3 ms·

I encountered the same stories of people's faces being photoshopped onto nude models when I was a kid back in the 2000s. Deepfakes are nothing new.

acdha 3y ago
That’s like saying the invention of the rifle didn’t matter because your grandfather used a bow and arrow to shoot things. The skill level required to photoshop an image with the same quality as ML tools significantly limits who can do it and how many fakes they can produce. That changes it from something few people are likely to ever experience to something which can affect, say, most girls in a middle school class – and because the quality is higher, the consequences are worse because people are more likely to believe the fakes are real.
- Manuel_D 3y ago
  Not really, the skill required to do a photoshoot is just copy paste and a bit of the healing brush tool. This is considerably easier than a deep fake. I also disagree with the idea that quality is superior. Resolution is lower, and the seams are often visible. Though ultimately this is subjective: is a high resolution still "better" than a low-resolution video? The core complaint about deep fakes is, word for word, the exact same complaint about Photoshop: someone might use a computer to produce a image with someone's face pasted onto another person's body (presumably naked and doing a sexual act). People could - and no doubt some did - Photoshop classmate's faces onto nude women's bodies.
  - acdha 3y ago
    > Not really, the skill required to do a photoshoot is just copy paste and a bit of the healing brush tool That works if you have very similar images: same pose, lighting angle, intensity, hue, etc. In most cases, people quickly recognize it as fake because it’s harder than it might seem to get those details right, which is where the skill requirement comes in (not to mention things like a huge image collection to search for compatible images). Things like tattoos, clothing, jewelry, birthmarks, etc. add to the challenge since it looks highly fake to just use the healing brush. In contrast, the apps which are being built now allow the attacker to upload the images they have and generate more realistic images very quickly. Again, the concern here is availability and scale – while people certainly have misused Photoshop (and analog darkroom techniques before that) in the past, the reason we’re hearing about it more is that it’s much easier than it used to be. There are far more teenagers who’ll be terrible to a peer in the moment but aren’t going to spend days getting new software and learning how to use it.

acdha 3y ago

That’s like saying the invention of the rifle didn’t matter because your grandfather used a bow and arrow to shoot things. The skill level required to photoshop an image with the same quality as ML tools significantly limits who can do it and how many fakes they can produce. That changes it from something few people are likely to ever experience to something which can affect, say, most girls in a middle school class – and because the quality is higher, the consequences are worse because people are more likely to believe the fakes are real.

Manuel_D 3y ago
Not really, the skill required to do a photoshoot is just copy paste and a bit of the healing brush tool. This is considerably easier than a deep fake. I also disagree with the idea that quality is superior. Resolution is lower, and the seams are often visible. Though ultimately this is subjective: is a high resolution still "better" than a low-resolution video? The core complaint about deep fakes is, word for word, the exact same complaint about Photoshop: someone might use a computer to produce a image with someone's face pasted onto another person's body (presumably naked and doing a sexual act). People could - and no doubt some did - Photoshop classmate's faces onto nude women's bodies.
- acdha 3y ago
  > Not really, the skill required to do a photoshoot is just copy paste and a bit of the healing brush tool That works if you have very similar images: same pose, lighting angle, intensity, hue, etc. In most cases, people quickly recognize it as fake because it’s harder than it might seem to get those details right, which is where the skill requirement comes in (not to mention things like a huge image collection to search for compatible images). Things like tattoos, clothing, jewelry, birthmarks, etc. add to the challenge since it looks highly fake to just use the healing brush. In contrast, the apps which are being built now allow the attacker to upload the images they have and generate more realistic images very quickly. Again, the concern here is availability and scale – while people certainly have misused Photoshop (and analog darkroom techniques before that) in the past, the reason we’re hearing about it more is that it’s much easier than it used to be. There are far more teenagers who’ll be terrible to a peer in the moment but aren’t going to spend days getting new software and learning how to use it.