It's Getting More Difficult To Tell Real Images From Fake Images

[HuckleB]

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/identifying-real-or-fake-images/

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The task of sniffing out fake photos, however, (at least from a technical perspective) is getting more difficult. There are two basic ways to make a fake photo. The most common is to take a real photo and manipulate it. Just replace the words on that protest sign to say whatever dumb thing you want to mock.

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The researchers are focusing on CG images of human faces. This is the most challenging to create because of the uncanny valley. The human brain has a tremendous capacity to detect subtleties of the human face, probably because of our need to be very sensitive to the facial expressions of others, and to recognize individuals under a variety of conditions. In neurological terms, there is a large part of the cortex dedicated to processing visual information about human faces.

What CG animators discovered is that when artificial human images get closer and closer to realistic people tend to like them and relate to them more. However, when they get very close but not quite realistic, that affinity sharply drops (the uncanny valley) because the images start to look creepy. That effect goes away only when the images become almost indistinguishable from real faces.

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Perhaps more important than how the subject did on this study was how they compared to the same study from 5 years ago. The researchers report that subject did much better previously, and their ability to separate real from CG images is getting worse as CG technology improves (as one might expect).

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It's going to be a crazier world as time goes on, I guess. Or, duh. But...