TechCrunch:
Forget DeepFakes, Deep Video Portraits are way better (and worse) . “The strange, creepy world of ‘deepfakes,’ videos (often explicit) with the faces of the subjects replaced by those of celebrities, set off alarm bells just about everywhere early this year. And in case you thought that sort of thing had gone away because people found it unethical or unconvincing, the practice is back with the highly convincing “Deep Video Portraits,” which refines and improves the technique.”
fraud
Brookings Institution: The West is ill-prepared for the wave of “deep fakes” that artificial intelligence could unleash
Brookings Institution: The West is ill-prepared for the wave of “deep fakes” that artificial intelligence could unleash. “To get ahead of new problems related to disinformation and technology, policymakers in Europe and the United States should focus on the coming wave of disruptive technologies, write Chris Meserole and Alina Polyakova. Fueled by advances in artificial intelligence and decentralized computing, the next generation of disinformation promises to be even more sophisticated and difficult to detect.”
FTC: Google is not calling you
FTC: Google is not calling you. “Have you gotten a robocall at work, telling you that you have to take action or your Google business listing will be removed? Or maybe even marked as permanently closed? That kind of thing could be tough for a business — if the threat was real. But those calls are not legit—and not from Google.”
WJLA: Twitter to add special labels to political candidates in US
WJLA: Twitter to add special labels to political candidates in US. “Twitter says it’s adding special labels to tweets from some U.S. political candidates ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Twitter says the move is to provide users with ‘authentic information’ and prevent spoofed and fake accounts from fooling users. The labels will include what office a person is running for and where.”
Techdirt: Senators Ask FCC Why It Did Nothing To Stop Their Names From Being Fraudulently Used During Net Neutrality Repeal
Techdirt: Senators Ask FCC Why It Did Nothing To Stop Their Names From Being Fraudulently Used During Net Neutrality Repeal. “Last year you’ll recall that somebody abused the nonexistent privacy protections at the FCC website to flood the net neutrality repeal proceeding with millions of fake comments. While the vast majority of real people oppose the repeal, a bad actor was able to either fraudulently use the identities of real people (like myself), or hijack the identities of dead people to spam the proceeding with bogus support. The goal: undermine public trust in the public comment period in order to downplay the massive opposition to the FCC’s handout to AT&T and Comcast.”
MIT Technology Review: The US military is funding an effort to catch deepfakes and other AI trickery
MIT Technology Review: The US military is funding an effort to catch deepfakes and other AI trickery. “The Department of Defense is funding a project that will try to determine whether the increasingly real-looking fake video and audio generated by artificial intelligence might soon be impossible to distinguish from the real thing—even for another AI system. This summer, under a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the world’s leading digital forensics experts will gather for an AI fakery contest. They will compete to generate the most convincing AI-generated fake video, imagery, and audio—and they will also try to develop tools that can catch these counterfeits automatically.”
The Verge: Predatory Behavior Runs Rampant In Facebook’s Addiction Support Groups
The Verge: Predatory Behavior Runs Rampant In Facebook’s Addiction Support Groups. “When Laurie Couch first joined the Affected by Addiction Support Group, a closed Facebook group with 70,000 members, she felt a sense of belonging. Here were people who understood her struggle to care for a son addicted to drugs, and they were there to support her, any time of the day or night. She began regularly responding to people who were dealing with cravings and comforting parents devastated by their children’s addictions…. In March, Couch’s son almost overdosed. They live together in rural Kansas, where she doesn’t have access to much in-person support, which is part of what made Affected by Addiction attractive to begin with. In the wake of his near-overdose, she reached out to the group for comfort and encouragement while she panicked and figured out what to do. Shortly after that, a stranger named Garrett Hall sent Couch a Facebook message.”
