AI image generation tech can now create life-wrecking deepfakes with ease [View all]

[sl8]

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/12/thanks-to-ai-its-probably-time-to-take-your-photos-off-the-internet/

AI image generation tech can now create life-wrecking deepfakes with ease

AI tech makes it trivial to generate harmful fake photos from a few social media pictures.

BENJ EDWARDS - 12/9/2022, 2:10 PM

Advances in AI generated imagery allow anyone with a few photos of you to place you in almost any situation.

Enlarge / This is John. He doesn't exist. But AI can easily put a photo of him in any situation we want. And the same process can apply to real people with just a few real photos pulled from social media.
Benj Edwards / Ars Technica

If you're one of the billions of people who have posted pictures of themselves on social media over the past decade, it may be time to rethink that behavior. New AI image-generation technology allows anyone to save a handful of photos (or video frames) of you, then train AI to create realistic fake photos that show you doing embarrassing or illegal things. Not everyone may be at risk, but everyone should know about it.

Photographs have always been subject to falsifications—first in darkrooms with scissors and paste and then via Adobe Photoshop through pixels. But it took a great deal of skill to pull off convincingly. Today, creating convincing photorealistic fakes has become almost trivial.

John: A social media case study
When we started writing this article, we asked a brave volunteer if we could use their social media images to attempt to train an AI model to create fakes. They agreed, but the results were too convincing, and the reputational risk proved too great. So instead, we used AI to create a set of seven simulated social media photos of a fictitious person we'll call "John." That way, we can safely show you the results. For now, let's pretend John is a real guy. The outcome is exactly the same, as you'll see below.

[...]