
Deepfakes: MIT brings Nixon's Apollo disaster speech to life - jbredeche
https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/11/22/mit-nixon-deep-fake
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3fe9a03ccd14ca5
I find it amusing that Congress has suddenly become so interested in the
dangers of deep fakes. When they started going on and on about the dangers I
thought “why is this dude so worried?”.

Then of course the Epstein stuff becomes news[1] months later and the cynical
part of me can’t help but think they’re looking for a defense if they ever
partied at his island or ranch.

1\. [https://nypost.com/2019/11/18/jeffrey-epstein-accuser-
claims...](https://nypost.com/2019/11/18/jeffrey-epstein-accuser-claims-he-
hid-pinhole-cameras-to-monitor-private-moments/)

~~~
ISL
Deepfakes are readily understandable as a problem for politicians. Politicians
are experts in public messaging; this technology has the ability to alter
previously-immutable messages.

~~~
bduerst
Why are deepfakes now a huge problem, or any worse than photoshop? This
technology has existed for decades.

~~~
friendlybus
Video used to be the holy grail for 'that's real'. There's a realpolitik side
to some american politics where if the traditional international order gets
reshuffled they'd be happy to prove international misbehaviour with video
footage and then use that as evidence for escalation. Also in the justice
system video footage is seen as good as gold.

The credibility of still footage has dropped before. I don't know where that
leaves us for authentic media...

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canada_dry
Deep fakes are yet another prime example of how the writing is on the wall
(i.e. it's clear that this technology can/will be used for nefarious purposes
- esp. by our enemies) and yet mitigations - through regulation and enhanced
standards - won't be pursued until long after the horses have left the barn.

I don't know how/what form this should take, but an older analogy might be how
colour photocopier manufacturers imbed microdots into each reproduction so
counterfeit bills can be traced to the equipment that produced them.

~~~
gojomo
The sorts of bad actors or 'enemies' who'd deploy deep fakes for advantage
aren't typically discouraged by 'regulations'.

On the other hand, there is a reasonable amount of active research on both
detecting current faking-techniques, and methods of adding cryptographic
attestation from point-of-recording.

I don't believe "detection" can win in the end, as widespread detection-
technology can generally be used to tune better fabrications.

So ultimately we'll have to rely on: "do we trust the specific chain-of-
people-and-sensors-and-relays that brought this evidence to our purview?" And
various kinds of constantly-applied cryptographic signing & timestamping can
help with that, though interpreting the challenging cases will require a lot
of abstract expertise. (So again, for most people, it may reduce to: "who do
you choose to trust?")

~~~
throwaway5752
Yes, we should not underestimate plain old social solutions. I remember when
you used to answer the phone every time because caller id didn't exist. Who
answers their phone now? This just mainstreams exceptional validation
workflows that exist in finance for establishing identity and preventing
phishing and other forms of identity attack.

We just won't be able to trust anyone is actually saying anything except after
confirmation via non-repudiable channels.

~~~
armagon
I think this is a regional thing.

I'm from a rural community in Canada, and of course we answer the phone.

Just floors me to visit my mother-in-law in Texas; when we visited eight years
ago, she'd answer the phone; now she doesn't answer her cell or her home phone
unless it makes a distinctive ring. I'd hate to need to get ahold of her using
someone else's phone.

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ajmurmann
Obviously I'm not your mother-in-law, but I also don't answer my phone unless
it shows it's someone I know because 95% of calls I get are spam. However, I
will check my voicemail. So far every legitimate caller has left one to my
knowledge.

~~~
Jamwinner
That is pretty strong selection bias however...

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eutropia
We should be less worried about overt propaganda like DeepFakes and more
worried about the assumptions baked into the media of all imperialist nations,
the misdirection, and the selection of "what" to report on. States have been
lying to us since time immemorial, and they don't need fancy video evidence to
do it.

But this is a cool demo, and since the Genie is out of the bottle, this can be
a great tool. You could use it to force those who speak in public the most to
be accountable for the things that they don't say, or equivocate on, by making
videos of them saying it, and forcing them to go on the record denying the
video, in contradiction to their established (unspoken) position.

~~~
larnmar
What is a non-“imperialist” nation, and what makes you think their media is
any better?

The rest of your comment I agree with, but attributing it to “the media of
imperialist nations” instead of just being a property of media organisations
in general, is wrong.

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eutropia
I mean states which are ruled democratically rather than by elites. This means
that the implicit bias in a democratic media is that of serving the people and
exposing truth rather than covering for corpo-fascists and state-sponsered
terrorism. There's such a thing as genuinely good reporting and integrity in
journalism (even in authoritarian states)- it just needs to also be free of
coercion and aware of the frame of reference that it exists in.

~~~
larnmar
I was fourteen once too, kid.

I know the world looks simple when you’re out there forming your very first
political opinions, but it’s really not. The world isn’t some simple struggle
between good guys and bad guys, it’s an incomprehensibly complicated overlap
between lots of people acting in response to various incentives that they
themselves don’t understand.

I recommend keeping your mind open and your mouth shut as you learn a bit more
about how the real world works; hopefully before you’re old enough to vote.

~~~
dang
Personal attacks will get you banned again. Would you please review the site
guidelines and stick to the rules?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

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TimMurnaghan
It still looks wrong. There's still some of the floating/stuck-on head feeling
about it. Or is that just because we already know it's fake from the headline?
(... and the way that the flag moves is totally wrong .../s).

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jedberg
You’d have to be paying real close attention to notice that, which you are
primed to do because you’ve been told it’s a deep fake. You’re probably also
more of an expert than most.

But think of the general US electorate. How many of them, seeing this clip on
the news as they prepare dinner, would know it’s fake?

~~~
minikites
>But think of the general US electorate. How many of them, seeing this clip on
the news as they prepare dinner, would know it’s fake?

I'm not convinced deepfakes will be that big of a problem because people
already believe things that aren't real (and don't believe things that are
real) without the help of technology.

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ignoramous
> people already believe things that aren't real

That's _the problem_ : These people can now parade proof when there isn't any,
perhaps even rally to garner majority and dilute out actual facts.

> (and don't believe things that are real)

For instance, refusing to acknowledge deep-fakes despite being labeled as
such...?

~~~
minikites
The point I was going for is that "proof" already doesn't work on lots of
people, that's the real issue. Information literacy is an important skill that
much of the populace lacks.

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lefstathiou
Part of me feels that the widespread proliferation of deep fakes can
potentially be positive. Seeing will no longer be believing and society will
be forced to look at things with a more critical and skeptical eye or with a
higher level of diligence. Value should also shift back to more legitimate
sources. The transition will certainly suck though.

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netwanderer3
Make-A-Wish Foundation can really benefit from this technology by sending
these "heartfelt" deepfake videos of famous celebrities and idols to dying
kids, hoping to cheer them up. Is it an ethical thing to do? You be the judge!

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jobigoud
This is fantastically evil. I think you win the dangerous idea of the day
award.

It reminds me of the market for answering machine messages, but here you will
have a large catalog of celebrities and you can create a personalized video
message of them talking about you or someone you know.

A con artist could also buy that to pretend they know a certain person.

So the website would work like this: you pick a celebrity, you pick a
theme/context/environment, like Skype call, handheld phone video, at home
webcam, etc. and then you pick the message.

You can have actors with similar build as the target celeb acting specific
scenes, to make the scenes more unique but still reusable. Payment options
differs based on the exclusivity of the acted scene.

~~~
cosmotron
What if that's what the startup Cameo is actually offering?
[https://www.cameo.com/](https://www.cameo.com/)

:-)

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bem94
I find this as interesting as I do worrying. Given our tenuous grasp of shared
facts and basis for (political) relality these days, making videos like this
just seems irresponsible.

We don't need any more fuel for the fire: "They faked this Nixon Video, so
they could have faked <X> too!"

~~~
ISL
Well, in this case, they would be correct.

Finding a reliable way to exchange trusted information is a central problem of
our time.

~~~
pjc50
There's already an outbreak of "fakes" by the simple technique of misleading
editing:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corbyn-ira-
vi...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corbyn-ira-video-tories-
attacked-fake-news-edited-labour-leader-refusal-condemn-sky-news-
election-a7770026.html)

[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-release-
anothe...](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-release-another-
misleading-video-20928508)

~~~
duskwuff
And it doesn't even have to be sophisticated editing. Slowing down a video of
a person speaking is enough to fool a lot of viewers into thinking that person
is drunk:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/23/faked-p...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/23/faked-
pelosi-videos-slowed-make-her-appear-drunk-spread-across-social-media/)

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keiferski
The speculation on Deepfakes in politics reminds me of a particular period in
Russian history known as the Time of Troubles, when numerous people claimed
(called False Dmitris) to be the heir to the Russian throne. I believe a
similar scenario happened a few times in the Ottoman Empire but I’m having
difficulty finding it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Dmitry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Dmitry)

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makerofspoons
I hadn't thought about how deep fakes could help us explore alternate history
before. That's a chilling clip.

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hello_1234
The audio is so realistic. I could have been fooled easily.

~~~
sillysaurusx
I am more curious how they did the audio than the video. From experience, it's
not nearly as easy to clone someone's voice as you might think.

It might be that they just found a good voice actor. That's what most deepfake
videos do now. But maybe someday it will be possible to press a button and
hear a beautiful result.

~~~
belevtsoff
The audio is also generated. We used speech2speech voice conversion for this,
so it is indeed more involving than TTS, for instance, but also more
expressive and controllable. Here's another example:
[https://youtu.be/t5yw5cR79VA](https://youtu.be/t5yw5cR79VA)

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basseq
OK, forget the implications of low-cost and convincing fake video footage for
nefarious purposes. "Fake videos"—e.g., CGI—have been around forever! I don't
suddenly think Star Wars is real because I saw a video of it.

At the end of the day, what cool tech for _legitimate_ purposes! Hollywood
VFX, training video or PR customization, etc. Nixon giving this speech is a
cool look into "what-if", without the moral burden of someone trying to
convince me that an alternate reality is the real one.

~~~
cwkoss
The point is that society currently takes video at face value (pardon the pun)

A clever hacker could replace the face on security footage of someone
committing a crime with yours, put that file back on to security cam dvr,
removing metadata that indicates the file was ever modified. Let the police
retrieve the footage from the dvr. Do you think a good lawyer could get you
off the charges for committing that crime, if you didn't have an alibi?

Evidence standards around video will need to change soon, and society isn't
ready for this shift currently.

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rangibaby
This is way too perfect. If it didn’t know it was a deep fake I would think
it’s real. Fake Richard Nixon looks and sounds genuinely upset.

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carapace
As the technology to do this becomes exponentially cheaper, _integrity_ (in
all it's ramifications) becomes exponentially more valuable.

\- - - -

Sooner or later, nanotech will mature and all of this will escape the digital
realm (largely photons and electrons) into "real" life (IRL) (protons and
neutrons) and we'll have to deal with _that_.

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surfsvammel
We need ways to sign or put signatures in videos that proves their
authenticity. Not sure how such a thing would work though...

I guess, in the world of blockchain, we could guarantee it’s origin at least.

~~~
ReptileMan
Yup. Let's prevent anonymous video recording and dissemination...

I think that for any instinctive reaction like that you should ask - will
authoritarian governments want this effect. If the answer is yes you should
think this trough.

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Reason077
This looks quite a bit more believable than the fake (dubbed) Nixon speeches
in "For All Mankind".

Deepfakes could have legitimate applications in film & television production.

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boksiora
Here are other examples of deep fakes

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puBQ_r7ox8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puBQ_r7ox8M)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm3squcz7Aw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm3squcz7Aw)

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jonas21
How long before all the moon landing hoax people start pointing at this and
saying, "see, I told you so."?

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cannonedhamster
There is literally a mirror in the moon you can get a reflection from it you
know where to look. Mom landing hoaxers don't need evidence to believe what
they believe.

~~~
umvi
I mean, it's a little more difficult than that. You need an expensive high
powered laser only available at universities and precision calibration and
timing equipment to fire and detect the return pulse.

It's not like you can just pull out a hobby telescope and be like "oh look, a
tiny mirror next to an american flag"

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kragen
> _" Deepfakes can be used for many of the things we already know," [co-
> director of the Nixon film Francesca] Panetta says, "but also to create kind
> of alternative histories or have the potential to kind of rewrite history as
> well."_

Movies, from Hollywood and elsewhere, have been convincing people of rewritten
histories since their inception. How well known is the story of the real
Spartacus compared to the Hollywood Spartacus? How many people's vision of the
antebellum US South came from _Gone With The Wind_ rather than from historical
documents and interviews with former slaves and slave-owners? _Birth of a
Nation_ inspired the revival of a terrorist organization that lasted decades;
_Triumph of the Will_ painted the Nazis' rise as a matter of noble heroism
triumphing over cowardice. Last week I argued with some epistemologically
incompetent person who wanted me to watch an anti-vaccine movie about
Gardasil, apparently unaware that YouTube videos are not really a publication
venue used by medical researchers.

So, what should we do about it? Well, the Soviets had an answer: since movies
were so powerful, people would be carefully vetted before they got access to
the equipment needed to make them, and if someone made a movie with harmful
contents anyway, they would go to GULAG. Is that the solution we want?

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xf00
At the end of the day, our only defense against deepfakes is going to be to
disregard the supposed identity of the speaker and only judge the content
itself. Easier said than done.

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schainks
Sounds like a good time to create a honeypot deepfakes service. Could charge a
handsome fee for it, too, then authenticate deepfakes funded by political
parties.

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eskaytwo
Somewhat fitting that they did it for the mother of all deepfake rumours - the
Kubrick “never landed on the moon” conspiracy theory.

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altoidaltoid
The Running Man movie is coming to life.

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etxm
Welcome to the end of truth and fact.

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HansHamster
Obligatory xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1484/](https://xkcd.com/1484/)

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awinter-py
eat your heart out bill safire

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daniel-thompson
I was kinda hoping they would have done this version of the speech ->
[https://lifestyle.clickhole.com/this-speech-was-written-
for-...](https://lifestyle.clickhole.com/this-speech-was-written-for-
president-nixon-to-deliver-1825121627)

