Deepfakes. Can you tell the difference?

[Michelle]

Its getting worse, not better. I definitely recommend clicking the links and reading the whole articles.

"Creepy AI generates endless faces"
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/creepy-ai- ... fake-faces

Also related:

"A group of scientists backed by Elon Musk have designed a predictive text machine that is so eerily good its creators are worried about releasing it to the world.

Designed by OpenAI, a non-profit artificial intelligence research organization backed by the eccentric billionaire, the machine can take a piece of writing and spit out many more paragraphs in the same vein."

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/elon-musk- ... -the-world

I can only think of the prophets warning last April that it will not be possible to survive spiritually in the days ahead without the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. Also, the fake web page with the fake announcement from the Prophet that fooled a lot of people last May.

[setyourselffree]

It doesn't look like we have addressed this topic yet, except that I warned some time in the future AI would be able make a video/avatar of "grandma" speaking with you so you won't have to feel bad about euthanizing her as she gets old.

Deepfakes: videos that use AI to create a realistic representation of real people saying and doing things, they have -not- done. Right now it is mostly face swapping.

Here is a DeseretNews article discussing detecting deepfakes.

Such fraudulent videos are often made by feeding a large number of images to a computer that uses machine learning to recreate a person’s face and natural expressions. Then, the fabricated face is superimposed onto a video of someone else.

Most recently, in August, researchers at UC Berkeley published a new method that goes beyond cutting and pasting a person's face onto a new body and allows for full-body manipulation. A demo video shows how the team was able to project a professional dancer's moves onto another person.

Deepfake technology — orginially developed for communication, educational and entertainment applications — has since been exploited to put celebrities in pornographic scenes and experts worry the convincing videos could create broader damage by undermining political campaigns, scamming people and inciting violence.

Manipulated videos could be used to threaten someone with false evidence of an affair or sabotage a competitor’s career with fabricated evidence of a racist comment, according to Odavya. A deep-fake video of a politician declaring war might actually start one.

Even if a video can be disproven, it might not matter.

“Very often even when stuff can be decisively refuted, the refutation doesn’t travel as quickly as the initial scandalous claim,” said Sanchez. “In a political campaign context, if something scandalous drops in late October, it might not matter that experts can show it’s a fake two weeks later.”

Earlier this year, Google unveiled a new product called Duplex which has the ability to call and make an appointment for you. It says “um” and “mmhmm” and phrases like “gotcha, thanks.” It hesitates and pauses like a human would, and as a result, when Google tested it, people on the other end of the line couldn’t tell they were talking to a robot.

BYU students are working on receiving a grant for making AI/Alexa speak as a human so that a person cannot tell the difference. They call her "Eve"

https://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/ ... b0ec4.html

The BYU team is one of eight teams chosen worldwide to compete in the second annual Alexa Prize Challenge by Amazon. The team received a $250,000 grant to work on Eve, short for Emotive Adversarial Ensembles, and work on cracking conversational artificial intelligence.

The team will work on the project into the summer for the chance to win $1 million for the university and $500,000 to split among the team.

The ultimate goal, set by Amazon, is to have Eve be so engaging, a human will continue a conversation with her for 20 minutes.

https://news.byu.edu/news/alexa-can-we- ... nversation

I cannot believe a bunch of BYU students would desecrate Eve's name like that to bring forth something that has evil purposes.

[Fiannan]

I cannot believe a bunch of BYU students would desecrate Eve's name like that to bring forth something that has evil purposes.

Are you aware that almost all deep thinkers of the past few centuries have also tried to use their mathematical and scientific skills to connect to higher powers? Some are for good, others evil. We can hope the spirits inspiring the people who will bring forth AI, nano and robotics are on the good-guy team.

[harakim]

Is it better if BYU does it or some evil group? At least the knowledge would presumably be with the good guys.

[Michelle]

I cannot believe a bunch of BYU students would desecrate Eve's name like that to bring forth something that has evil purposes.

Are you aware that almost all deep thinkers of the past few centuries have also tried to use their mathematical and scientific skills to connect to higher powers? Some are for good, others evil. We can hope the spirits inspiring the people who will bring forth AI, nano and robotics are on the good-guy team.

Whenever I look at this modern tech stuff I am reminded of the scriptures about "trusting in the armo f flesh." To me this denotes an ignoring of an alternate, and better, power: the power of God.

Christ didn't do surgery to heal the blind, though he did have a sick man wash to cure his leprosy.

He didn't use a chemical concoction to turn water to wine.

There seem to be two powers at play that God uses: The first is priesthood power. It is faith. The ability to command and have intelligence in whatever its form obey. The second seems to be biological, for lack of a better way to describe it.

Most technology is man's limited attempt to duplicate God's power. Interestingly, God's power can only be handled by righteousness. Technology not only doesn't require righteousness, but can be used specifically for evil, without any apparent loss of power.

This contributes to my understanding the modern technology, while obviously understood by God, is not necessarily "inspired" by God as many like to claim. It seems to be more of a counterfeit to true power. A "worshiping of the workmanship of a man's own hands" instead of the power of God.

Couple that with the fact that so much of modern technology seems to have inherently contradictory goals/side effects to God's plan for His children, that at best, I can see it as God meeting us where we are at, in our weakness. "The Condescension of God."

I see over and over, even on this board, that the underlying assumption to how the world works is that God set Adam and Even at the lowest level of life, and that we have somehow taken 6,000 years to begin receiving the "better" life that God always wanted for his children.

I have the opposite understanding.

That short of their being able to stay in the Garden of Eden, God gave them the best life they could have in the Telestial World. They were given marriage, children, work, clothing, access to God through prayer and sacrifice and a beautiful world. These things fostered love in a healthy relationship that contained both companionship and complementary support of their unique roles. It provided joy and incentive to improve so that one could both raise their children and have hope in future generations. It provided physical health, food, shelter, and purpose in mortality. It provided hope in an eternal life, a loving God and a way to commune with God.

Compare that to our modern world. Marriage and the traditional family is all but destroyed as a natural side effect of modern educational and vocational practices. The work and food of the more technologically advanced societies does leaves many physically unwell: sedentary, overweight, overfed and undernourished at the same time. Our crowded cities with their high density housing are really just prettier prison cells. (It keeps the inmates from thinking they have any reason to try and get out.) It leaves people spiritually and emotionally unwell. Modern people have little incentive to pray to God and ask Him for help. They have been taught it is all a matter of hard work and luck . . . and both of those belong to the other guy.

I think God gave his children the best right out of the gate. It is just that we have spent the last 6,000 years degrading ourselves trying to break back into the Garden of Eden, but without having to submit ourselves to right and wrong and righteousness.

What is the major selling point of most modern tech? Less work, more fun. Machines that bring you food without tilling and clothes without sewing and sex without love.

No thank you.

God didn't make a mistake when he sent Adam to till the Earth. The Earth was cursed -for- Adam's sake and Even was given the opportunity to bear children and fulfill her mission once they left the Garden. A blessing, not a curse.

[Fiannan]

Is it better if BYU does it or some evil group? At least the knowledge would presumably be with the good guys.

Not sure. Sometimes the people with best intentions are the ones who create the most evil in the world.