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But then the defense has to pay the cost of hiring an expert to prove it's not authentic. It's really hard to predict where the technology is headed with regar

But then the defense has to pay the cost of hiring an expert to prove it's not authentic. It's really hard to predict where the technology is headed with regards to both generating and proving the non-authenticity of deepfakes, but it is concerning that this could open up people without money to pay for defense to be ruined by people with money to pay for deepfakes.

ceejayoz 4y ago
> But then the defense has to pay the cost of hiring an expert to prove it's not authentic. The defense's first step is to say "that particular video is a deep fake", under penalty of perjury. Musk's "well it could be" doesn't cut it.
- dwighttk 4y ago
  The judge just said to Musk come say that you didn’t say the statement in the video instead of having a lawyer say “faking videos is possible”
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Yes. Which he's not gonna do unless he wants a perjury charge, because it's a seven year old video on a reputable channel with multiple well-known reporters interviewing him.
falcolas 4y ago
Hiring expert witnesses is what lawyers do when it comes to anything remotely specialized. Deepfakes are nothing new in this regards.
- ranger_danger 4y ago
  Yes but people without access to good enough lawyers are going to get the short end of the stick as always, and get framed for something they didn't do. The number of innocent people in jail could skyrocket.
- AnthonyMouse 4y ago
  The new thing is that fakes that could convince an ordinary person that they're real were in the realm of state intelligence agencies, and now they're in the realm of anyone with a computer. Which causes the probability that a given video is fake to go from negligible to significant. It's also not clear if experts always can tell if something is a fake or not, if it was created by an algorithm which is less than a year old or doesn't happen to have a lot of the artifacts that these algorithms sometimes introduce.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    On topic though, this doesn't make "It could be fake," a reasonable defense. Sure, the surface area will get larger, but we have that problem across all digital media at this moment. Deepfakes are no longer unique. The courts will have to deal with it one way or another, and right now expert witnesses is the tool they have, and the tool defendants will need to use.
    - AnthonyMouse 4y ago
      > On topic though, this doesn't make "It could be fake," a reasonable defense. Why not? If you go into court claiming you have a contract with someone but you have nothing notarized or even signed, you're the one who has to provide evidence of your claim. A video is no longer sufficient to do that because any plaintiff or internet troll now has the ability to convincingly fabricate one. It's no more proof of anything than the plaintiff making an unsubstantiated claim. > The courts will have to deal with it one way or another, and right now expert witnesses is the tool they have, and the tool defendants will need to use. Why should it be the defendants who have to pay for the expert instead of the plaintiffs?
      - falcolas 4y ago
        The difference is the difference between "it may be fake" and "it is fake". "May" being the key word that makes it a meaningless observation instead of a defense. If someone wants to defend themselves against video evidence, they need to say that it's fake, and create reasonable doubt about its veracity. You don't do that with "maybe" or "could be". > Why should it be the defendants who have to pay for the expert instead of the plaintiffs? TL;DR: that's how our legal system works in the US, for better or worse. EDIT: You probably don't have to attack the video as a deepfake directly, either. "That's not me, I wasn't at X, I was at Y, and here are receipts and witnesses" are highly likely to work too. Basically, an alibi.

ceejayoz 4y ago

> But then the defense has to pay the cost of hiring an expert to prove it's not authentic. The defense's first step is to say "that particular video is a deep fake", under penalty of perjury. Musk's "well it could be" doesn't cut it.

dwighttk 4y ago
The judge just said to Musk come say that you didn’t say the statement in the video instead of having a lawyer say “faking videos is possible”
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Yes. Which he's not gonna do unless he wants a perjury charge, because it's a seven year old video on a reputable channel with multiple well-known reporters interviewing him.

falcolas 4y ago

Hiring expert witnesses is what lawyers do when it comes to anything remotely specialized. Deepfakes are nothing new in this regards.

ranger_danger 4y ago
Yes but people without access to good enough lawyers are going to get the short end of the stick as always, and get framed for something they didn't do. The number of innocent people in jail could skyrocket.
AnthonyMouse 4y ago
The new thing is that fakes that could convince an ordinary person that they're real were in the realm of state intelligence agencies, and now they're in the realm of anyone with a computer. Which causes the probability that a given video is fake to go from negligible to significant. It's also not clear if experts always can tell if something is a fake or not, if it was created by an algorithm which is less than a year old or doesn't happen to have a lot of the artifacts that these algorithms sometimes introduce.
- falcolas 4y ago
  On topic though, this doesn't make "It could be fake," a reasonable defense. Sure, the surface area will get larger, but we have that problem across all digital media at this moment. Deepfakes are no longer unique. The courts will have to deal with it one way or another, and right now expert witnesses is the tool they have, and the tool defendants will need to use.
  - AnthonyMouse 4y ago
    > On topic though, this doesn't make "It could be fake," a reasonable defense. Why not? If you go into court claiming you have a contract with someone but you have nothing notarized or even signed, you're the one who has to provide evidence of your claim. A video is no longer sufficient to do that because any plaintiff or internet troll now has the ability to convincingly fabricate one. It's no more proof of anything than the plaintiff making an unsubstantiated claim. > The courts will have to deal with it one way or another, and right now expert witnesses is the tool they have, and the tool defendants will need to use. Why should it be the defendants who have to pay for the expert instead of the plaintiffs?
    - falcolas 4y ago
      The difference is the difference between "it may be fake" and "it is fake". "May" being the key word that makes it a meaningless observation instead of a defense. If someone wants to defend themselves against video evidence, they need to say that it's fake, and create reasonable doubt about its veracity. You don't do that with "maybe" or "could be". > Why should it be the defendants who have to pay for the expert instead of the plaintiffs? TL;DR: that's how our legal system works in the US, for better or worse. EDIT: You probably don't have to attack the video as a deepfake directly, either. "That's not me, I wasn't at X, I was at Y, and here are receipts and witnesses" are highly likely to work too. Basically, an alibi.