The beginning of the end of photography (video & still) as evidence.

This is The End

Penultimate Amazing
This is The End
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Sep 14, 2007
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The real title to this thread should read:

"Nvidia released details of a new face creating algorithm."

But I had to keep up forum appearances and be click-baity.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...ces-show-how-algorithms-can-now-mess-with-us/

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.04948.pdf

Several prominent companies and universities are working on similar human being creation technology.

Also, before anyone brings up the "these are stills, not video". Yes, video is much harder to create convincingly. (Though keep in mind they don't have to create the entire 3 model for each person. They just need to create a tweakable 3d model and then skin it & tweak it for each person.) (And companies also keep that tech much more closer to their chest... until it is outdated, of course.)


All of the below human beings do not exist.

[imgw=800]https://i.ibb.co/0MX7w1k/host2.png[/imgw]

[imgw=800]https://i.ibb.co/NtB2Cj4/host1.png[/imgw]



The faces above don’t seem particularly remarkable. They could easily be taken from, say, Facebook or LinkedIn. In reality, they were dreamt up by a new kind of AI algorithm. Nvidia researchers posted details of the method to produce completely imaginary fake faces with stunning, almost eerie, realism <snip>. The researchers, Tero Karras, Samuli Laine, and Timo Aila, came up with a new way of constructing a generative adversarial network, or GAN.

GANs employ two dueling neural networks to train a computer to learn the nature of a dataset well enough to generate convincing fakes. When applied to images, this provides a way to generate often highly realistic fakery.
In the most recent work, the researchers took inspiration from a technique known as style transfer to built their GAN in a fundamentally different way. This allowed their algorithm to identify different elements of a face, which the researchers could then control. A video produced by the researchers shows how the approach can also be used to play with, and remix, different elements, like age, race, and gender--or even freckles.
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How does this relate to there being a time soon where video & still photography should no longer be used as evidence? I admit they are not exactly the same field, but they are sister fields, and they are more than tangentially related.

We are not that far away from someone being able to make a video of you doing whatever the **** they want. Cheaply.

Just like in photoshop, that will happen when you are able to show a group of people 2 examples and they cannot tell beyond a 50/50 chance which one is real.

Also, it is very likely that by 2025, or at the most 2030, there will be an extremely popular celebrity (most likely a youtube celebrity) outed. Outed as not an actual human being. (Though, somewhat non-intuitively, creating completely fake and unique audio (speech) can be harder than creating completely fake video.) They will be tailored to make $$$. And we all know if it makes money, it will happen eventually.
 
This is The End said:
The real title to this thread should read:

"Nvidia released details of a new face creating algorithm."

But I had to keep up forum appearances and be click-baity.

Several prominent companies and universities are working on similar human being creation technology.

Also, before anyone brings up the "these are stills, not video". Yes, video is much harder to create convincingly. (Though keep in mind they don't have to create the entire 3 model for each person. They just need to create a tweakable 3d model and then skin it & tweak it for each person.) (And companies also keep that tech much more closer to their chest... until it is outdated, of course.)


......


How does this relate to there being a time soon where video & still photography should no longer be used as evidence? I admit they are not exactly the same field, but they are sister fields, and they are more than tangentially related.

We are not that far away from someone being able to make a video of you doing whatever the **** they want. Cheaply.

Just like in photoshop, that will happen when you are able to show a group of people 2 examples and they cannot tell beyond a 50/50 chance which one is real.

Also, it is very likely that by 2025, or at the most 2030, there will be an extremely popular celebrity (most likely a youtube celebrity) outed. Outed as not an actual human being. (Though, somewhat non-intuitively, creating completely fake and unique audio (speech) can be harder than creating completely fake video.) They will be tailored to make $$$. And we all know if it makes money, it will happen eventually.
Click to expand...
Its already happened!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYdpOjletnc
Apparently a computer simulation!
 
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My first thought is that this will be so great for advertisers who can now use these faces instead of paying models.

Photos and video, to be used as evidence, will have to be shown to have a providence and chain of custody to be used in a court of law. Not that big of a change, really.
 
Dr. Keith said:
My first thought is that this will be so great for advertisers who can now use these faces instead of paying models.
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My second thought is of the grotesqueries they are going to come up with. I've already seen some of the horrible Photoshop things done to bodies in order to make them look more "attractive".
 
alfaniner said:
My second thought is of the grotesqueries they are going to come up with. I've already seen some of the horrible Photoshop things done to bodies in order to make them look more "attractive".
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I used to frequent those sort of sites!
 
MRC_Hans said:
Old hat. Lord of the Rings. Gollum.
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Yes, after all, Gollum was the pinnacle of what can be done. :D


(Seriously though, I wish they would have waited 20 years and made all of the hobbits out of CG and not just Gollum. Having humans playing hobbits ruined those movies.)
 
Dr. Keith said:
Photos and video, to be used as evidence, will have to be shown to have a providence and chain of custody to be used in a court of law. Not that big of a change, really.
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You must not be familiar with many judges & attorneys in the USA.
 
Dr. Keith said:
My first thought is that this will be so great for advertisers who can now use these faces instead of paying models.

Photos and video, to be used as evidence, will have to be shown to have a providence and chain of custody to be used in a court of law. Not that big of a change, really.
Click to expand...
As with many embassies and the like that have reverted to pen on paper to foil electronic snooping, perhaps law enforcement will revert to film?
Yes, film can be manipulated, but by using only original negatives or slides as evidence, the chain of custody might be more easily controlled?
 
This is The End said:
Yes, after all, Gollum was the pinnacle of what can be done. :D


(Seriously though, I wish they would have waited 20 years and made all of the hobbits out of CG and not just Gollum. Having humans playing hobbits ruined those movies.)
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Eh. It vas, more or less, at the time. The point is that we have mastered artificial pictures to a high degree of realism (had Gollum been modeled as a human, few people would have been able to tell he was not real) for a couple of decades, but photos are fsr from dying.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
(had Gollum been modeled as a human, few people would have been able to tell he was not real)
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You must have missed at the vitriol thrown at Tron Legacy (2010). And that was 10 years after Gollum.

****, it was not even perfected yet for Rogue One (2016) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017).

Basically every single actual researcher in this field says you are wrong. I'm just going to assume you have some connection to New Zealand, or even Weta. Because frankly, Gollum is like 2010 video game level CG. Impressive for 2001, sure, but anything like what we're talking about now? Nah.
 
Well, there was an article the other day suggesting that trolls could employ deepfakes to influence the 2020 US election

And, it's not quite what we're talking about here, but there already is one completely computer-generated celebrity: Hatsune Miku:



That's not a CGI hologram miming to something a human sung, the singing is computer generated, too. In fact, Miku was originally created as an avatar to promote the first voice bank in the vocal synth software Vocaloid.

So, while that doesn't speak to realism in computer generated characters, it does demonstrate that the public will accept them as stars.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Well, there was an article the other day suggesting that trolls could employ deepfakes to influence the 2020 US election

And, it's not quite what we're talking about here, but there already is one completely computer-generated celebrity: Hatsune Miku:



That's not a CGI hologram miming to something a human sung, the singing is computer generated, too. In fact, Miku was originally created as an avatar to promote the first voice bank in the vocal synth software Vocaloid.

So, while that doesn't speak to realism in computer generated characters, it does demonstrate that the public will accept them as stars.
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OMG I fell out. That's completely absurd!:jaw-dropp
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Well, there was an article the other day suggesting that trolls could employ deepfakes to influence the 2020 US election

And, it's not quite what we're talking about here, but there already is one completely computer-generated celebrity: Hatsune Miku:



That's not a CGI hologram miming to something a human sung, the singing is computer generated, too. In fact, Miku was originally created as an avatar to promote the first voice bank in the vocal synth software Vocaloid.

So, while that doesn't speak to realism in computer generated characters, it does demonstrate that the public will accept them as stars.
Click to expand...

More than accept, one guy even married her:

Akihiko Kondo’s mother refused an invitation to her only son’s wedding in Tokyo this month, but perhaps that isn’t such a surprise: He was marrying a hologram.

“For Mother, it wasn’t something to celebrate,” said the soft-spoken 35-year-old, whose “bride” is a virtual reality singer named Hatsune Miku.

In fact, none of Kondo’s relatives attended his wedding to Miku — an animated 16-year-old with saucer eyes and lengthy aquamarine pigtails — but that didn’t stop him from spending ¥2 million on a formal ceremony at a Tokyo hall.

Around 40 guests watched as he tied the knot with Miku, present in the form of a cat-sized stuffed doll.
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But really, it isn't that surprising that the general public see hologram images as stars. It's not that far removed from cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse or Bart Simpson.
 
bruto said:
Just to add to the nastiness in the original post, don't forget the morph cut.
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"This technique is known as a Morph Cut, a feature added to Adobe Premiere Pro in 2015, intended to smooth transitions in interview footage, removing unwanted pauses, stutters, and filler words (“like,” “um,” and “uh”) without hard splices and cuts."



Wow. I didn't know that could be done. So, the confident, informed speaker I watch isn't the same bumbling ummer that was actually filmed?


This sort of stuff worries me - people think stuff on TV is real. I don't mind so much for the reality crap, but when it's supposed to be 'The News' then show me the whole thing. I doin't want the sanitised version, that's not reality.

It's not like they're lacking for time.
 
This is The End said:
You must have missed at the vitriol thrown at Tron Legacy (2010). And that was 10 years after Gollum.

****, it was not even perfected yet for Rogue One (2016) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017).

Basically every single actual researcher in this field says you are wrong.
Click to expand...

Still missing my point.

I'm just going to assume you have some connection to New Zealand, or even Weta.
Click to expand...

If you must resort to ad hominem, at least try to make sense.

Hans
 
There is some amazing (or scary depending on how you look at it) technology and considering how new it is the implication is it will only get better and harder to spot. This is supposedly real time manipulation of a face by a third party resulting in a manipulated output.

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohmajJTcpNk[/URL]
 
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To get back to the original notion, the use of photography for evidence documentation...
Currently, crime scenes and such are normally photographed in detail with high-end but normal digital cameras, usually date-stamped, and the images are handled as evidence.

I don’t know for sure, but if our department is typical there is very little in the way of high-tech encryption of these stored images. Usually, departments promptly print hard copies to be filed with the hard copies of the report.
This is probably sufficient to avoid problems with hacking or image alteration, but of course unscrupulous agencies could use existing photo-processing software to alter images to their heart’ s content.
We know foreign governments have done this, either inserting or removing people into photos as they deem necessary.
 
The original paper is certainly interesting, but you need to be careful about exactly what you're claiming. The paper describes what is essentially a superior morphing approach, rather than a way to generate faces de novo. That is, it starts with a "real" picture rather than a 3-d model.

And the claim that you can take a photo/image and use it to skin a 3-d model is just ludicrous. You can do that for textures, certainly, but the distortions involved with facial features are obvious and grotesque.
 
Reminds me of Jordan Peele of the comedy duo Key and Peele doing a fake Obama video using technology similar to the app Face2Face



And it's not just photos and video. It's voice too as seen in this Bloomberg Business video where they try out an app called Lyrebird

 
Bikewer said:
To get back to the original notion, the use of photography for evidence documentation...
Currently, crime scenes and such are normally photographed in detail with high-end but normal digital cameras, usually date-stamped, and the images are handled as evidence.

I don’t know for sure, but if our department is typical there is very little in the way of high-tech encryption of these stored images. Usually, departments promptly print hard copies to be filed with the hard copies of the report.
This is probably sufficient to avoid problems with hacking or image alteration, but of course unscrupulous agencies could use existing photo-processing software to alter images to their heart’ s content.
We know foreign governments have done this, either inserting or removing people into photos as they deem necessary.
Click to expand...
Many reputable publications (and especially photography-specialized, like Nat Geo, Airizona Highways, etc) require the RAW file for all photos. I'm pretty sure that RAW files will be required in the future for evidentiary standards.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
rwguinn said:
Many reputable publications (and especially photography-specialized, like Nat Geo, Airizona Highways, etc) require the RAW file for all photos. I'm pretty sure that RAW files will be required in the future for evidentiary standards.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
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Actually, oddly enough, though Nat Geo and some others demand Raw originals, some, like Reuters, are requiring not Raw but original JPG files, because editing software can change a Raw file without recording the changes, while original JPG's are easier to identify. It's been an ongoing issue with some photographers who dislike JPG as a general rule, but the very advantage of a Raw file, that it can be modified easily in post processing and saved as the same file, makes it harder to detect when "illegal" changes have been made.

I imagine that there will always be some way in which things can be manipulated if you want, and some such instances keep appearing. About the only way to insure that a scene is really real might be to shoot a burst of simultaneous Raw and JPG images. At that point it would be theoretically possible, but very very hard, to modify the whole lot consistently enough to fool a dedicated detective.
 
Even before Photoshop, National Geographic altered/enhanced at least one photo for their magazine cover. Probably the most famous one -- Afghan Girl. It was to get rid of a reflection in part of the eye.
 
Bikewer said:
To get back to the original notion, the use of photography for evidence documentation...
Currently, crime scenes and such are normally photographed in detail with high-end but normal digital cameras, usually date-stamped, and the images are handled as evidence.

I don’t know for sure, but if our department is typical there is very little in the way of high-tech encryption of these stored images. Usually, departments promptly print hard copies to be filed with the hard copies of the report.
This is probably sufficient to avoid problems with hacking or image alteration, but of course unscrupulous agencies could use existing photo-processing software to alter images to their heart’ s content.
We know foreign governments have done this, either inserting or removing people into photos as they deem necessary.
Click to expand...
...even before digital photo-/videography existed...
 
This is The End said:
All of the below human beings do not exist.

[imgw=800]https://i.ibb.co/0MX7w1k/host2.png[/imgw]
Click to expand...



Here we are, not even 2 years later and a foreign power (Russia) has used this very tech to help trick one of the two major US political parties (the dumb one) into believing a conspiracy theory made up out of whole cloth.


https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/securi...dwork-hunter-biden-conspiracy-deluge-n1245387


201029-deep-fake-mark-aspen-al-0753-975a78b055604d3b3e698293add5f37e-fit-320w.jpg



That is an entirely fake person, created using the tech warned about in the OP of this thread. Used as the face of the supposed source for a conspiracy theory.
 
Dr. Keith said:
My first thought is that this will be so great for advertisers who can now use these faces instead of paying models. ...
Click to expand...


And movies as well. Especially movies.

I remember posting this thought on another thread a good while back: it's pretty weird, when you think about it, having the same actor popping up in different films playing different characters. Kind of gets in the way of the suspension of belief thing. Future us will probably look back to actors jumping across roles as a quaint relic of the past, much like silly stage props and the like (okay, even great, as a niche thing, but totally inappropriate for mainstream movie-story-telling.) Nor is this far-future stuff. I'll wager you and I will both live to see this and talk about it (Nova-Corona willing!).
 
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