Hi! First of all, I’m opening this thread following a suggestion in the lounge, since the would-be official topic doesn’t seem to be working. This is not the regular thread on the video.
I just wanted to comment on the segment about deepfakes, link with timestamp below:
I had two comments:
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Regarding the flowers: while less obvious than deepfaking faces or full bodies, I can envision cases in which faking the person may not be as important as faking the environment in which the person is. Instead of altering who the person is or what they do/say, someone could alter the context in which something is done or said, changing the interpretation we make of it as a consequence. A deepfake algorithm could help in making a more convincing modification to the environment.
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My second comment is an answer to your (rhetoric?) request for instances in which doctored videos went viral and taken as true, with some degree of political consequences. I don’t know if such thing has happened using this particular kind of algorithms, but I know at least one instance of a doctored video going a long way (while it’s debunking / confession never got as much attention): a few years ago, during the Greek fiscal crisis, a clip of the Greek Finance Minister “giving the finger” to Germany cause a lot of unrest and heavy-worded reactions in Germany. The clip in question was included at the end of a satirical song produced by a German comedy show, although it circulated mostly as a separate clip. The Greek Minister denied the authenticity of the video, and the German TV show explained what happened (and how nobody asked them for the source) in a follow-up video:
As I said, I don’t think it was the same kind of technology, although it was the same purpose. I can easily imagine what may happen in the future with better algorithms and more streamlined faking processes…