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Why is this research being done? Is this some kind of arms race? The only purpose of this technology I can think of is getting spies to abuse others. Am I goin

Why is this research being done? Is this some kind of arms race? The only purpose of this technology I can think of is getting spies to abuse others. Am I going to have to do AuthN and AuthZ on every phone call and zoom now?

Arnavion 2y ago
On the other hand, if deepfaking becomes common enough that everyone stops trusting everything they read / see on the internet, it would be a net good against the spread of disinformation compared to today.
- hiatus 2y ago
  I don't see that as an outcome. We have already seen a grand erosion of trust in institutions. Moving to an even lower trust society does not sound like it would have positive consequences for discourse, public policy, or society at large.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    Ironically low effort deep fakes might increase trust in organizations that have had the budget to fake stuff since their inception. The losers are 'citizen journalist' broadcasting on Youtube etc.
  - throwthrowuknow 2y ago
    The benefit is that you can only trust in person interaction with social and governmental institutions so people will have to leave their damn house again and go talk to each other face to face. Too many of our current problems are caused by people only interacting with each other and the world through third parties who are performing a MITM operation for their own benefit.
    - 1attice 2y ago
      This assumes that it's a two-way door. Over the past century and a half, we've moved into vast, anonymous spaces, where I'm as likely to know and get along with my neighbour as I am to win the lottery. And this is important. No, it's not just a matter of putting on an effort to learn who my neighbour is -- my neighbour is literally someone whose life experiences are wildly different, whose social outcomes will be wildly different, whose beliefs and values are wildly different, and, for all I know, goes to conferences about how to eliminate me and my kind. (This last part is not speculation; I'm trans; see: CPAC) And these are my reasons. My neighbour is probably equivalently terrified of me, or what I represent, or the media I consume, or the conferences that I go to. Generalizing, you can't take a bunch of random people whose only bond is that they share meatspace-proximity, draw a circle around them, and declare them a community; those communities are _gone_, and you can no more bring them back than you can revive a corpse. (This would also probably not be a good idea, even if it were possible: they were also incredibly uncomfortable places for anyone who didn't fit in, and we have generations of fiction about people risking everything to leave for those big anonymous cities we created in step 1.) So, here we are, dependent on technology to stay in touch with far-flung friends and lovers and family, all of us, scattered like spiderwebs across the globe, and now into the strands drips a poison. Daniel Dennett was right. Counterfeit people are an enormous danger to civilization. Research like this should stop immediately.
- notaustinpowers 2y ago
  I don't see the extinction of trust through the introduction of garbage falsehoods to be a net good. Believing that everything you eat is poisoned is no way to live. Believing that everything you see is a lie is also no way to live.
  - throwthrowuknow 2y ago
    Before photography this was just the normal state of the world. Think a little, back then any story or picture you saw was made by a person and you only had their reputation to go by. Think some more and you realize that’s never changed even with pictures and video. Easy AI generated pictures and video just remove the illusion of trust.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  everyone stops trusting everything Why would you expect this to happen? Lots of people are gullible, if it were otherwise a lot of well-known politicians would be out of a job or would never have been elected to begin with.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    If it's even commoner than "common enough" then anyone could at least try to help their gullible friends and family by sending them a deepfake video of them doing/saying something they've never said. A lot of people will suddenly wise up when a problem affects them directly.
- piva00 2y ago
  That's the whole issue though, spread of disinformation eroded trust, furthering this into obliteration of all trust is not a good outcome.
tithe 2y ago
I get the feeling it's "someone's going to do this, so it might as well be us." It's fascinating how research can take on a life of its own and will be pushed, by someone, to its own conclusion. Even for immensely destructive technologies (e.g., atomic weapons, viruses), the impact of a technology is its own attractor (could you say that's risk-seeking behavior?) > Am I going to have to do AuthN and AuthZ on every phone call and zoom now? "Alexa, I need an alibi for yesterday at noon."
andybak 2y ago
Because the text for this is only a slight variation of the tech for a broad range of legitimate applications? Because even this precise tech has legitimate use cases? > The only purpose of this technology I can think of is getting spies to abuse others. Can you really not think of any other use cases?
- krainboltgreene 2y ago
  Why don't you list some legitimate and useful values of this work? Especially at the price we and this company are paying.
- lo0dot0 2y ago
  Why don't you get more specific about your claims?
  - andybak 2y ago
    Jeez. I dunno. Sometimes I just reach my threshold for the time I'm prepared to spend debating with strangers on the internet.
1659447091 2y ago
Advertising. Now you and your friends star in the streaming commercials and digital billboards near you! (whether you want to or not)
danmur 2y ago
We all know why this is really happening. Clippy 2.0.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
phkahler 2y ago
Newscasters and other talking heads will be out of business. Just pipe the script into some AI and get video.
HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
> Why is this research being done? I think it's mostly "because it can be done". These types of impressive demos have become relatively low hanging fruit in terms of how modern machine learning can be applied. One could imagine commercial applications (VR, virtual "try before you buy", etc), but things like this can also be a flex by the AI labs, or a PhD student wanting to write a paper.
berniedurfee 2y ago
I was thinking about this the other day. An implantable Yubikey type device that integrates with whatever device you’re using to validate your identity for phone calls or video conferences. Subdermal X.509 maybe with some sort of neurolink adapter so you can confirm the request for identity. Though, first versions might be just a small button you need to press during the handshake.
zamadatix 2y ago
> It paves the way for real-time engagements with lifelike avatars that emulate human conversational behaviors. Teams started rolling out Avatars https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/avatars-for-microsoft-teams-in-public-preview/ba-p/3774421 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/..., this would be a step up. I'm not really a fan but that doesn't mean I can excuse the use case.

Arnavion 2y ago

On the other hand, if deepfaking becomes common enough that everyone stops trusting everything they read / see on the internet, it would be a net good against the spread of disinformation compared to today.

hiatus 2y ago
I don't see that as an outcome. We have already seen a grand erosion of trust in institutions. Moving to an even lower trust society does not sound like it would have positive consequences for discourse, public policy, or society at large.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  Ironically low effort deep fakes might increase trust in organizations that have had the budget to fake stuff since their inception. The losers are 'citizen journalist' broadcasting on Youtube etc.
- throwthrowuknow 2y ago
  The benefit is that you can only trust in person interaction with social and governmental institutions so people will have to leave their damn house again and go talk to each other face to face. Too many of our current problems are caused by people only interacting with each other and the world through third parties who are performing a MITM operation for their own benefit.
  - 1attice 2y ago
    This assumes that it's a two-way door. Over the past century and a half, we've moved into vast, anonymous spaces, where I'm as likely to know and get along with my neighbour as I am to win the lottery. And this is important. No, it's not just a matter of putting on an effort to learn who my neighbour is -- my neighbour is literally someone whose life experiences are wildly different, whose social outcomes will be wildly different, whose beliefs and values are wildly different, and, for all I know, goes to conferences about how to eliminate me and my kind. (This last part is not speculation; I'm trans; see: CPAC) And these are my reasons. My neighbour is probably equivalently terrified of me, or what I represent, or the media I consume, or the conferences that I go to. Generalizing, you can't take a bunch of random people whose only bond is that they share meatspace-proximity, draw a circle around them, and declare them a community; those communities are _gone_, and you can no more bring them back than you can revive a corpse. (This would also probably not be a good idea, even if it were possible: they were also incredibly uncomfortable places for anyone who didn't fit in, and we have generations of fiction about people risking everything to leave for those big anonymous cities we created in step 1.) So, here we are, dependent on technology to stay in touch with far-flung friends and lovers and family, all of us, scattered like spiderwebs across the globe, and now into the strands drips a poison. Daniel Dennett was right. Counterfeit people are an enormous danger to civilization. Research like this should stop immediately.
notaustinpowers 2y ago
I don't see the extinction of trust through the introduction of garbage falsehoods to be a net good. Believing that everything you eat is poisoned is no way to live. Believing that everything you see is a lie is also no way to live.
- throwthrowuknow 2y ago
  Before photography this was just the normal state of the world. Think a little, back then any story or picture you saw was made by a person and you only had their reputation to go by. Think some more and you realize that’s never changed even with pictures and video. Easy AI generated pictures and video just remove the illusion of trust.
anigbrowl 2y ago
everyone stops trusting everything Why would you expect this to happen? Lots of people are gullible, if it were otherwise a lot of well-known politicians would be out of a job or would never have been elected to begin with.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  If it's even commoner than "common enough" then anyone could at least try to help their gullible friends and family by sending them a deepfake video of them doing/saying something they've never said. A lot of people will suddenly wise up when a problem affects them directly.
piva00 2y ago
That's the whole issue though, spread of disinformation eroded trust, furthering this into obliteration of all trust is not a good outcome.

tithe 2y ago

I get the feeling it's "someone's going to do this, so it might as well be us." It's fascinating how research can take on a life of its own and will be pushed, by someone, to its own conclusion. Even for immensely destructive technologies (e.g., atomic weapons, viruses), the impact of a technology is its own attractor (could you say that's risk-seeking behavior?) > Am I going to have to do AuthN and AuthZ on every phone call and zoom now? "Alexa, I need an alibi for yesterday at noon."

andybak 2y ago

Because the text for this is only a slight variation of the tech for a broad range of legitimate applications? Because even this precise tech has legitimate use cases? > The only purpose of this technology I can think of is getting spies to abuse others. Can you really not think of any other use cases?

krainboltgreene 2y ago
Why don't you list some legitimate and useful values of this work? Especially at the price we and this company are paying.
lo0dot0 2y ago
Why don't you get more specific about your claims?
- andybak 2y ago
  Jeez. I dunno. Sometimes I just reach my threshold for the time I'm prepared to spend debating with strangers on the internet.

1659447091 2y ago

Advertising. Now you and your friends star in the streaming commercials and digital billboards near you! (whether you want to or not)

danmur 2y ago

We all know why this is really happening. Clippy 2.0.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

phkahler 2y ago

Newscasters and other talking heads will be out of business. Just pipe the script into some AI and get video.

HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago

> Why is this research being done? I think it's mostly "because it can be done". These types of impressive demos have become relatively low hanging fruit in terms of how modern machine learning can be applied. One could imagine commercial applications (VR, virtual "try before you buy", etc), but things like this can also be a flex by the AI labs, or a PhD student wanting to write a paper.

berniedurfee 2y ago

I was thinking about this the other day. An implantable Yubikey type device that integrates with whatever device you’re using to validate your identity for phone calls or video conferences. Subdermal X.509 maybe with some sort of neurolink adapter so you can confirm the request for identity. Though, first versions might be just a small button you need to press during the handshake.

zamadatix 2y ago

> It paves the way for real-time engagements with lifelike avatars that emulate human conversational behaviors. Teams started rolling out Avatars https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/avatars-for-microsoft-teams-in-public-preview/ba-p/3774421 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/..., this would be a step up. I'm not really a fan but that doesn't mean I can excuse the use case.