In 2018, the then US President Donald Trump was pictured giving a speech calling on Belgium to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Trump never gave this speech. But it created great international malaise. an app “depfakeFake video was made.
The 20th century has been called the century of technological revolution. Now, chip-based technology has taken the world by storm and will make the last century seem like a time of primitive ideas and inventions.
Whether it is in the realm of weapons for the military or in smart touch screens of mobile phones, cars or messaging technology, WhatsApp is available virtually for free; There is an infinite list. Automatic recording of conversations is standard on common cell phones.
In fact, such developments have made a huge impact on the investigative agencies in solving various crimes and disputes. The capabilities of most smartphones are almost better than a normal desktop computer.
Supercomputers, which can perform more than billions of calculations per second with millions of terabytes of memory, are part of every technologically advanced country.
Children’s comics of the 1960s told the story of a scientist who created a computer with inherent intelligence to control the world. What was a fantasy now seems to be becoming a reality due to the rapid development in Artificial Intelligence.
In the early 1960s a common photographer could transplant a person’s face into another person’s body, causing huge confusion/suspicion in film and real life. An actor might be shown dancing, but it was actually another person dancing superimposed on the actor’s face. While all of it was mainly for movies, some used it for crime or combat activities.
The concept lives in a different dimension though. The vast and incredible growth of what is called technology often escapes the public eye.”depfake”, which has made steady progress over the years and has almost reached perfection.
And depfake It is a video that shows simulated images, usually of a person’s face, that appear to be real and have been produced using artificial intelligence; Specifically, these techniques are called reading or learning (Deep Learning), which use neural network algorithms.
Artificial Intelligence reconstructs an image of a face or any other object by learning from hundreds or thousands of images of that face or object. It uses so-called adversarial generative neural networks, GAN for its acronym in English, with algorithms that are able to learn from patterns found in images and then reproduce them by creating new ones of that object, face or image. Present.
In 2017, researchers at the University of Washington used over 14 hours of recordings to reproduce the image and voice of President Barack Obama, thus simulating any speech. They built a model of the shape and motion of the mouth to correlate it with a recording of the voice. With this technique, based on the actual video, they could put any message into Barack Obama’s mouth which was then reproduced by an actor.
In 2018 a group of professionals depfake, Texas Senator Ted Cruz singing and imitating Tina Turner isn’t great, but is funny. In this case, the algorithmic model encoded how the senator’s face and an actor gestured, moved, and looked. Next, it decodes the images of Ted Cruz’s face and reconstructs them on top of the actor’s face.
The technology has been steadily progressing for nearly a decade and can now create talking digital puppets with a high degree of perfection.
Very soon (indeed, this is already happening in some cases), digitized puppets will be used as a ‘Weapon of Mass Confusion’ (WMC) with exponential amounts of disintegration, perhaps more powerful than nuclear weapons. Will happen.
With instant global communication like WhatsApp, misinformation will reach every corner of the world in seconds.
the technology depfake It uses deep learning algorithms, which can learn and solve problems on their own when extensive data inputs are available. One can also use it to swap faces in a video and play it close to the original voice, making viewers believe it is the original.
The misinformation generator only requires the use of deep neural networks connected to automatic encoders. Autoencoders are essentially a form of deep learning artificial intelligence program that is able to mimic a video of a person after studying it.
A collection of video clips of the targeted person, usually taken from social media or news outlets, is required to create a false message spoken by the person. author of depfake “constructs” the content of the message.
The producer programs the images to convey the wrong message to the audience. For example, a presenter on an international news channel may deliver the following message: The President of the United States may appear as a digital puppet expressing his dissatisfaction with events taking place elsewhere in the world and the threat of using nuclear weapons. expresses. until their order is accepted or implemented.
An ordinary viewer who sees this message on his television screen will have no means of determining the veracity of the statements purported to be made by the President.
use of technology depfake In the hands of criminals, the face of crime will change around the world. A criminal who gains access to this technology can post a video clip showing “someone holding a child captive and demanding a ransom” and send it to concerned parents.
Except for members of a few tribes still hidden in some corners of the world, about 87% of the population owns a mobile phone either as a person or a close acquaintance.
That is the exponential power of technology. Social media has completely changed the way people communicate. Millions, maybe billions, post an image daily on Facebook, Instagram etc. Privacy is no longer a virtue.
Cases of false identity have already become a norm. Its diffusion is limited due to the unavailability of technology for all. However, this powerful weapon may soon be used by non-state actors to spread false messages, especially those that create unrest among populations.
spectrum of technology use depfake it is too big. An audio-visual message is the most powerful weapon to make the audience believe in its veracity. Digital puppets will be widely used for the foreseeable future, mainly to spread “real misinformation”.
the technology depfake Has crossed the limits of childhood. Many applications are already available and can be used by a novice. For example, the DeepNude app is already used to create videos and images of nude women. Similarly, the Chinese have developed Face Swap, FaceApp and DeepFace Lab apps, some of which can be used as photo editing apps.
In fact, the pace of development of artificial intelligence has created a Frankenstein. It is not yet known how the demon will be tamed. As a means of warfare, WMC can be millions of times more powerful than the most powerful nuclear weapons ever developed.
Misinformation spread by digital puppets is not detected in time and can be neutralized before irreparable damage is done to the social fabric.
Sooner or later misleading and fake videos will become a norm. Imagine the global impact of Putin’s false image appearing on television screens that “Russia will launch a nuclear attack on Kiev on March 25, 2023 at 10:00 am. All foreigners are advised to leave Kiev immediately.”
(SEON.Io, NUSO.org, The Eurasian Times)
