Current Events CE#2

The article "Beyond Deep Fakes" by Byron Spice from https://www.cs.cmu.edu/news/beyond-deep-fakes was published in September 10, 2018.  The article shows the reader about video transformation technology and how it can create deep fakes. An example of this is in the article "Beyond Deep Fakes" which states, "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have devised a way to automatically transform the content of one video into the style of another, making it possible to transfer the facial expressions of comedian John Oliver to those of a cartoon character, or to make a daffodil bloom in much the same way a hibiscus would." This means that you could actually make realistic characters with another character to make it look like the character is talking of what the other character said. This technology can be useful because it could make video production more efficient because the technology can copy the facial features of one person and fill the face with another person instead of hiring an actor to do it with dress-up cost and salaries. It is prevalent in the article "Beyond Deep Fakes" which states, "Film production was his primary motivation in helping devise the method, he explained, enabling movies to be produced more quickly and cheaply. 'It's a tool for the artist that gives them an initial model that they can then improve,' he added." This is useful because it can cut down on production costs. Although, it can give rise to deep fakes which can be detrimental. The article "Beyond Deep Fakes" says, "The technology also has the potential to be used for so-called "deep fakes," videos in which a person's image is inserted without permission, making it appear that the person has done or said things that are out of character, Bansal acknowledged." This technology can create a world where you can't distinguish real and fake media which is troubling indeed.

I think that the technology is a bad thing. I think this way because deep fakes can propose potentially damaging consequences to people and intellectual property in way we may or may not have imagined. The idea of deep fakes can spread lies to the world around us and propaganda would be amplified as well. People's reputation could be hurt because of this technology saying offensively probable stuff that they actually didn't say. It could also cause chaos into the world if the technology was public which a lot of trolls will use it to effectively troll the masses!

By Medium