4 ms·

The implicit premise of this article is that digitally edited photos and videos that appear like people actually are photos or videos of those people. This prem

The implicit premise of this article is that digitally edited photos and videos that appear like people actually are photos or videos of those people. This premise is false and so is all the reasoning that flows downhill from it. There are no 'victims' because there is no crime because there are no photos or videos of the victims involved. They're digitally created synthetics. It's not like photoshopping someone's face onto someone else's body is new. This is just hysteria exploited for attention which is money. Calls to criminalize digital image manipulation will result in situations where making fun of people in positions of power (political or celebrity, etc) results in prison; like in Saudia Arabia or Thailand. The implicitly proposed "solutions" do far worse damage than the "problem".

commandlinefan 2y ago
I wondered if anybody would have the courage to point this out, even on here.
ozmodiar 2y ago
I would equate this with a form of extreme slander, so your inference is wrong. They aren't a problem because they are real, they are a problem because they can be passed off as real, and the issue is in the reputational damage. I'm not saying there's a good solution but I don't think the problem should be dismissed so easily.
- johngladtj 2y ago
  There is no slander here because there is no expectation that those are the actual people doing it.
  - CoastalCoder 2y ago
    IANAL, but I'm curious: could watermarking (or prefacing) such videos with a "deepfake" indicator diffuse the slander liability?
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  But if they were not yet passed off as real, is it pre-crime? If I create a satirical fictional work about someone, is it "extreme slander" because a portion can be taken out of context and presented as real? Should my work be preemptively censored?
ordinaryradical 2y ago
This take is naive and bizarre. This is not about ‘making fun of celebrities,’ this is about whether we, as humans, have a right to our likeness and to be protected from it being used in ways we disapprove of. This is an issue of privacy, not speech. You do not have a right to put me in porn of your choosing. And I, as the victim, should be given maximal ability to annihilate those images, get cooperation from those who host them or make them findable, and to seek damages from anyone who makes them of me.
- randomdata 2y ago
  > You do not have a right to put me in porn of your choosing. He does not have the right to use your flesh to produce a porn of his choosing, but does he not have the right to employ your willing doppelgänger? There is no reason to think that likeness is exclusive.
  - ordinaryradical 2y ago
    No, you do not have the rights to my “doppelganger” because you were never granted them. This is a bizarre argument as well. When a news reporter is doing man-on-the-street interviews, you have to sign a release that allows them to broadcast footage of you. It is not your physical person inside the TV, it’s a video representation of you. Just as much a doppelgänger as any deepfake. And they have to have you sign something in order to use it. They have the exact same kind of paperwork for filming porn. Because the same legalities and rights are in play. Just because the image of you is generated does not mean: a) it’s not an image of you b) it’s not subject to these same laws.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      This is a bizarre take. If your doppelgänger stars in a porn video, or whatever else, that is for them to choose. You don't have rights to them just because you happen to share the same likeness. > When a news reporter is doing man-on-the-street interviews, you have to sign a release that allows them to broadcast footage of you. If used commercially, yes, without such release you could claim that you were party to the commercial business venture and thus are owed due compensation. Indeed, the broadcaster will seek protections against such a claim. But a hobbyist filming you, the "man on the street", for sheer enjoyment would not require a release.
marcus_holmes 2y ago
I think there's a spectrum, from actually filming someone having sex without their consent and publishing it, all the way to drawing a picture of someone and never showing it to anyone. The ends of the spectrum are clearly immoral, and perfectly OK, respectively. We need to draw the line somewhere between the two. Paparazzi take photos of people without their consent, and sell them for money. We tend to think this is immoral but legal, and making it illegal would cause more problems than it solves. There is no restriction about such photos being naked or clothed. Making a deepfake uses someone's likeness. Is that the same as drawing a recognisable picture of them? If not, where do we draw the line between the two? If it is, should we make drawing a picture of someone without their consent illegal? That seems too far to me. The law is going to take a while to catch up to this. Meanwhile, making this Google's problem seems perfectly OK to me. You create a ludicrously profitable monopoly on discovery, then you get to deal with the problems that people have with discovery <shrug>.
- CoastalCoder 2y ago
  > The ends of the spectrum are clearly immoral, and perfectly OK, respectively. I'd agree that it's probably a spectrum of legal culpability (although IANAL, so...) But I disagree that the extrema are clearly moral or immoral. For example, I expect that the private, hand-drawn scenario violates Christian morality. And I'm guessing there are other moral frameworks that are sincerely held by some persons, and which are okay with the other extremity.
  - marcus_holmes 2y ago
    I'm kinda fascinated by the Christian morality thing - I was raised Anglican and while I no longer believe I still have a fair understanding of the dogma. How does drawing a picture of someone violate that morality? There are realistic pictures (and sculptures) of real people all over our churches. Are these immoral? I think possibly the confusion lies in my framing of the question; I meant drawing a picture of someone at all, not necessarily someone naked or having sex.
- matt-attack 2y ago
  Sadly CP laws do not recognize that one end of that spectrum is OK. If I draw a photo realistic drawing (or even non photo realistic, ie anime) of CP I’m a felon in the eyes of our pathetic laws.

commandlinefan 2y ago

I wondered if anybody would have the courage to point this out, even on here.

ozmodiar 2y ago

I would equate this with a form of extreme slander, so your inference is wrong. They aren't a problem because they are real, they are a problem because they can be passed off as real, and the issue is in the reputational damage. I'm not saying there's a good solution but I don't think the problem should be dismissed so easily.

johngladtj 2y ago
There is no slander here because there is no expectation that those are the actual people doing it.
- CoastalCoder 2y ago
  IANAL, but I'm curious: could watermarking (or prefacing) such videos with a "deepfake" indicator diffuse the slander liability?
Ferret7446 2y ago
But if they were not yet passed off as real, is it pre-crime? If I create a satirical fictional work about someone, is it "extreme slander" because a portion can be taken out of context and presented as real? Should my work be preemptively censored?

ordinaryradical 2y ago

This take is naive and bizarre. This is not about ‘making fun of celebrities,’ this is about whether we, as humans, have a right to our likeness and to be protected from it being used in ways we disapprove of. This is an issue of privacy, not speech. You do not have a right to put me in porn of your choosing. And I, as the victim, should be given maximal ability to annihilate those images, get cooperation from those who host them or make them findable, and to seek damages from anyone who makes them of me.

randomdata 2y ago
> You do not have a right to put me in porn of your choosing. He does not have the right to use your flesh to produce a porn of his choosing, but does he not have the right to employ your willing doppelgänger? There is no reason to think that likeness is exclusive.
- ordinaryradical 2y ago
  No, you do not have the rights to my “doppelganger” because you were never granted them. This is a bizarre argument as well. When a news reporter is doing man-on-the-street interviews, you have to sign a release that allows them to broadcast footage of you. It is not your physical person inside the TV, it’s a video representation of you. Just as much a doppelgänger as any deepfake. And they have to have you sign something in order to use it. They have the exact same kind of paperwork for filming porn. Because the same legalities and rights are in play. Just because the image of you is generated does not mean: a) it’s not an image of you b) it’s not subject to these same laws.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    This is a bizarre take. If your doppelgänger stars in a porn video, or whatever else, that is for them to choose. You don't have rights to them just because you happen to share the same likeness. > When a news reporter is doing man-on-the-street interviews, you have to sign a release that allows them to broadcast footage of you. If used commercially, yes, without such release you could claim that you were party to the commercial business venture and thus are owed due compensation. Indeed, the broadcaster will seek protections against such a claim. But a hobbyist filming you, the "man on the street", for sheer enjoyment would not require a release.

marcus_holmes 2y ago

I think there's a spectrum, from actually filming someone having sex without their consent and publishing it, all the way to drawing a picture of someone and never showing it to anyone. The ends of the spectrum are clearly immoral, and perfectly OK, respectively. We need to draw the line somewhere between the two. Paparazzi take photos of people without their consent, and sell them for money. We tend to think this is immoral but legal, and making it illegal would cause more problems than it solves. There is no restriction about such photos being naked or clothed. Making a deepfake uses someone's likeness. Is that the same as drawing a recognisable picture of them? If not, where do we draw the line between the two? If it is, should we make drawing a picture of someone without their consent illegal? That seems too far to me. The law is going to take a while to catch up to this. Meanwhile, making this Google's problem seems perfectly OK to me. You create a ludicrously profitable monopoly on discovery, then you get to deal with the problems that people have with discovery <shrug>.

CoastalCoder 2y ago
> The ends of the spectrum are clearly immoral, and perfectly OK, respectively. I'd agree that it's probably a spectrum of legal culpability (although IANAL, so...) But I disagree that the extrema are clearly moral or immoral. For example, I expect that the private, hand-drawn scenario violates Christian morality. And I'm guessing there are other moral frameworks that are sincerely held by some persons, and which are okay with the other extremity.
- marcus_holmes 2y ago
  I'm kinda fascinated by the Christian morality thing - I was raised Anglican and while I no longer believe I still have a fair understanding of the dogma. How does drawing a picture of someone violate that morality? There are realistic pictures (and sculptures) of real people all over our churches. Are these immoral? I think possibly the confusion lies in my framing of the question; I meant drawing a picture of someone at all, not necessarily someone naked or having sex.
matt-attack 2y ago
Sadly CP laws do not recognize that one end of that spectrum is OK. If I draw a photo realistic drawing (or even non photo realistic, ie anime) of CP I’m a felon in the eyes of our pathetic laws.