiation.
  - Raidion 3y ago
    But it wouldn't be validated with the original key, so people could know it could have been tampered with.
    - svachalek 3y ago
      If the key is just the recording device, why not? Play a fake on some other device and record with your own.
crdrost 3y ago
So the way the lawyers are approaching this evidence is their usual cavalier approach to truth. They are not attempting to establish “my client never said that,” but just trying to poke holes, “this video of my client saying that is not sufficient proof that my client said that.” There is for example no statement under oath from Elon, “that video was a fake, that absolutely never happened.” Even without that, there is no paper trail of “my client maintained a very consistent messaging that this was not fully autonomous driving and you need to always be vigilant... this isolated clip is so strange that we need to seriously entertain the idea that it was deepfaked.” That sort of stuff. Regarding the faithful wife accused of cheating, I mean, there are lots of valid ways to investigate. First questions are “where did this video come from, where do you believe it was filmed, why do you believe it is your wife rather than someone who happens to look a lot like her,” etc. ... Normally a PI would be claiming “I followed her to so-and-so motel, I took this video legally from outside” and even then you might get objections from a decent divorce lawyer, “this is a two-party consent state and my client didn't consent, this is unlawful surveillance,” yadda yadda yadda. But for a deepfake you have all those objections and more.
- DoesntMatter22 3y ago
  "I received it in an email from a guy saying he is sleeping with her. She says her name and everything"
  - crdrost 3y ago
    Look up “laying the groundwork” for “documentary evidence” and you will find that this fails to show chain of custody unless you can get that “guy saying he is sleeping with her” in the courtroom.
xwdv 3y ago
It is 100% not an issue. The human eye and ears can’t tell if some video or audio is fake, but you cannot hide from the machine. Deep technical analysis will easily reveal something is manufactured, as easily as it can tell an image is photoshopped. And God help you if they discover you manufactured evidence. Manufacturing evidence raises the stakes considerably. It makes any crime instantly more heinous, proves you deliberately had bad intention. You might go in thinking you’ll win easily with manufacturerd evidence and come out with greater felonies and complete eradication of your reputation. You think you might be so fucking smart using off the shelf components to make yourself a deep fake, rest assured there are always people smarter than you out there. Intellects vast and deep that will easily pierce through your lies and destroy you. Do not attempt to provoke them. They will relish in picking your remains apart.
- DoesntMatter22 3y ago
  Human eyes and ears can tell if it's fake? Lol This is a ridiculous comment
dragonwriter 3y ago
> I'm surprised people aren't using this more for divorces and what not. Create a deepfake of your wife and then say "Here's proof my wife was cheating" No fault divorce makes it kind of pointless to use in divorces.
- DoesntMatter22 3y ago
  Are all states no fault states? Also I think it can matter for prenups. Cheating can equal no money
IMSAI8080 3y ago
It's not a new problem. There was an HN article I was reading about someone facing police audio tape evidence and their defence lawyer said it must have been edited to make their client look guilty. The prosecution proved the recording was continuous and not edited from the pattern of mains hum noise on the tape. There'll probably be some clever technical methods to differentiate deep fakes from original recording along soon. Then there's just simply the weight of other evidence that may be present e.g. whether witnesses agree they said the statement etc.
- DoesntMatter22 3y ago
  I don't think the same will apply here. Even original record methods are dubious but for deepfakes it's just a matter of time to when it's completely indistinguishable from the real thing
RobotToaster 3y ago
I do wonder if for areas where provable authenticity is necessary we will see a move back to analogue film.

izzydata 3y ago

Videos are easy enough to spot as fakes for now, but I've heard really convincing AI audio fakes. Audio only recordings might not be usable as evidence without additional confirmation of authenticity.

infinitifall 3y ago
What would "additional confirmation" look like? Are audio/video recordings I take with my phone going to be useless in a decade because deepfakes are virtually indistinguishable and there is no "additional confirmation"?
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  That is a good question, because there are two trends at play here. On the one hand, you have ever improving ability to create deepfake images, videos or audio recordings. On the other hand, AI-based retouching of photos and videos is now pretty much standard on mobile, some of it done by default and hidden from you in software. It wouldn't surprise me if the same was case with voice too. Point being, it'll take more than just looking at the source image/video/audio for signs of AI manipulation, because soon enough, all recordings will be AI-manipulated before even hitting persistent storage. In other words: everything will be deepfake by default, and the issue will turn into telling which deepfakes were done to lie about substantial aspects of reality pertinent to the case, and which ones were made to enhance some non-relevant qualities (aesthetics, compressibility, etc.).
- Raidion 3y ago
  Useless? No. Possibly open to being faked? Yes. Lots of ways to sign photos and videos today that should make them fully verifiable in the future (assuming public/private key cryptography remains secure). For stuff that isn't signed, it's not like good old detective work can't verify in a lot of cases. Phone records, eye witnesses, additional unpublished recordings, etc. Also being verified really only matters when it comes to "truth" as defined by law. It's not like your family won't enjoy your videos of Christmas '23.
  - ranger_danger 3y ago
    a cryptographically-verified video of a phone taking a video of a screen playing another (fake) video, is not very useful though.
- izzydata 3y ago
  Additional confirmation could simply be multiple sources reporting the same thing. Once is circumstantial, but if 10 people record something from different perspectives then it is highly likely to be real.

ianferrel 3y ago

This isn't a new problem with video, but a new twist on an old problem: manufactured evidence. One way that courts deal with it is enhanced scrutiny on disputed evidence. Like, if you show up to a court with a document that you claimed someone signed, and they claim they didn't sign it, then the court can keep digging until they figure out who is lying. They can look for witnesses. They can subpoena records from internet companies that may have been involved in a digital transmission of that document. And so on. It's still possibly to lie to courts and manufacture evidence, but most people are not going to cover their tracks well enough to do so without getting caught if the full force the court's scrutiny is turned on them. And the court finding out you lied to it is very very bad for whatever case you were trying to make.

sharemywin 3y ago
perjury isn't looked to kindly on in the courts.
- DoesntMatter22 3y ago
  I've heard this is hardly ever prosecuted except in federal court
ranger_danger 3y ago
> if the full force the court's scrutiny is turned on them good luck doing that without severely deep pockets

splendidHaiku 3y ago

Everything will be considered fake unless it is proven authentic. How do we prove authentic? Same way we prove that a website we visit is authentic. Every recording made will be signed/hashed and be able to validate of the public key of the recording device (every phone will have a key). White House, News Orgs, etc. all will use cameras with public keys so everyone can validate. As soon as only one pixel or frequency changes, it will be invalid/fake. In the end, all will be even more trustworthy than today (there will be some kind of signed/verification label on every video/audio/media that is original/valid).

cma 3y ago
You could take a picture of a picture or a recording of a recording and now it is validated.
- blondie9x 3y ago
  How would that relate to the hashing explained here?
  - theLiminator 3y ago
    I imagine the guy above is thinking any device can produce a hashed video, but I think we'll need the notion of cryptographically secure cameras or something with write once memory that has to be swapped out once in a while. The alternative being cameras that upload the hash of every clip into a server to provide non repudiation.
- Raidion 3y ago
  But it wouldn't be validated with the original key, so people could know it could have been tampered with.
  - svachalek 3y ago
    If the key is just the recording device, why not? Play a fake on some other device and record with your own.

crdrost 3y ago

So the way the lawyers are approaching this evidence is their usual cavalier approach to truth. They are not attempting to establish “my client never said that,” but just trying to poke holes, “this video of my client saying that is not sufficient proof that my client said that.” There is for example no statement under oath from Elon, “that video was a fake, that absolutely never happened.” Even without that, there is no paper trail of “my client maintained a very consistent messaging that this was not fully autonomous driving and you need to always be vigilant... this isolated clip is so strange that we need to seriously entertain the idea that it was deepfaked.” That sort of stuff. Regarding the faithful wife accused of cheating, I mean, there are lots of valid ways to investigate. First questions are “where did this video come from, where do you believe it was filmed, why do you believe it is your wife rather than someone who happens to look a lot like her,” etc. ... Normally a PI would be claiming “I followed her to so-and-so motel, I took this video legally from outside” and even then you might get objections from a decent divorce lawyer, “this is a two-party consent state and my client didn't consent, this is unlawful surveillance,” yadda yadda yadda. But for a deepfake you have all those objections and more.

DoesntMatter22 3y ago
"I received it in an email from a guy saying he is sleeping with her. She says her name and everything"
- crdrost 3y ago
  Look up “laying the groundwork” for “documentary evidence” and you will find that this fails to show chain of custody unless you can get that “guy saying he is sleeping with her” in the courtroom.

xwdv 3y ago

It is 100% not an issue. The human eye and ears can’t tell if some video or audio is fake, but you cannot hide from the machine. Deep technical analysis will easily reveal something is manufactured, as easily as it can tell an image is photoshopped. And God help you if they discover you manufactured evidence. Manufacturing evidence raises the stakes considerably. It makes any crime instantly more heinous, proves you deliberately had bad intention. You might go in thinking you’ll win easily with manufacturerd evidence and come out with greater felonies and complete eradication of your reputation. You think you might be so fucking smart using off the shelf components to make yourself a deep fake, rest assured there are always people smarter than you out there. Intellects vast and deep that will easily pierce through your lies and destroy you. Do not attempt to provoke them. They will relish in picking your remains apart.

DoesntMatter22 3y ago
Human eyes and ears can tell if it's fake? Lol This is a ridiculous comment

dragonwriter 3y ago

> I'm surprised people aren't using this more for divorces and what not. Create a deepfake of your wife and then say "Here's proof my wife was cheating" No fault divorce makes it kind of pointless to use in divorces.

DoesntMatter22 3y ago
Are all states no fault states? Also I think it can matter for prenups. Cheating can equal no money

IMSAI8080 3y ago

It's not a new problem. There was an HN article I was reading about someone facing police audio tape evidence and their defence lawyer said it must have been edited to make their client look guilty. The prosecution proved the recording was continuous and not edited from the pattern of mains hum noise on the tape. There'll probably be some clever technical methods to differentiate deep fakes from original recording along soon. Then there's just simply the weight of other evidence that may be present e.g. whether witnesses agree they said the statement etc.

DoesntMatter22 3y ago
I don't think the same will apply here. Even original record methods are dubious but for deepfakes it's just a matter of time to when it's completely indistinguishable from the real thing

RobotToaster 3y ago

I do wonder if for areas where provable authenticity is necessary we will see a move back to analogue film.