Thought it might be a fun exercise to see how little time it would take to create similar approximations of the original deepfakes using GenAI models.

https://mordenstar.com/blog/historic-deepfakes-with-ai

I'll admit did not expect a wild Michael Phelps.

I agree photo manipulation has always happened, to various degrees of perfection, since the dawn of photography.

I suppose the real difference is that before it took a more artisanal, time-consuming process, and now -- increasingly -- it takes far less time to create something convincing enough. Same with video: you could fake a video, do editing, etc, but it took time, skill, a location where to shoot, etc. Now it's becoming easier to do for everyone. And it's not perfect yet, but are we sure it won't get there? And it doesn't have to be perfect anyway, it just has to fool most people in a given window of time.

A great example that underscores the ordinariness of AI. It's a tool and tools can be used for good/bad/neither and inbetween.

Fake pics have existed since pics existed pretty much.

Kids have been looking for ways to cheat on tests since tests began. If you're a teacher, you're gonna have to test in person.

Fake phone calls, fake other things... yea they're of a different/better quality as the technology has gotten better. Is it so fundamental a shift that nothing can be done? I'm not convinced.

The ease of cheating/creating fakes surely influences how much cheating/fakes are in circulation, and while we can tolerate a little, excessive amounts will be disruptive. So many technologies moved from obscure curiosities to mass adoption just because somebody made them easier/cheaper to use.

If at some point the cheats/fakes will be cheaper and easier than the real thing, you can bet that will be a fundamental shift in how we approach the world.

It's not only the excess, it's the ease of access. Kids can produce lewd pics of class mates, and make their lives hell. This technology is fundamentally evil.

I know it's not the same - but I remember the "bubbling" phase a few years back. It was a bit messy and fortunately faded away pretty quick

With as easy and widespread it is I wonder how long before the general assumption will be that nude pics and videos are fakes and will loose its power. It will be just another ai porn on the mountain of other shitty ai porn.

> Is it so fundamental a shift that nothing can be done? I'm not convinced.

A fundamental shift in our complete trust of technology is good. It encourages ignorance and obedience, and alienates people from each other.

And the fact that AI can be used to fake pictures of your neighbors having sex is nothing but good. No one will be able to say whether any picture is real, so the public won't be able to destroy another young girl's life over it. I also think that arguing about the distribution of pretend movies of your neighbors having sex will have to lead to clear legislation regarding the distribution and sale of personal data.

So tired of this lazy argument. Projectile murder with bows existed before guns. Guns changed the world. A severe force multiplier for something bad can't automatically be handwaved away.

Guns have little use beyond injuring or killing or threatening the same. On the good side: one could argue it's sometimes good to kill for hunting. On the bad side... well there is a lot of suicide, murder, and potential for the same.

I'm not sure we understand yet how much positive and how much negative potential there is in AI.

Variations of guns (high pressure tubes with plugs) also shoot nails, pilings, and can quickly split hard surfaces like rocks or pavement. They are also natural parents of internal combustion engines.

Not arguing, just saying.

What good can it be used for? Because I haven't seen anything that makes faking pics with AI so good we can ignore the negatives.

The article also seems to take the relativist stance: nothing new to see here, move along now. Why? For the clicks? Just being contrarian?

Many manifestations of generative AI allow people to put concepts onto screens faster. It generally serves as a more efficient translator of "I want a contract like this one but more tailored to [new client]" or "I want to make a strategy for my [new business]."

In information economy jobs, translating thoughts and ideas into better formal communications more efficiently is valuable. Be it pictures or text.

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

Surprised the article makes no mention of the 2023 AI-assisted enhancement of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot clip. It's definitely a guy in a gorilla suit.

https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/bigfoot-footage-ai-sigh...

How could AI not make it look more like a man? Was the AI trained on lots of bigfoot footage? Or was it trained on lots of pictures of people? Give it enough leeway and it will probably render bigfoot as a man in a Barney costume, if that better confirms to the training data.

AI wasn't used to generate the clip, but to add some (hallucinated) detail and extend the background. FWIW, in pre-genAI stabilized examples from the 2000s it's also clearly a guy in a gorilla suit.

Is there any doubt it's a gorilla suit? I think the article is disingenuous in not stating this clearly.

The article claims the suits of the apes in Planet of the Apes were "unconvincing", but they are just as convincing as the Bigfoot image, which is to say: they are clearly (nicely made) costumes.

We didn't need AI to "prove" what was already evident. And let me assure you -- this won't convince conspiracy theorists and Bigfoot fans, because above all, like Mulder, they "want to believe".

Why does stabilizing the image make it any more or less apparent?

I think it just means it removes the distractions of the grain and shaky camera.

But really, it was always evident it was a guy in a gorilla suit.

There's some terrible examples in here, and yet no mention of Roger Fen­ton's Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The article is interesting, but I think it conflates two things:

"Things that never happened in the real world, and have been either created synthetically or with visual trickery"

- Man jumping into the void.

- Stalin's edited photos (Stalin didn't walk without Yezov at his side).

- North Korea's photoshopped/cloned hovercraft.

- The Cottingley Fairies, Loch Ness monster, "saucer" UFOs: visual trickery or props employed to simulate the existence of beings or vehicles that don't exist in the real world.

- Pope with jacket is of course completely faked with AI.

And

"Things that happened, but are staged or misrepresent reality/mislead the viewer".

Examples:

- The UK soldiers abusing a prisoner. The claim was probably false (in the sense in this particlar photo these weren't British soldiers) but it's true they were soldiers from some country abusing a prisoner. To my knowledge no-one claimed the photo was staged, just that it was misrepresenting the situation.

- Capa's Falling Soldier photo. This actually happened, it's just that it's likely staged.

They are not the same thing, and require different levels of skill!

AI facilitates creating anything, especially completely synthetic and fake. You don't even need to go to the location to take a photo and edit it.

And some of the photos are labeled as "fake" with zero evidence that they are, indeed, fake.

I personally don't believe in Bigfoot, but the article presents no evidence of that particular shot being altered or staged in any way.

They don’t know specifically how it was done—but it is, in fact, fake.

There is a difference between beliefs substantiated by a gut feeling and beliefs substantiated by evidence. Like you, I have a gut feeling that it is, indeed, a person in a suit, but I do not have any evidence for that. The distinction is important in my mind.

I agree it's not evidence, but even then, going by the principle of parsimony (which does not provide evidence, but is a reasonable way of thinking about this) the most likely explanation is also the less extraordinary or convoluted: a guy in a gorilla suit. Why reach for anything else, unless one wants to believe?

The existence of yetis is an extraordinary claim that would require convincing evidence by their proponents, of which this video isn't one (since it's trivial to film a guy in a suit, etc).

I mean, it's obviously a guy in a gorilla suit. It walks like a guy, nothing about its "gait" is animal-like. A gorilla suit is well understood technology, it's just that this one was nicely made and not a cheap costume party suit.

Same with the guy who made saucer-like UFO photos. This is obviously dishware, only people who "want to believe" would be puzzled by the photos.

>The UK soldiers abusing a prisoner. [...] To my knowledge no-one claimed the photo was staged, just that it was misrepresenting the situation.

These photos were staged AFAIK. I don't think anyone believes them to show real instances of abuse.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/dec/09/iraqandthemedi...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sorry-we-were-hoaxed-5...

Wow. Thanks for the correction, I didn't know this.

What!!?? No mention of the Apollo 11 photos?

Or the round globe!

Or Hillary Clintons green scaly skin

"By the 1940s, the image without the groom had become the standard version, and it created the enduring visual signs of the strongman leader – when Nigel Farage makes a speech atop a tank, or Vladimir Putin displays his bare chest, both are drawing on iconography developed by the Italian fascist."

Ah yes, equestrian portraits, something famously invented by the fascists. Someone should dig up Jacques-Louis so we can tell him he's a fascist now.