Malicious Deep Fake Prohibition Act of 2018 [pdf]

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-115s3805is/pdf/BILLS-115s3805is.pdf

by Hard_Space • 7 years ago

121 113 7 years ago

orbifold• 7 years ago

Just yesterday it occurred to me that Deep Fakes could be used to create some of the most potent disinformation campaigns ever. Already now we have had memes with misattributed quotes and photos edited to associate Clinton with the devil, satanic rituals and so on. Think of how much more impactful slightly off quotes and speeches would be.

samcday• 7 years ago

Yes, it definitely has the potential to become a major issue. So much so that the DoD is already working on tools to detect deepfakes [1]. Of course this will very likely devolve into an arms race akin to antivirus vendors vs malware developers.

The fundamental problem is going to be that many people seem to actually like being in their comfortable echo chamber. So, if they're presented with a video that reaffirms their hunch that the Clintons run a child trafficking ring from under a pizza store, those people seem to be unlikely to venture out and do the necessary due diligence to verify the information they're being given :(

[1] https://medium.com/mit-technology-review/the-defense-departm...

carry_bit• 7 years ago

those people seem to be unlikely to venture out and do the necessary due diligence to verify the information they're being given

Especially since people in those circles have for the last year been pushing the idea that the attention on deep fakes is preemptive cover for such a video rumored to be out there.

rookonaut• 7 years ago

You can watch this video of Obama calling Trump names already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0 Those times have already begun.

skummetmaelk• 7 years ago

Whether it is done or not doesn't even matter. It also does not matter whether deep faking videos is made illegal.

All that matters is that it is possible to do so, and supporters of political candidate A will claim with possible deniability that political candidate A never said "X". While also claiming that political candidate B definitely said "Y", even though this may be false. Soon there will be no way to prove whether or not the videos are actually real and people will believe whatever fits their preconceived notions.

Zecar• 7 years ago

Already now we have had memes with misattributed quotes and photos edited to associate Clinton with the devil, satanic rituals and so on

Right, like my favorite one is the idea that she took $150 million from Russia in exchange for a shipment of our uranium. Those funds went to the Clinton Foundation a _charity_. Sheesh.

arcticfox• 7 years ago

Those funds went to the Clinton Foundation a _charity_. Sheesh

While independent investigations have concluded there was no wrongdoing, the reason above is really no defense. The Trump Foundation, for example, has shown how nonprofits can be manipulated to the benefit of the founders.

Cthulhu_3• 7 years ago

Don't all rich people stash their billions in charities to avoid taxes anyway?

bacondude3• 7 years ago

I don't know the details of this Clinton-uranium-$$ story, but I can think of a few questions to ask...

1. If you were going to give somebody an illegal bribe, would you write "bribe" in the For: line on the check? (no, you would hide or disguise your bribe)

2. What plausible, legitimate reasons are there for Russia to donate to the Clinton Foundation?

3. Is charitable giving to anybody, especially in quantities exceeding $25-50 million, normal for Russia?

Cthulhu_ and arcticfox are definitely both right that charities are used by many rich people to avoid taxes and just because it's a charity doesn't mean the owner isn't benefiting from it.

I'd appreciate hearing your response. Not saying it happened one way or the other, just making some observations based on the tiny bit I've heard about this.

Edit:

Regarding #2, a quick search turned up [1]. I don't know anything about the Borgen Project, but a quick glance at the page doesn't look too suspicious. So, assuming that page is correct and that Russia donated similar quantities in 2013 as they did the same year the uranium incident happened, they donated over 50% to the Clinton Foundation. If those assumptions are fair and that actually is the case, it sure sounds suspicious to me.

[1] https://borgenproject.org/russias-charitable-giving/

taneq2• 7 years ago

Just yesterday? The very first examples we saw of this kind of tech was heads of state being puppeted to say things. That and porn are about all its been used for.

mc32• 7 years ago

Deep fakes lack context. There are no witnesses, etc. So they’ll be most “effective” in trying to establish something in the past. It’ll be harder to produce the context where it’s believable in the near past (present minus up to a day a month a year?). So they may be useful in sowing distrust in someone by establishing they did something untoward in the past, but less likely to incite immediate reaction about something happening now, or recent past, once people become used to the possibility.

Casseres• 7 years ago

People will "remember" things that didn't happen.

michaelt3• 7 years ago

Presumably you'd fake things it would be plausible the politician was trying to keep secret. So you'd expect there to be no witnesses.

For example you'd fake hidden camera footage of politicians beating prostitutes and accepting brown envelopes from russian agents.

netsharc• 7 years ago

There was a "middle finger scandal" in 2015 where German journalists found a clip of the man who was to be the Greek finance minister giving a speech and saying "[Greece] should stick the finger to Germany" and doing the gesture as well, and of course stoking the typical "outrage culture".

Strangely a German TV satire team have claimed they doctored the video to make it look like he's giving the finger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx-1LQu6mAE (although I stil wonder if they did the opposite: doctor the gesture out of the video, IMO the gesture itself was par for the course for him and perfectly acceptable).

sigi45• 7 years ago

In theory you would need to visit all events in person again as you will no longer be able to trust anything around you.

We would need to invent something like public/private key auth which signs every videostream and which allows you to trust specific sources like reporters from NYT for example.

twic• 7 years ago

We had a crude version of this a few months ago:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/video-of-acosta-incident-p...

cwkoss2• 7 years ago

IIRC, the majority Pizzagate was centered around Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta, not the candidate herself.

John and Tony Podesta collect some very creepy art - google it. Certainly not evidence of a crime, but fairly-public figures closely connected to a presidential campaign collecting art of children bound and in morbid situations raises some eyebrows for sure.

scotty79• 7 years ago

Ok. One generation might be a bit confused thinking that what they see on video is what actually happened. But further generations as the technology becomes common will just intuitively understand that video by itself proves nothing and it was most likely made for the lulz than recorded as it happened.

Video of Trump saying something already proves nothing especially not that he ever said it because now he says he never did. And all that even without deep fake technology.

People care less and less about history of reality. They become aware that it's to large extent unknowable drowned in narratives.

naringas2• 7 years ago

sooner or later they have to make a full length feature film using this technology

taneq2• 7 years ago

I thought there already was (some of) one. Starring Nicholas Cage, as everyone.

gbrown• 7 years ago

That's amazing.

Cthulhu_3• 7 years ago

Forrest Gump comes to mind, and this was what, 20 years ago?

naringas2• 7 years ago

an *entire full length movie

michaelt3• 7 years ago

Does anyone know how this act would interact with the first amendment?

It's my understanding that the first amendment is extremely broad - if donating money can be counted as protected speech, surely 'parody' videos of politicians would also be?

Cthulhu_3• 7 years ago

Well making a deep fake is legal, however using it for illegal activities is not - freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences. You're free to make a bomb threat and nobody will silence you if you do, but it's likely the FBI will knock on your door.

It's not about what you say (or in this case produce), it's about your intent.

dTal• 7 years ago

Not to disagree with your statement about intent, but...

freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences

...that's not a very convincing form of free speech. What exactly does "free speech" mean then, if not freedom from consequences? It's not as if it's even possible to silence someone before the fact.

"You are free to criticise comrade Stalin! You are also free to go to gulag!"

SamuelAdams• 7 years ago

Page 4, line 8:

    (2) FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTION.—No person shall be held liable under this section for any activity protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.’’.

giornogiovanna• 7 years ago

But what activity does this act prohibit, that isn't "protected by the First Amendment"?

jdpedrie2• 7 years ago

This seems like a bit of CYA on the part of the drafters for the inevitable court challenge. "We did consider the constitutional issues, we promise!"

Without specifics, that line is meaningless.

edit: This speaks to a larger problem with how our representatives work these days. They're supposed to respect the limits placed on their power and they're supposed to guard the powers they are given jealously. Instead, they trip over each other to run away from their lawful authority, and when they finally decide to "do something", limits are dismissed with a wave of the hand.

3pt14159• 7 years ago

Parody is a valid defence only if a reasonable person would consider it as parody. We have libel laws. They work well enough. I think of this an extension of libel protection.

Though in the long run, the defence will need to be algorithmic. Not all actors are stateside.

daenz• 7 years ago

IANAL, but based on the wording, it seems like it's only unlawful to create w/ intent to distribute, or to knowingly distribute, a deep fake IFF you're facilitating unlawful conduct. So for example, blackmail? Does libel count? Does the very act of distributing a deep fake count as libel against the subject?

Can any lawyers chime in?

jawns2• 7 years ago

From the definitions section of the act:

The term 'deep fake' means an audiovisual record created or altered in a manner that the record would falsely appear to a reasonable observer to be an authentic record of the actual speech or conduct of an individual.

This limits the scope of the act to prohibiting deep fakes that are not explicitly labeled as such. If the recording (or, potentially, links to the recording) contains any type of disclaimer, that should be sufficient to establish that no reasonable observer would consider it to be authentic.

But I wonder if this provides enough protection to victims in the case of deep fakes where a person's face is grafted onto sexual content or other content that might embarrass the person, whether or not a disclaimer exists.

For instance, if someone puts an acquaintance's face into a sex scene and distributes it online, then even if there's a huge "This is a deep fake" scrolling disclaimer across the video, that person may still feel as if they have been defamed.

londons_explore• 7 years ago

It seems quite a constraint on creativity to say 'You can't make something look legit when it isn't'.

gotocake2• 7 years ago

It’s not a new concept, and it applies to the difference between a painter copying a Van Gogh (acceptable) and trying to pass that work off as the genuine article (illegal). In short, it’s the line between creative expression and forgery.

vorpalhex• 7 years ago

Or, you have to at least put a disclaimer on it if it's likely to cause confusion. This isn't new.

All Characters and events in this show -- even those based on real people -- are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated... poorly. The following ...

pjc50• 7 years ago

As others have pointed out, "making something look legit when it isn't" is a good description of fraud, and films have long had disclaimers in the credits that they are fictional.

herostratus101• 7 years ago

I'm not sure your reading of this is warranted at all.

In any event, are you sure it protects you from criminal liability if you label something as a deep fake, then other people redistribute it without that label?

wil421• 7 years ago

Could someone already sue you for libel if you created a deep fake of them?

jawns2• 7 years ago

are you sure it protects you from criminal liability if you label something as a deep fake, then other people redistribute it without that label?

No, I'm not sure. I said "potentially," but I don't know.

I think it may be plausible to argue that labeling a recording outside of the recording itself should be one factor in deciding whether a reasonable observer would consider it authentic.

And I think it may also be plausible to argue that doing so protects the labeler, and that (particularly if the license to redistribute requires that the disclaimer be shown in any subsequent distribution channels) only the people who distribute it without the label should be found to have violated the act.

grigjd32• 7 years ago

I suppose the person who removed the label would, theoretically, be the guilty party. One could argue that law enforcement is flawed, but that's true for any law.

Shish2k• 7 years ago

if you label something as a deep fake, then other people redistribute it without that label?

If I print off a copy of a Van Gogh making it clear that it's a copy, and then somebody else sells it as an original, who is liable for fraud?

kakarot3• 7 years ago

For instance, if someone puts an acquaintance's face into a sex scene and distributes it online, then even if there's a huge "This is a deep fake" scrolling disclaimer across the video, that person may still feel as if they have been defamed.

A lot of people might not like relinquishing the authoritarian reaction to control the fictional creative output of others when it specifically targets them in a negative and public manner, but unfortunately respecting freedom of speech demands that deep fakes be protected from civil or legal action. We have to adapt our laws to reality as technology changes it, not the other way around.

However, if a deep fake is used to specifically target and harass an individual on a personal level, i.e. not parody/political speech but actually contacting and engaging with family/friends/associates of the victim in order to cause harm, then afaik that is already covered by existing harassment laws.

yayr• 7 years ago

We have to adapt our laws to reality as technology changes it, not the other way around

social norms and law as a consequence always have to strike the balance between personal freedom of [x] vs the others personal freedom of [x,y].

just because a technology exists, it doesn't mean it should be used in any way. As an extreme example let's take "knife technology", you just should not put that tech piece into any human body and see what happens... so it's clear where the balance is in this case. deep fake should be the same as any other human dignity vs. free speech discussion imo. There seem to be different norms in different countries too regarding this, it's not always authoritarian.

harperlee• 7 years ago

that person may still feel as if they have been defamed.

Don’t defamation or personal honour laws cover this scenario already in most countries, as would be the case with obscene caricatures of someone? Do we need new laws specific for deep fakes in that case? What about for videos that very obviously just paste the target’s face on top of another video?

SiempreViernes• 7 years ago

Yeah, though I can see the case for additions that makes defamation using deep fakes a more serious crime than less competent caricatures.

jfengel• 7 years ago

I'm not a lawyer, but the answer may well be "no, this isn't already covered". Especially when courts like to construe things narrowly, and that anything not specifically mentioned in a law requires relief through the legislature rather than the judicial branch. There will surely be people who claim that this isn't covered by existing defamation laws, and I would not be so sure that a court wouldn't agree with them.

docker_up• 7 years ago

What if someone produces a deep fake with the disclaimer, but then someone copies the video, edits out the disclaimer and then posts that edited video? Is the second person guilty of creating a deep fake or guilty of something else?

RobLach• 7 years ago

I think that case is fine since that is already covered by laws which punish harassment and malicious defamation. It gets more complicated if you account for celebrity.

Bartweiss5• 7 years ago

an audiovisual record created...in a manner that the record would falsely appear to a reasonable observer to be an authentic record

Presumably this 'created' case is meant to prevent something like Nvidia's face-gen tool being used to create a lookalike video from scratch with the defense "it's not an alteration".

But there's no wording restricting this to digital generation (or alteration). As far as I can tell, this covers anything from a photo with a lookalike to a real but misleadingly-cut sound recording. Am I missing something, or would this have made producing that 2004 faked photo of Jane Fonda and John Kerry a felony offense?

bitL3• 7 years ago

It's funny how a very simple DL architecture any beginner could prepare ended up in a prohibition act - essentially training two convolutional autoencoders, one on the face one wants to replace (extracting dataset by e.g. tracking face with OpenCV in target video), the second on many pictures of the face one wants to replace (e.g. scraping from Internet or known videos), then essentially gluing together encoder from one and decoder from the other, assuming latent variables match, and suddenly a fake video is done.

IMO if you really want to control deep fakes, you should use a blockchain and track all processing steps, starting from image/video acquisition. I don't want to give anyone ideas, but they will do it anyway.

dieblur• 7 years ago

This doesn't even begin to make sense. You can't force people to register any creation on the blockchain and there can't be a main "only real things allowed" chain. If we want to shoehorn a blockchain into every possible problem ever, lets begin with ones that could actually work.

bitL3• 7 years ago

The idea is to enforce equipment manufacturers to prepare uniquely identifiable IDs in all imagery/footage their equipment produces, entice all software vendors to register all operations in a blockchain and store a reference to it in metadata; then reject any footage that can't have all steps verified as "fake".

How is that any different than tracking production inputs in logistic chains using blockchain?

c0nfused• 7 years ago

It would seem to ban only international or interstate created deep fakes. This appears to prop up the locally created deep fake market.

I'm only half kidding, it seems like the immediate defense would be: I made it at home or in a data center in my home state thus the statute does not apply.

grigjd32• 7 years ago

I suspect this limitation is because the supreme Court has traditionally held the federal government to such limitations in many areas.

the_pwner224• 7 years ago

The US Constitution only gives the Federal government the power to regulate international and interstate commerce (and of course other powers too, but those aren't relevant here). Article I section 8: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...

The Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments to the Constitution) explicitly states that all powers not explicitly granted to the Federal government are retained by the states and by the people. So that's probably why this limitation exists.

Of course, the Federal government has really stretched the meaning of "To regulate Commerce ... among the several states" and has gained quite a bit of power out of that line. But it's still a limitation.

jdpedrie2• 7 years ago

"Deep Fakes" in general seem to be already covered by existing libel laws, though that has some problems. Libel is generally a civil matter, and is extremely difficult to prosecute.

There is precedent, even in the US, for criminal libel laws[0]. Perhaps following that path (combined with continued work on detection and defeat of the technology) would be preferable. Since libel and defamation are well-defined and have a long history of jurisprudence, many of the constitutional and legal issues which would have to be answered in opening a new avenue of speech restriction could be contained within the existing contexts.

I'd even think leaving it in the civil arena would make sense until it became a problem worthy of criminalization. Legislating a matter before it arises is almost never a good idea, from either a prudential or principled standpoint.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

Bartweiss5• 7 years ago

Aside from the civil versus criminal distinction, it seems significant that this statute judges harm differently than libel laws. Libel/slander requires reputational damage to an individual, while this is about facilitating criminal/tortious conduct in general. That seems to cover some fairly significant non-libel cases, like knowingly creating a video for someone to use as an alibi.

I agree that it still seems like premature legislation, though. Even from the viewpoint of a random programmer, it's both overbroad (this covers any video editing, not just 'deepfakes' as commonly understood) and incomplete (what happens when no recognizable people are represented, but an edit is still used to facilitate criminal action?)

If doctored video becomes as believable as authentic video, it's going to be a major upheaval, returning us to a world where seeing isn't believing. Probably not completely; there will be an obvious market for hard-to-fake authentication, even in forms as simple as registering a video hash with a trusted source as soon as it's taken. But the departure from a world where a high-res video of an event is reliable proof is going to be a very big change, and I seriously doubt any law written today will productively adjust for it.

beager• 7 years ago

With respect to the U.S. Congress, I don't think there is sufficient language to make something like this sufficient without also being overly broad. I'm looking at this, specifically:

  10 ‘‘(2) the term ‘deep fake’ means an audiovisual
  11 record created or altered in a manner that the
  12 record would falsely appear to a reasonable observer
  13 to be an authentic record of the actual speech or
  14 conduct of an individual; and

If that's the case, any sort of creative editing, even just quick cuts, could fall under this (see: any primetime or cable news, any TV campaign ad, the quick cuts of Obama where it looks like he's singing Never Gonna Give You Up, etc). And, not to get on the US politics slant, but a law like this could be weaponized against political foes—basically, label everything you don't like as "fake news" and prosecute it under this law.

Additionally, if you look at this and just say "well, we all know what a deep fake is, so your point is moot," I will say, somewhat at the risk of contradicting myself, that maybe the language needs to be forward-thinking to cover whatever the next "deep fake" is.

In my opinion, the sort of clause above would be better written like:

  The term "Computer-generated audiovisual impersonation" means an
  audiovisual record created or altered by computer generation in
  a manner that the record would falsely appear to a reasonable
  observer to be an authentic record of the actual speech or conduct
  of an individual;

e40• 7 years ago

If that's the case, any sort of creative editing, even just quick cuts, could fall under this

Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. This technique has been used to deceive untold times.

kbenson3• 7 years ago

I agree. A world where edited interviews must air with a disclaimer that it has been edited to remove certain portions might be extremely beneficial.

Bartweiss5• 7 years ago

A carefully drafted law against circulating that sort of material without a label might be alright. But I very much don't want to see this law, with low specificity and felony penalties, used to criminalize dubious editing. After all, we already have libel laws, so this is largely going to be used where those fail to apply.

If you cut a real interview answer to align with a different question than was asked, is that altered to a false appearance? What if it's done in good faith, to streamline out an interviewer's request for clarification?

If you share real, unedited footage of someone, but end it before they give a caveat to their comment, is that an authentic record of their speech? How about if you cut off a more serious inversion, like "what my opponents want you to think I'd say..." What about footage of a fight that starts too late and misrepresents the aggressor?

Weirdest of all, if you edit an interview favorably, is that a felony? Since this isn't a libel law but a public-interest law, could cutting out a stupid answer or trimming filler words form an inauthentic record of someone's speech?

(Actually, even worse: a slightly broad reading of 1B and 2A suggests that it's even possible to commit this crime without intent. The fake need not be purposefully misleading, and intent to facilitate criminal conduct doesn't necessarily require knowledge that the conduct facilitated would be criminal.)

This law does a pretty good job of saying that it's illegal to computer generate a video of a politician taking a bribe. But even if deceptive editing ought to be illegal, I think accomplishing that with this definition and these penalties would be disastrously unclear.

Bartweiss5• 7 years ago

I strongly agree.

As far as I can tell, this wording covers any sort of misrepresentation set to film: creative editing, lookalikes, photo composites, etc. What constitutes undue creative editing is worryingly undefined; there are a lot of practices which create 'inauthentic records' for both innocent and malicious ends, like cutting segments out of an interview. And it seems to have seriously strange edge cases, since unlike libel rules it's not defined by harm to the person misrepresented - can you edit an interview favorably and be charged for that?

I suppose the "intent to facilitate criminal/tortious conduct" clause is supposed to bypass all of that, but I'm not convinced it actually does so. §1041.b.2.A requires actual knowledge that a a record is false for distributors, but §1041.b.1 does not. Presumably the idea is that creating a deepfake shows knowledge, but the deepfake definition itself doesn't require intent by the creator; it's sufficient that the resulting record be false and seemingly authentic. If "intent to facilitate criminal conduct" is read in the same way as e.g. conspiracy statutes, it could connect intent to the conduct, not the criminality. (As a further bit of weirdness, it would then be legal to create without intent to distribute, and later distribute without knowledge. But if you create while intending to distribute, you're in hot water.

An extreme example: someone rounds a corner and sees Person A punching Person B. They arrive too late to see that B initiated the fight and A acted in self defense. They quickly take some video so there's evidence, and after the fight ends send it to B, who requested it as evidence with which to file an assault charge. The taper has now created with intent to distribute what falsely appears to be an authentic record of A's conduct (intent not required). And they reasonably expected that the record would be used to affect the conduct of a state judicial proceeding (§1041.c.1.A). The videographer, without knowledge or intent, is now facing 10 years in prison for creation of a deep fake.

echelon• 7 years ago

Jeez, yet another annoying new law encroaching on something fun I do as a hobby. I'm really sick of our lawmakers doing this when our existing legal code seems sufficient to punish abuse.

Does this mean I should take down my Donald Trump text to speech engine [1]? Or consult a lawyer?

It yields really poor quality (right now), and I doubt any reasonable person would consider it to be actual audio from Trump.

Does this prohibit me from improving it? I was about to train an ML model on my samples and switch to parametric generation.

[1] http://trumped.com

donatj2• 7 years ago

I mean deep fakes clearly seems protected by the first amendment, particularly strongly in the case of parody. That's not too say however they are clear from libel law.

hopler2• 7 years ago

So are they protected or not?

donatj2• 7 years ago

Basically my argument is that they're protected from criminal but not civil charges.

pseingatl• 7 years ago

The crime is not well-defined. Meanwhile, there's this out without further explanation: "No person shall be held liable under this section for any activity protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.’’

curuinor• 7 years ago

Lots of legislation effectively leaves it to courts to hash the actual specifics out. Courts can only rule on specific examples, so it prevents a genre of legal stupidity.

rjf72• 7 years ago

I'm curious about peoples' views on something.

It's clear that in the future we will be able to create fakes that are effectively indistinguishable from reality. The audio in this 'Trump speech' [1] is already remarkable. So there are two ways we can go from here. The first is to try to maintain faith in multimedia. What you see or hear is probably real because we try to pass a bunch of laws making it a really bad thing to try to impersonate people.

The second is to go the route of internet speech today. If somebody claims to be somebody of note, you generally would not believe them without extensive proof. And so what they say does not reflect upon the person they claim to be. If video/audio manipulation tech was allowed without constraint, this would eventually become the same for general audio/video. Having no trust in what you see or hear is not a great thing. But at the same time, I think there's a very good argument to be made for the fact that people are already far too susceptible to fake information because we, even before the 'real' advent of deep fake type technology, are still teetering on the precipice between believable and not.

For instance this [2] famous image of "animal testing" that keeps going viral on social media every couple of years. It has nothing to do with animal testing, but people are naive. Deep fakes would throw us well off that precipice to the point that I think we'd see substantially increased amounts of scrutiny given to misinformation. The downside here is of course we'd also see substantially increased amounts of scrutiny given to legitimate information, though I'm not entirely sure I see that as a negative.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Gpc_artOYI

[2] https://speakingofresearch.com/2014/02/27/fact-into-fiction-...

adolph• 7 years ago

I'd bet that this act would paradoxically increase the power of "deep fakes" in that the problem isn't the existence of "deep fakes" but each person's reaction to them. The prevailing culture of knee-jerk hot-takes already thrives on selectively edited video and fresh discoveries of forgotten pasts. If it isn't inoculated into thoughtful skepticism by steady revelations of various fakes it will become more susceptible to the few left un-prosecuted under this law.

cpr• 7 years ago

In other words: deep state sets the stage for forthcoming shocking real videos of major players.

Yes, yes, downvote into oblivion, but remember this when it happens...

pbhjpbhj2• 7 years ago

How does one prove the fake is fake.

There's going to be development of "live notarised" data streams, so a camera feed gets certified, etc..

People are going to use deep-fake tech as an excuse -- someone faked me, I'm not racist/sexist/fascist/... . How can you show the real is real.

I'm imagining a future where you can choose the actors in the lead roles of your films; great for narcissists!

tlynchpin• 7 years ago

Heinlein explored this idea of Fair Witness as a profession in his 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land.

https://lccn.loc.gov/61011702

saint_abroad• 7 years ago

(2) the term ‘deep fake’ means an audiovisual record created or altered in a manner that the record would falsely appear to a reasonable observer to be an authentic record of the actual speech or conduct of an individual;

I see nothing of this act that restricts the applicability of so broad a definition of "deep-fake" so as not to cover the activities of Hollywood, specifically the CGI mapping of actors onto body doubles such as that performed in "The Crow" (1994).

Yet another deeply troubling knee-jerk reaction of an act that promises to catch "just the bad".

cwkoss2• 7 years ago

Conversely, I think that we may soon need regulation around Hollywood's right to digitally reincarnate dead actors for use in their commercial film productions.

The idea of Universal CGI'ing George Carlin into saying politically-tinged speech he would disagree with would be a travesty. And I'm not sure how that would be prevented, save his estate successfully suing Universal.

randyrand• 7 years ago

This concerns 'records', but I wonder if a program that can do a realtime overlay would solve the moral/possible legal issues.

Malicious Deep Fake Prohibition Act of 2018 [pdf]

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