5 ms·

BBC documentary used face-swapping AI to hide protesters' identities

155 points by lnguyen 4y ago

coding123 4y ago
What happens if the fake looks like a real person.
- kristofferc 4y ago
  Same as what would happen if a real person looked like another real person, I presume.
  - Aachen 4y ago
    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).
- hosh 4y ago
  Our civilization already has trouble agreeing on facts. And this is another step to further blur that. The article has positive things to say about protecting protestors, but I see a tool used to blatantly manufacture facts. Might as well make it obviously fake, or be honest about how this is art. Otherwise, it’s propoganda, whether as a tool for establishment or as a tool for activists.
NickRandom 4y ago
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.
- dpkirchner 4y ago
  It seems consistent with their policies regarding anonymity and safety.
- johneth 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
  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.
- vanilla-almond 4y ago
  ...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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Chechnya
  - an1sotropy 4y ago
partiallypro 4y ago
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.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  But since it's publicly known that the faces are fake, the government isn't going to try to use them to identify anyone.
- richbell 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 4y ago
markdown 4y ago
Paywalled.
upsidesinclude 4y ago
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 4y ago
  > 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).
  - upsidesinclude 4y ago
    Read my comment again. This press release only makes any sense if they intend to preemptively combat investigations which show that these are actors and not the people that they claim.
    - richbell 4y ago
      I read your comment several times before replying; it still doesn't make sense. > This press release only makes any sense if they intend to preemptively combat investigations which show that these are actors and not the people that they claim. That assumes that there was a pretense that the people and identies are real. Documentaries and exposés commonly use methods to protect their subject's identities, including using actors and distorting the face/voice.
JNRowe 4y ago
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-fight-for-freedom-series-1-episode-1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001f7t5/hong-kongs-fi... ² https://www.channel4.com/press/news/deepfake-queen-deliver-channel-4s-alternative-christmas-message https://www.channel4.com/press/news/deepfake-queen-deliver-c...
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > 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 :/ I watched and recall these events very well as I saw them unfold in real time; to be honest the AI filter is rather notable and is really no better than the home-brew deepfake stuff you've seen, to be honest. What that means is that the masses have access to tools that are sophisticated as the MSM platforms, which is in itself remarkable how quickly the barrier of entry has been made for building with these tools. It's a good watch and should be on people's watchlist amongst other doumcaraies like 'Revolution of Our Times' [0] and 'Faceless' [1] which both use the low-tech masks that achieve the same end. Some have said it's a gimmick, which I partly agree, but what it does is serve to re-enforce the fact that these surveillance tools can and should be thwarted using some basic understanding of OPSEC and pre-caution: they didn't mention that the HK Police and CCP gathered a ton of data from the use of data tracking from publicly accessed information when protestors were taking the underground to get to and from protests and were tracked down for violating NSL later on in 2020-22 when the arrests came down and everone from activists to politicians and even media tycoon like Jimmy Lai were taken down with fake charges. It's sad state of affairs, but it's a reminder of how quickly an affluent, well educated Society can come under the yoke of tyranny and lose decades of progress due the expansion of authoritarianism and should serve as a reminder of why 'this matters' despite it being an unpleasant aspect of 'civic duty.' 0: https://www.hkdc.us/revolution-of-our-times https://www.hkdc.us/revolution-of-our-times 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5YKKPizQi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5YKKPizQi8
cjbayliss 4y ago
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 https://github.com/hukkelas/DeepPrivacy 2. https://youtu.be/ibZNByVdH0E?t=551 https://youtu.be/ibZNByVdH0E?t=551
msie 4y ago
Reminds me of the scramble suit in A Scanner Darkly.
yucky 4y ago
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  Hey fascist, get fucked
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- SilverBirch 4y ago
  Tthis works the same way any journalism works which is that you negotiate with you sources how they want to be identified and what precautions you'll take to protect their identity. The BBC doesn't interview a bunch of people and then go "I think you can go get abducted by the Chinese state, but you we'll protect", they negotiate up front what they'll record, and the conditions under which it's released.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
    There is no point in giving good faith explanations in reply to rhetoric that wasn't good faith and seeking understanding in the first place, just pushing a particular narrative. I refer you to the sibling comment, which fully understands this.
  - yucky 4y ago
    Sounds good in theory, and with individual interviews that is easy enough. But coverage of protests will likely include masses of people, in public and therefore with no expectation of privacy. So how is the decision made on which masses of protestors in public get their ID obfuscated, and which don't?
my_city 4y ago
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.
- richbell 4y ago
  > Shame on the West for such blatant imperialist attempt at meddling with chinese internal affairs. Shame on you for creating a throwaway account defending China's brutal authoritarian regime with whataboutisms.
- kybernetyk 4y ago
  Two wrongs don't make one right. While your first two paragraphs are correct your conclusion is totally bonkers.
  - my_city 4y ago
    There is only one wrong, which is the story of western nations (the british mainly, but all of Europe to a lesser extent) and non western (Japan) colonizing, invading, and exploiting China as a colony. Honk Kong was taken from China and only restituted in 1997. That the BBC, the main promoter of british colonialism talks about the honk kong protests as if they were some "heroic" people, is just imperialism in the 21th Century. Plain and simple. Is disgusting. The british invaded and subjugated the chinese for centuries, took their land from them, and now they have the nerve to try and stir internal rebellions? Are you so deep into imperialist ideology that you cannot see what this is? China has absolute right to govern over their lawful territories, which include Honk Kong and Macao. Western powers cannot continue exercising imperialism in the 21th century. This is absolutely disgusting. If China was trying to incite rebellions in british territories, promoting the views and opinions of independentist terrorists, what would be your opinion? What would be the opinion of "the media"? Is simply disgusting, plain and simple imperialism.
Aachen 4y ago
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!
UltraViolence 4y ago
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 4y ago
  You're saying we shouldn't bother looking at history because one side wasn't successful? I don't get this argument.
hjanssen 4y ago
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.
- movedx 4y ago
  > Interesting question if that is ethical or not. It's likely not ethical, and I'm confident it's probably illegal. For example, can you setup a billboard at the side of a highway with Tom Hank's face on it and a quote that speaks to anti-trans rights, has a homophobic remark, or perhaps an anti-CCP statement? Probably not. I'd say this is no different.
  - brookst 4y ago
    I didn’t see anything indicating whether or not the actors had licensed their likeness for this use. Wouldn’t that matter?
    - movedx 4y ago
      It probably would, yeah. And I would imagine the BBC would have such (concrete) agreements in place, for sure.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    It depends on the country. IANAL, but in the US you'd need (a) rights to the image being used (e.g. shot yourself, in public) & (b) a damn good argument that your juxtaposition of their likeness and your words doesn't cause them monetary damages (e.g. in the form of lost revenue from reputation).
    - Eleison23 4y ago
      >IANAL, but in the US you'd need (a) rights to the image being used (e.g. shot yourself, in public) & (b) a damn good argument that your juxtaposition of their likeness and your words doesn't cause them monetary damages (e.g. in the form of lost revenue from reputation). Well... "need" is, as I often say, quite a strong word. Might makes right, and money talks, so if you don't want to bother getting the rights, or the person who you want to exploit can't fight back, why not?
astrea 4y ago
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.
- janalsncm 4y ago
  I’m not sure how you’d reverse the face swapping process since it’s not a one-to-one function. It’s a many-to-many function. If they mapped everyone’s face to e.g. a player on the Miami Heat there’d be no way to reverse it.
phillipseamore 4y ago
Does it really protect identity? Aren't swapped faces mapped to the same landmarks that would be used for facial recognition and could just as easily be extracted?
freddealmeida 4y ago
what an interesting use of this technology.
bennysonething 4y ago
"an artificial intelligence was used" this is weird phrasing? Why "an" is that normal?
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > "an artificial intelligence was used" this is weird phrasing? Why "an" is that normal? Yes, it's typical syntax in the English language to separate vowels in that manner. English has lots of very little foibles like this (Y is sometimes a vowel) that you would be privy to unless you're a native speaker, so I can understand why you'd be confused, take a look here [0] for more info. 0: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/12798/why-isnt-n-considered-a-partial-vowel https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/12798/why-is...
  - d1sxeyes 4y ago
    I think OP was not asking why we have the 'n' inserted, but why we are using an article at all, instead of 'an artificial intelligence' why not just 'artificial intelligence was used', after all, 'intelligence' is not normally a count noun. Looking at OP's post history, I doubt they're confused about using 'an' vs 'a'. In short, I think the use of 'an' here means it's a single specifically trained AI. It would not be wrong to say 'artificial intelligence was used' though, it just doesn't highlight the dedicated nature of the AI used. Similar difference to 'Someone swapped the faces' and 'An expert swapped the faces'.
    - bennysonething 4y ago
      Sorry, I should have been a bit clearer what I was questioning.

155 points by lnguyen 4y ago

coding123 4y ago

What happens if the fake looks like a real person.

kristofferc 4y ago
Same as what would happen if a real person looked like another real person, I presume.
- Aachen 4y ago
  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).
hosh 4y ago
Our civilization already has trouble agreeing on facts. And this is another step to further blur that. The article has positive things to say about protecting protestors, but I see a tool used to blatantly manufacture facts. Might as well make it obviously fake, or be honest about how this is art. Otherwise, it’s propoganda, whether as a tool for establishment or as a tool for activists.

NickRandom 4y ago

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.

dpkirchner 4y ago
It seems consistent with their policies regarding anonymity and safety.
johneth 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago
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.
vanilla-almond 4y ago
...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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Chechnya
- an1sotropy 4y ago

partiallypro 4y ago

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.

josephcsible 4y ago
But since it's publicly known that the faces are fake, the government isn't going to try to use them to identify anyone.
richbell 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 4y ago

markdown 4y ago

Paywalled.

upsidesinclude 4y ago

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 4y ago
> 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).
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  Read my comment again. This press release only makes any sense if they intend to preemptively combat investigations which show that these are actors and not the people that they claim.
  - richbell 4y ago
    I read your comment several times before replying; it still doesn't make sense. > This press release only makes any sense if they intend to preemptively combat investigations which show that these are actors and not the people that they claim. That assumes that there was a pretense that the people and identies are real. Documentaries and exposés commonly use methods to protect their subject's identities, including using actors and distorting the face/voice.

JNRowe 4y ago

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-fight-for-freedom-series-1-episode-1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001f7t5/hong-kongs-fi... ² https://www.channel4.com/press/news/deepfake-queen-deliver-channel-4s-alternative-christmas-message https://www.channel4.com/press/news/deepfake-queen-deliver-c...

Melting_Harps 4y ago
> 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 :/ I watched and recall these events very well as I saw them unfold in real time; to be honest the AI filter is rather notable and is really no better than the home-brew deepfake stuff you've seen, to be honest. What that means is that the masses have access to tools that are sophisticated as the MSM platforms, which is in itself remarkable how quickly the barrier of entry has been made for building with these tools. It's a good watch and should be on people's watchlist amongst other doumcaraies like 'Revolution of Our Times' [0] and 'Faceless' [1] which both use the low-tech masks that achieve the same end. Some have said it's a gimmick, which I partly agree, but what it does is serve to re-enforce the fact that these surveillance tools can and should be thwarted using some basic understanding of OPSEC and pre-caution: they didn't mention that the HK Police and CCP gathered a ton of data from the use of data tracking from publicly accessed information when protestors were taking the underground to get to and from protests and were tracked down for violating NSL later on in 2020-22 when the arrests came down and everone from activists to politicians and even media tycoon like Jimmy Lai were taken down with fake charges. It's sad state of affairs, but it's a reminder of how quickly an affluent, well educated Society can come under the yoke of tyranny and lose decades of progress due the expansion of authoritarianism and should serve as a reminder of why 'this matters' despite it being an unpleasant aspect of 'civic duty.' 0: https://www.hkdc.us/revolution-of-our-times https://www.hkdc.us/revolution-of-our-times 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5YKKPizQi8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5YKKPizQi8

cjbayliss 4y ago

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 https://github.com/hukkelas/DeepPrivacy 2. https://youtu.be/ibZNByVdH0E?t=551 https://youtu.be/ibZNByVdH0E?t=551

msie 4y ago

Reminds me of the scramble suit in A Scanner Darkly.

yucky 4y ago

wahnfrieden 4y ago
Hey fascist, get fucked
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
SilverBirch 4y ago
Tthis works the same way any journalism works which is that you negotiate with you sources how they want to be identified and what precautions you'll take to protect their identity. The BBC doesn't interview a bunch of people and then go "I think you can go get abducted by the Chinese state, but you we'll protect", they negotiate up front what they'll record, and the conditions under which it's released.
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
  There is no point in giving good faith explanations in reply to rhetoric that wasn't good faith and seeking understanding in the first place, just pushing a particular narrative. I refer you to the sibling comment, which fully understands this.
- yucky 4y ago
  Sounds good in theory, and with individual interviews that is easy enough. But coverage of protests will likely include masses of people, in public and therefore with no expectation of privacy. So how is the decision made on which masses of protestors in public get their ID obfuscated, and which don't?

my_city 4y ago

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.

richbell 4y ago
> Shame on the West for such blatant imperialist attempt at meddling with chinese internal affairs. Shame on you for creating a throwaway account defending China's brutal authoritarian regime with whataboutisms.
kybernetyk 4y ago
Two wrongs don't make one right. While your first two paragraphs are correct your conclusion is totally bonkers.
- my_city 4y ago
  There is only one wrong, which is the story of western nations (the british mainly, but all of Europe to a lesser extent) and non western (Japan) colonizing, invading, and exploiting China as a colony. Honk Kong was taken from China and only restituted in 1997. That the BBC, the main promoter of british colonialism talks about the honk kong protests as if they were some "heroic" people, is just imperialism in the 21th Century. Plain and simple. Is disgusting. The british invaded and subjugated the chinese for centuries, took their land from them, and now they have the nerve to try and stir internal rebellions? Are you so deep into imperialist ideology that you cannot see what this is? China has absolute right to govern over their lawful territories, which include Honk Kong and Macao. Western powers cannot continue exercising imperialism in the 21th century. This is absolutely disgusting. If China was trying to incite rebellions in british territories, promoting the views and opinions of independentist terrorists, what would be your opinion? What would be the opinion of "the media"? Is simply disgusting, plain and simple imperialism.

Aachen 4y ago

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!

UltraViolence 4y ago

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 4y ago
You're saying we shouldn't bother looking at history because one side wasn't successful? I don't get this argument.

hjanssen 4y ago

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.

movedx 4y ago
> Interesting question if that is ethical or not. It's likely not ethical, and I'm confident it's probably illegal. For example, can you setup a billboard at the side of a highway with Tom Hank's face on it and a quote that speaks to anti-trans rights, has a homophobic remark, or perhaps an anti-CCP statement? Probably not. I'd say this is no different.
- brookst 4y ago
  I didn’t see anything indicating whether or not the actors had licensed their likeness for this use. Wouldn’t that matter?
  - movedx 4y ago
    It probably would, yeah. And I would imagine the BBC would have such (concrete) agreements in place, for sure.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  It depends on the country. IANAL, but in the US you'd need (a) rights to the image being used (e.g. shot yourself, in public) & (b) a damn good argument that your juxtaposition of their likeness and your words doesn't cause them monetary damages (e.g. in the form of lost revenue from reputation).
  - Eleison23 4y ago
    >IANAL, but in the US you'd need (a) rights to the image being used (e.g. shot yourself, in public) & (b) a damn good argument that your juxtaposition of their likeness and your words doesn't cause them monetary damages (e.g. in the form of lost revenue from reputation). Well... "need" is, as I often say, quite a strong word. Might makes right, and money talks, so if you don't want to bother getting the rights, or the person who you want to exploit can't fight back, why not?

astrea 4y ago

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.

janalsncm 4y ago
I’m not sure how you’d reverse the face swapping process since it’s not a one-to-one function. It’s a many-to-many function. If they mapped everyone’s face to e.g. a player on the Miami Heat there’d be no way to reverse it.

phillipseamore 4y ago

Does it really protect identity? Aren't swapped faces mapped to the same landmarks that would be used for facial recognition and could just as easily be extracted?

freddealmeida 4y ago

what an interesting use of this technology.

bennysonething 4y ago

"an artificial intelligence was used" this is weird phrasing? Why "an" is that normal?

Melting_Harps 4y ago
> "an artificial intelligence was used" this is weird phrasing? Why "an" is that normal? Yes, it's typical syntax in the English language to separate vowels in that manner. English has lots of very little foibles like this (Y is sometimes a vowel) that you would be privy to unless you're a native speaker, so I can understand why you'd be confused, take a look here [0] for more info. 0: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/12798/why-isnt-n-considered-a-partial-vowel https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/questions/12798/why-is...
- d1sxeyes 4y ago
  I think OP was not asking why we have the 'n' inserted, but why we are using an article at all, instead of 'an artificial intelligence' why not just 'artificial intelligence was used', after all, 'intelligence' is not normally a count noun. Looking at OP's post history, I doubt they're confused about using 'an' vs 'a'. In short, I think the use of 'an' here means it's a single specifically trained AI. It would not be wrong to say 'artificial intelligence was used' though, it just doesn't highlight the dedicated nature of the AI used. Similar difference to 'Someone swapped the faces' and 'An expert swapped the faces'.
  - bennysonething 4y ago
    Sorry, I should have been a bit clearer what I was questioning.