OpenExpo 2021 told us about how to discover DeepFakes, something that is not easy, and other topics of interest

OpenExpo see you in 2022

Just like we advance at the beginning of June, this month the Open Expo 2021, a technological event that this year was going to make use of technology a little more, because it was going to be all virtual. It was already known that for every technology lover it would be interesting, but those of us who were able to witness it had not thought that they would deal with topics that, although it is true that they are already among us, not all of us use or take them into account.

The most interesting thing that was discussed at this year's OpenExpo was the conference given by Chema Alonso, famous, in part, for dealing with cybersecurity or security issues in all types of equipment. And it is that those videos called DeepFakes that we are all seeing in networks how something funny can actually be dangerous. And no, we are not talking about the fact that when I upload a video of a scene from a movie and put my face on an actor, I am being a criminal or I do something that is wrong, but the technology behind it, the most advanced, can be a problem both for security (impersonation) and for the dissemination of false information (Fake News).

OpenExpo reveals that there are already about 50.000 DeepFakes circulating

Luckily, two things are happening: the first is that many of those DeepFakes, up to 96% are made to upload a pornographic video in which we see a famous actor or actress in action. The most prestigious websites eliminate them as soon as they detect them, but it is difficult when they upload about 1000 videos a month. And this detection is the other good thing that is happening or will happen: there are already ways to detect DeepFakes with forensic analysis of the images and extraction of biological data from them, that and that people are being recruited to carry out the investigations .

Although the issue of safety is important, it is also important that we do not "buy" or "buy" any news we see. For this reason, Chema Alonso and his team Ideas Locas have developed a plugin for chrome (and compatible, for those of us who don't like Google so much) that performs four scientific investigations to detect DeepFakes:

  • FaceForensics ++: what this analysis does is basically what we see in the movies, but instead of comparing faces or footprints, it compares DeepFakes based on a model trained on its own database.
  • Exposing DeepFake Videos by Detecting Face Warping Artifacts: This will take advantage of a weak point of the current DeepFakes, such as the low resolution of the images, to find the necessary clues.
  • Exposing Deep Fakes Using Inconsistent Head Poses: I am not an AI or anything like that, but sometimes I have made faces on top of faces. It's difficult, and the same mistakes humans make are made by machines. Human errors are detected by humans, and those made by machines are detected by machines. Basically, what the "good machine" sees is that the face is not perfect in his new body, especially in the movement in three dimensions.
  • CNN-generated images are surprisingly easy to spot… for now- Images created by 11 different CNN-based generator models have very special characteristics, so a classifier can generalize well to other architectures. The current images generated by CNN have systematic flaws, so they are not realistic.

"For now" implies that there will be problems in the future

In the last point of what the plugin does (or will do) it also explains what Chema explained later: DeepFakes are already among us and we must be prepared for what may happen. And what will happen for sure is that fake content creation systems will improve, and a lot if we take into account that artificial intelligence and deep learning will be used, so you have to roll up your sleeves and work to be up to the task. An X video can only be a nuisance for a famous person, and what we do with mobile phones is totally harmless, but putting our face on someone who commits a crime, for example, that is totally different.

As to plugin mentioned by Alonso, we will still have to wait to be able to use it, but I think it will be a "must have" for those who want to be informed and without believing everything.

And although this was the most interesting of the event, it is because it is relatively new technology, which is part of our lives and we are working to improve it, both on the side of the creators and those who want to uncover the counterfeit. But the OpenExpo 2021 also talked about the Govtech, that is, the technology used by governments, technology related to education or EdTech, always important and more in times when leaving home is not a good idea, sustainability, the environment, the music business and digitization and accessibility. OpenExpo is an event quite complete, and if you missed the one this month, next year they will come back with more, we hope already live.


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