[HN Gopher] BBC documentary used face-swapping AI to hide protes...
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BBC documentary used face-swapping AI to hide protesters'
identities
Author : lnguyen
Score : 89 points
Date : 2022-11-24 18:38 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newscientist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newscientist.com)
| astrea wrote:
| Why even bother with this? I understand to preserve facial
| expressions, but why not fully use actors or sacrifice "the art"
| of it all and hide the faces completely. This opens up the
| possibility of reversing the inference of the face-swapping AI
| and generating the original face.
| my_city wrote:
| Why West can promote separatists, terrorists and internal
| divisions with zero consequences? If Texas had a separatist
| movement that wanted to start a civil war to secede from the
| United States do you think it wouldn't be crushed?
|
| The United Kingdom is the worst offender in this, they violently
| repressed any revolutionary attempt in their colonies.
|
| Honk Kong is a chinese teritory, end of story. Like Texas, or the
| city of London. If those regions started violent protest to
| independize, they would be repressed. End of story. Shame on the
| West for such blatant imperialist attempt at meddling with
| chinese internal affairs.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| Two wrongs don't make one right. While your first two
| paragraphs are correct your conclusion is totally bonkers.
| alvarezbjm-hn wrote:
| You said "The United Kingdom is the worst offender in this,
| they violently repressed any revolutionary attempt in their
| colonies."
|
| And they you said it is fine that China does it?
|
| Hong Kong is more like Puerto Rico than like Texas. However,
| people from Hong Kong don't want to live under the ccp, while
| Puerto Ricans complain they arent better integrated to the US.
|
| Go figure.
| hjanssen wrote:
| It says in the article that the faces are swapped with those of
| actors. Are those something like film actors? Because that would
| actually be amazing, completely dodging the drawback several
| commenters here have mentioned that faces of innocent people
| could be used.
|
| Actors faces are already public. Then again,I would probably be
| pissed when my face would be used as a mask to say something I
| might not agree with. Interesting question if that is ethical or
| not.
| cjbayliss wrote:
| Another interesting example of face swapping is DeepPrivacy. [1]
|
| Example of it used by Benn Jordan (aka, The Flashbulb) [2]
|
| 1. https://github.com/hukkelas/DeepPrivacy
|
| 2. https://youtu.be/ibZNByVdH0E?t=551
| partiallypro wrote:
| This seems to have a glaring flaw in that a fake AI generated
| person could have a real-world doppelganger, which a tyrannical
| government could mistakenly arrest, or worse.
| jlarocco wrote:
| Seems like a publicity stunt.
|
| A face covering would cost nothing and achieve the end goal of
| hiding their identity.
| sportslife wrote:
| This solves multiple goals: hide identity, show anon-source
| exists, and show facial emotions to viewers.
|
| The latter is a huge win for making media people want to
| watch. Same reason all those cable stations segment the
| screen into four with a face in each corner, or why streamers
| overlay their gaming with a their face on a webcam. We like
| faces.
| dmix wrote:
| A "glaring flaw" because of some extreme and unlikely scenario?
|
| Why would governments be using AI modified content to look for
| people to arrest? Is this really a serious risk to dissuade
| using it? Seems pretty unlikely that it simultaneously a)
| exclusively be used as the source + b) actually matches someone
| IRL.
| richbell wrote:
| > Why would governments be using this content to look for
| people to arrest?
|
| Why _wouldn 't_ oppressive regimes that are arresting
| dissidents review footage of dissidents that makes them look
| bad? Harassing reporters and their sources is a very common
| way to suppress information.
|
| Scientology does it, why wouldn't a government? https://www.f
| orbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2020/08/05/sciento...
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Why wouldn't oppressive regimes that are arresting
| dissidents review footage of dissidents that makes them
| look bad?
|
| Because the faces aren't real? They want to arrest
| dissidents not random people.
| [deleted]
| kramerger wrote:
| Are you serious?
|
| This is standard practice by security forces of any
| dictatorship.
| dmix wrote:
| A standard practice to use... potentially AI modified
| surveillance photography? Where will they get these photos
| from exactly in this future scenario? Activists and
| journalists when these photo apps become widespread
| (unbeknownst to the government)?
|
| It's an interesting hypothetical for sure but it's stretch
| to call it a glaring flaw. Not really any worse than people
| being misidentified in normal photos.
| mansion7 wrote:
| The USA itself put out a nationwide manhunt, distributing
| video to news outlets, asking the public to assist in
| identifying protesters whose only known alleged crime was
| trespassing.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| Are we sure this has a greater chance of happening than the
| alternative (you present the voice a transcript or robotic
| voice and the government arrests a random person they thought
| it may be linked to anywas)
| baxtr wrote:
| Especially since these are generated based on training data
| from real humans...
| richbell wrote:
| It's a novel approach, but like you've said I think the
| potential negatives far outweighs the positives. Perhaps they
| could use obviously fake faces with weird proportions and
| features?
|
| Idk, this seems like a case of using cool flashy tech because
| it's cool and flashy and not because it's better than the
| alternative (using an actor to portray the subject, blurring or
| blacking out the subject's face).
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| With face recognition software and automated edits they could
| run any protest footage from autocratic regimes like Iran or
| China through a filter to obscure everyone's face and replace
| it with an AI generated one. All it would cost them is a few
| extra minutes of editing time, I'm not sure if that would be
| critical in the news business where there's a lot of time
| pressure.
|
| I think that would be a really cool feature that could help
| keep protesters safe. Dissidents could send footage to
| trustworthy outlets who would only make public the edited
| footage. Because of course people still want to share the
| event with the world, but they might not want to be
| identified in a place where if caught they get tortured,
| raped or even killed.
|
| The individual face isn't really important most of the time,
| it's not like it makes a difference to the viewer. They could
| still give the unedited footage too police in places with
| legitimate rule of law if the government has a court order
| and can prove a crime was committed by an individual they
| have on tape.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| I think that would be a really helpful feature to convince
| Regular Joe what there are protests today in _checks notes_
| Eastasia.
| kristofferc wrote:
| A real person can also have a real-world doppelganger. In fact,
| isn't this just as likely as an AI generated person having one,
| maybe even more? So doing this swap didn't really change
| anything when it comes to "innocent" people getting targeted?
| josephcsible wrote:
| But since it's publicly known that the faces are fake, the
| government isn't going to try to use them to identify anyone.
| yucky wrote:
| Which protestor identities are worth protecting, and which
| aren't? Up to the BBC to decide which protests are the "correct"
| ones I guess.
| msie wrote:
| Reminds me of the scramble suit in A Scanner Darkly.
| upsidesinclude wrote:
| This makes absolutely no sense.
|
| If you wanted anonymity and were willing to go to these lengths,
| then the face could be fully fictitious and AI generated. Thereby
| placing no one in fear of government retribution.
|
| This only makes sense if you filmed actors and wanted to cover
| that glaring mistake in your propaganda, because you lack the
| necessary talent to actually render them with AI.
|
| I don't buy it. Not a fan of authoritarian regimes, but this
| stinks.
| richbell wrote:
| > This only makes sense if you filmed actors and wanted to
| cover that glaring mistake in your propaganda, because you lack
| the necessary talent to actually render them with AI.
|
| Can you elaborate what you mean by this? I don't understand how
| you're concluding that this _only makes sense_ if it 's to
| cover up propaganda. Using actors as surrogates to protect
| people is a common practice, and this is a logical step forward
| (albeit one I disagree with).
| JNRowe wrote:
| The documentary is available on iPlayer1; You may need to be in
| the UK or have an IP that at least looks that way to see it :/
|
| It immediately made me think of Channel 4's alternative Christmas
| message from 20202. While the technique is obviously different
| between the two, the step change in quality feels immense _to
| me_. Channel 4 's was a few minute long heavily staged piece that
| didn't hold up to close scrutiny in my eyes, and the BBC's far
| more convincing example is applied to -- I'll trust -- somewhat
| organic recordings of multiple people.
|
| _Edit to add_ : I attempt to draw the connection here because
| we're talking about relatively cheap broadcast television and not
| $500,000,000 movies.
|
| 1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001f7t5/hong-kongs-fi...
|
| 2 https://www.channel4.com/press/news/deepfake-queen-deliver-c...
| NickRandom wrote:
| Can anyone provide an alternative source please? I've done a
| quick search and can't find any other sources reporting on this
| apart from 2x New Scientist links which are both pay-walled (as
| is the single Internet Archive submission) so my b.s detector is
| in the red on this one.
|
| If in fact the BBC did do this (and that's a BIG if) that would
| be a huge story and a major breach of the BBC's editorial
| policies.
| netsharc wrote:
| News reports already have voice alterations, silhouetting and
| "Name has been altered", if they used face-swapping but put a
| big fat disclaimer on the screen, would that be a problem?
| benj111 wrote:
| I watched the documentary.
|
| It was very upfront about it.
|
| And it's weird because you really couldn't tell (except one of
| the guys looked blind, pretty sure I'm not just being racist as
| he didn't look like that at other times)
| vanilla-almond wrote:
| _...so my b.s detector is in the red on this one_
|
| Why? A 2020 documentary called _Welcome to Chechnya_ looked at
| repression of LGBT Chechens and was the first documentary to
| use " _advanced facial replacement techniques using artificial
| intelligence and novel visual effects technology so the viewer
| could see real faces displaying real emotions while still
| protecting the identities of the speakers_ " [1]
|
| The documentary was released by HBO Films. The BBC also
| broadcast the documentary.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Chechnya
| an1sotropy wrote:
| Thank you for pointing out this precedent in this use of
| face-swapping - it's a great idea, and (together with the OP
| link about Hong Kong protestors) changes my understanding of
| the threat/value of face-swapping technology.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| It seems consistent with their policies regarding anonymity and
| safety.
| johneth wrote:
| They often hide interviewees faces; this is just a different
| method. As long as they disclosed this fact, I don't see what
| the problem is.
| benj111 wrote:
| Personally I'd prefer other ways of hiding identities, then
| you'd know. You couldn't tell that they'd done it, and I'd
| infer that as some people were politicians their faces
| weren't changed.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| 1. The New Scientist is a respectable science magazine from the
| UK, there's no reason not to believe the story.
|
| 2. I think you have misunderstood what they did. People often
| request that their identities are hidden when they are
| interviewed by news organizations. This is usually done by
| filming them in silhouette, and sometimes altering their
| voices. This is no different, except that the AI "mask" gives
| the viewer a different face to look at. It's not controversial
| or a breach of any policies.
| Aachen wrote:
| Wow, that's cool! For years I've been wondering about all the
| places my face must have ended up with all the crowdshots people
| like to take at busy train stations and such; now, I see a way
| for this issue to become unnecessary as there could be cameras
| that just replace unnecessary faces. Paving the road to the
| future!
| coding123 wrote:
| What happens if the fake looks like a real person.
| kristofferc wrote:
| Same as what would happen if a real person looked like another
| real person, I presume.
| Aachen wrote:
| Until one is made aware that the faces are all fictional,
| then it becomes very hard to justify any investigation into
| any particular face.
|
| How likely is a match anyway? My impression is that even with
| large databases, faces are different enough to not be
| overwhelmed by hits. But then it's not as if I've used these
| systems so I don't know.
|
| One step they could take is make one or more properties
| subtly different so that it definitely matches virtually
| nobody (plus then all the other features one can randomize).
| markdown wrote:
| Paywalled.
| UltraViolence wrote:
| Why are we still wasting time on this? Hong Kong has been lost.
| China won. Democracy in HK is dead.
|
| The actions of these freedom protesters are moot and useless.
| There's no sense reporting on their endeavors as the outcome is
| clear cut. Most of them will eventually end up in jail, dead or
| will have fled to the West.
| another_story wrote:
| You're saying we shouldn't bother looking at history because
| one side wasn't successful? I don't get this argument.
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