Deep-Fake Video

The end of ‘someone.’

January 6, 2020

The following idea is endorsed by all of these people:

None of them exist.

They’re constructs, built by an algorithm. Rights released, happy and smiling, but no one in particular.

Fifty years ago, you couldn’t trust the endorsements in direct marketing ads for lousy products:

“A miracle!” …Bob

Because you knew there wasn’t really a Bob.

Twenty-three years ago, when I created a book with the Weekly World News (yes, this is true), I visited their tiny office in Florida. It consisted of three people and a filing cabinet. Inside the cabinet were pictures of 400 people (mostly friends and former friends of the three editors) that would be cut and pasted in the WWN any time they needed a picture of an expert, a citizen or both. They weren’t news and they weren’t the world, but they were weekly.

I knew that the Weekly World News was low-brow chicanery, but I have a hunch that not everyone did.

In 2019, and perhaps forever, we’re now at a new level, one where the polish of photography or video is no longer any clue at all about the provenance of what we’re encountering.

I don’t think we have any clue about how disruptive this shift is going to be.

Even the real celebrities we purport to trust (“influencers” deliberately in quotes) are easily bought. It used to be only Rula Lens who we doubted.

There are people and organizations that are racing to break the fabric of community that we all depend on. Either to make a short-term profit or to atomize/vaporize widespread trust to hide from accountability and to slow change.

Like all shifts, there will be a counter-shift. But keep your eyes open, because the rules are clearly changing. Remaining trusted and consistent will become ever more valuable as it becomes more scarce. A resolution to be in higher-resolution for those you seek to serve.

In the meantime, it’s worth confirming the source before you believe what you see.

-Seth Godin

https://www.sethgodin.com

 

Deep-Fake Video. It’s real.

September 11, 2018

By Thomas Kent – Washington Post  The most powerful false-news weapon in history is around the corner. The media industry has only a short time to get ahead of it. If technology continues its current advance, we may soon face totally convincing videos showing events that never happened — created so effectively that even experts will have trouble proving they’re fakes. “Deep fake” video will be able to show people saying, with the authentic ring of their own voices, things they never said. It will show them doing things they never did, by melding their images with other video or creating new images of them from scratch. At a political level, deftly constructed video could show a political leader advocating for the reverse of what she stands for, or portray bloody events that never happened. It could trigger riots, swing elections, and sow panic and despair. At a business and personal level, it could be equally dangerous. Fake statements by chief executives or banking officials could throw financial markets into turmoil. False videos could be created about anyone’s private life, with devastating effects.

https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/fake-news-more-dangerous

“Fake news is about to get so much more dangerous” has been republished with the permission of the author. Thomas Kent is president and chief executive of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, former Standards Editor of the Associated Press and an advisor to the Ethical Journalism Network.

Finally, in publicizing the dangers, media need to avoid a tone of hopelessness — “Soon we may never know what is real and what isn’t.” Quality media outlets need to emphasize how carefully they vet video. They should make sure their ethics codes and verification procedures adequately address the dangers. Otherwise, audiences will doubt any video — including legitimate and important footage that media outlets gather in their own breaking-news coverage and investigative work