Fake babies, real horror: Deepfakes from the Gaza war increase fears about AI's power to mislead

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 157 points –
Fake babies, real horror: Deepfakes from the Gaza war increase fears about AI's power to mislead
apnews.com

Fake babies, real horror: Deepfakes from the Gaza war increase fears about AI's power to mislead::Among images of the bombed out homes and ravaged streets of Gaza, some stood out for the utter horror: Bloodied, abandoned infants.

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this just shows that people should be skeptical to everything they read and see, even if it confirm their view/bias.

be humble enough to realize the human brian is easily fooled.

i keep the misspelling to prove the point!

the human brian is easily fooled

I can confirm that Brian is an idiot

I beg to differ. That's only true for the human Brian, my friend's dog Brian is a very sharp fella.

Really, just avoid consuming news from social media. Pay for a reliable newspaper and treat news posted to social media (eg, even lemmy) from BagPipeFucker.biz with skepticism, and validate the reputibility of the site. I've seen the likes of Fox News and the NYPost posted more often than not. Also the South China Morning Post, Falun Gong-associated papers, and news sites paid for by middle eastern royal families- not exactly the pinnacle of independent journalism.

It's not like babies aren't being killed throughout all of this, Israel has literally leveled neighborhoods where people lived, and where children and babies lived too.

This feels like some sort of ploy to say that innocent people aren't being killed, using AI as some sort of excuse. I don't doubt people are faking stuff, but I do wonder who is creating them, because anyone from any side could be creating intentionally misleading AI generated images.

My thoughts exactly. Seems like one of those tried-and-true misinformation campaigns to give us doibt about anything haza related and thus create more apathy and disinterest

Absolutely true, everything is a conspiracy theory and the most convoluted version of events you can come up with to make it fit your preconceived notions is always correct.

There will be no way to watermark all AI images, as someone could just mod stable diffusion to remove the watermark. The best we can do is to doubt any photographic evidence we see.

Intentionally they spotage and killed journalists. Defunded public media, and privatized the rest. Bought out and censored social media and now its hard to tell which image is real or not.

The only option in my opinion is for camera manufacturer to include a cryptic hash that can be pass to an algorithm to authenticate a photograph metadata.

That could very easily be abused as some sort of DRM or vendor lockin for photos. I would rather not.

Well, not necessarily. How about just embedding the following in the EXIF tag: digital signatures from the original camera; digital hashes of the original image; digital sigs for the publisher and the article where the pics will appear.

Any additional processing by a "social media content creator" - for example, adding captions to make a meme out of it - will also include the prior chain of digital sigs and hashes.

Now when it pops up on social media sites/apps, there can be little info bubbles that link to the original pic or article, or provide info on ownership of the camera along with date and timestamps of the pics.

Garbage will always exist on social media, but at least we can have these little tools to verify authentic images.

How would they be made secure against faking?

If the cryptographic key itself was extractable, it'd be easy to sign fake images with just a bit of custom software.

If it isn't, there's still workarounds. Buy a professional photography camera, disassemble it, extract the chip that does the signature, feed it fake GPS and image data, and you have a modified image signed as legit. A country's intelligence agency could easily do that.

Even if the camera was made completely unmodifiable, you could put it in a Faraday cage, feed it a spoofed GPS signal for fake date/time/location data, and take a picture of a high resolution screen showing your photoshopped image.

Building a system where end users are told "this image is cryptographically confirmed to be legit" just makes it easier to convince users that your fake images are legit.

Oh no. No social media site should ever claim that a post, story, or image is legit.

For some viral pics/posts, it should probably show a warning that the image doesn't have any signatures, no valid signatures, or a revoked signature. Otherwise, it probably just shows a verified signature chain, for example: BleedingHeartInfluencer*[edited]* → NyTimes*[edited]* → AP*[story]* → AhmedMohammed*[photographer,2023-12-03]*.

We can always assume nation states and other powerful people will know how to fake images, GPS, reality, etc. We can also always assume fakes will still be shared by many people without any proper authentication.

The main goal here would just be to reduce proliferation.

In this case you'd still need a way to know who the photographer is and whether they can be trusted. The photographer at the beginning of the chain can sign anything, regardless of if it's a real photograph or edited (or a real photograph of a staged scene with fake location/time data). The cryptography system could only tell you that the image originates with the same person or organisation who is associated with a specific cryptographic key.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Other examples of AI-generated images include videos showing supposed Israeli missile strikes, or tanks rolling through ruined neighborhoods, or families combing through rubble for survivors.

In the bloody first days of the war, supporters of both Israel and Hamas alleged the other side had victimized children and babies; deepfake images of wailing infants offered photographic ‘evidence’ that was quickly held up as proof.

The propagandists who create such images are skilled at targeting people’s deepest impulses and anxieties, said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that has tracked disinformation from the war.

Around the world a number of startup tech firms are working on new programs that can sniff out deepfakes, affix watermarks to images to prove their origin, or scan text to verify any specious claims that may have been inserted by AI.

While this technology shows promise, those using AI to lie are often a step ahead, according to David Doermann, a computer scientist who led an effort at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to respond to the national security threats posed by AI-manipulated images.

Doermann, who is now a professor at the University at Buffalo, said effectively responding to the political and social challenges posed by AI disinformation will require both better technology and better regulations, voluntary industry standards and extensive investments in digital literacy programs to help internet users figure out ways to tell truth from fantasy.


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c4yourself

Most of what you see about Gazan suffering is fake.

I've seen photos someone in Israel with connections has of Palestinians posing as dead with fake blood, with the Al Jazeera photographer standing by to take the photo or video, and afterwards the "dead" children all get up and cleaned up.

It happens A LOT. And now they have used AI to do the same.

You need to follow trusted sources like the IDF who are actually on the ground and upload a lot of real footage on YouTube, if you want the truth.

You need to follow trusted sources like the IDF

Ah yes, there's nothing quite like trusting one side exclusively. No way they would ever lie for their own benefit!

No they would not. They are a democratic state and everything they say is backed up with footage, data etc.

Unlike Al Jazeera who work with Hamas to lie to the world

I've seen photos someone in Israel with connections has of Palestinians posing as dead with fake blood, with the Al Jazeera photographer standing by to take the photo or video, and afterwards the "dead" children all get up and cleaned up

Share it then? who's stopping you?

You need to follow trusted sources like the IDF who are actually on the ground and upload a lot of real footage on YouTube, if you want the truth.

I get my info from act.il

I’ve seen photos someone in Israel with connections has of Palestinians posing as dead with fake blood, with the Al Jazeera photographer standing by to take the photo or video, and afterwards the “dead” children all get up and cleaned up.

Why should anyone believe this claim? It's very easy to talk out of one's ass.

I've seen photos someone in Israel with connections has of Palestinians posing as dead with fake blood, with the Al Jazeera photographer standing by to take the photo or video, and afterwards the "dead" children all get up and cleaned up.

Where? Where have you seen that?

Fake AI image

Palestinian poser

https://t.me/AmirTsarfatiBeholdIsrael/7628 (video of fake injured girl. Before and after)

The video of the injured girl is a behind-the-scenes clip from a movie. Way to fall for your own propaganda:

Israeli Diplomat Busted Spreading Blatant Disinfo About Palestinians https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-diplomat-ofir-gendelman-busted-spreading-disinfo-about-palestinians-amid-gaza-war

Well that's a pity to see a prominent figure post something wrong. Ok I'll give you that then, but it still doesn't mean it's not happening.

There are other pictures of "dead" children getting up after the cameras have left.

You need to follow trusted sources like the IDF

I can't even tell if you're being sarcastic or if you actually believe this.

Ofcourse you should trust the footage from the US forces fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan because they're backed by a democratic government and wouldn't carelessly cause collateral damage, shoot innocent civilians, torture detainees, and then jail the whistleblowers. /s

Of course I'm serious. They are the only recognised country on that land. Everything they do is backed up with footage and data.

Hamas and Al Jazeera on the other hand are known liars.

You know in this war there were 57 journalists killed. Coincidence?

Oh and by the way your beloved IDF has reportedly targeted those people so that less people are trying to humanize those killed by them and put faces behind those numbers.

It's a warzone silly. The chances of anyone standing there with a camera getting killed is very high. They don't have some magical shield around them.....

That's nothing to do with the IDF. You need to grow up.

Ah yes, the grown-up who is using an offensive language, very mature of you, mate!

And this doesn't change the fact that there are scores of innocent people who are dying every day. And you should question your moral compass if you truly believe that Israeli lives are more precious than Palestinian lives.

When Hamas killed 1200 people it was horrible, outrageous, etc. but when the IDF was killing 15K (12x more), it was war. Very convenient narrative, don't you think?

If you find that offensive you must have had a very sheltered childhood. Bless.

I never said Israeli lives were worth more. But those death figures are likely exaggerated. They come from Hamas after all.

Don't forget in WW2 millions of Germans were killed in bomb raids of the allies. Sadly this happens in war. I don't recall anyone shedding a tear or protesting for those German lives....

Ah yes, another narrative this had happened in the past, why won't we repeat it. You are having a really twisted moral compass, I am pretty sure if this had happened in Israel you would be more than outraged, but in Palestine it is all fine and part of the game.

While Israel is continuously and intentionally worsening the humanitarian situation. How is this justified in your books? These people are desperate with nowhere to go, no food, no electricity, no sanitation, no water, living in makeshift tents. Imagine you and your wife with your 6-months old baby need to flee and the n live in such conditions?

And don't forget that even your closest ally the US is now criticizing you. But yet, you still have the feeling that all this is justified.

The majority of the Palestinians supported and cheered for Hamas everytime they kill Jews. They even hand out sweets to everyone. Just like they did when 9/11 happened - they were cheering and thanking their allah and handing out sweets. Thousands of innocent Americans died and they were cheering.

Not it's coming back to them. Jesus said "you reap what you sow" , in other words, what you do to others will come back to you

They are just getting back what they did to others. I don't feel sorry at all

They have no right to the land, never have, they are foreigners,v but the Jews put up with them. And this is how they repay their kindness?

To hell with all of them. Let them go home to Jordan where they came from.

Oh so your point is that they should all die, especially the babies and the kids.

You say you reap what you sow, but isn't Israel continuously and intentionally trying to antagonize Palestinians with illegal settlements, unfair treatment, limit of their right of free movement, land grab, detention of people without any sentence, creating of multiple checkpoints, etc. There are so many human rights violations, reported by multiple human rights watchdogs, organizations, international entities. What about the settlers violence in the West Bank where none of the settlers were actually held responsible. Weren't there calls to drop an atomic bomb over both Gaza and West Bank by members of their current government. And what not more. So telling me that one side is at fault while admitting that the other side is also not in fault is clearly showing your bias on this topic.

And yes, I don't think that you personally would be very happy if you were treated the way Palestinians are treated.

The truth is that Israel isn't much better than Hamas in this conflict, and they are responsible for a lot more innocent people's deaths and suffering. So yes, while I condemn Hamas and think what they did on the 7.10 is horrible, the response of Israel doesn't paint them in a much better picture. They destroyed more than 50% of the civilian infrastructure in the Northern Gaza and are well underway to do the same in the south. They just make this small piece of land inhabitable and their master plan is to grab it for themselves too. Same with Jerusalem. Where they decided that this city belongs to them. How isn't this arrogant move. Shall I remind you that this city is home for 4 different ethnic groups, and calling it their own is a sign of complete ignorance of international law and a sense of impunity.

No I don't want to see them die. I'm not promoting death I'm just saying if you start a war, people will die. And if those same people were happy to see Americans and Jews die and celebrated that, you can't expect many people to suddenly feel sorry for them.

If a school bully always laughs every time he beats up someone, then if a bigger boy comes and does the same to him, no one will really feel sorry for him will they?

As for allegations of human rights infractions, these are often not accurate and exaggerated in order to illicit outrage.

The only time Israel sets foot in Palestinian areas is when a killing or terrorist attack took place and they are looking for the killer. Or if there is a protest and stones, Molotov cocktails and the like are being thrown at them. In that case anyone has a right to defend themselves by shooting back. You would do the same.

As for the land issue, the land 100% belongs to Israel. They have continually inhabited it for the last 3200 years at least! The conquering Muslims took over for a long time with successive incursions. But the Jews were always there. Not in mass number but certainly in the thousands. It's their land.

The Palestinians never existed as a people group or nation. They are Arabs, Egyptians and Lebanese (and mixes thereof) which came in the late 1800's. They just wandered into Jewish land and plonked themselves wherever they wished. Now they say it's their land. Bullshit! It's always been Jewish land but they were colonized by the Muslims. The Jews are the natives, not these wanderers.

They should return to where they came from. And from what I've seen that's exactly what Israel is planning to do: drive them south into the desert and from there to the surrounding country's. Gaza will be leveled and Jewish once again.

The Jews are fed up of putting up with these foreigners and just want them out. I imagine.

So how old are you again? After claiming that I was the one who needs to grow up. Seriously, your reasoning is similar to a 16-years old.

You say you don't want them to die and in the next sentence you are justifying Israel killing them. Shall I also mention that there are plenty of people in Israel, including your parliament who are cheering on civilans being killed in Gaza, or settlers illegally evicting or killing Palestinians from their homes/land. What about them?

Then telling me that settlers violence is all fine just because this land was historically being Jewish. So international borders don't matter to you. So what about Australia, you know Aborigines were living there, so shall we evict al Australian of not Aboriginal roots on the ground that this land wasn't belonging to them.

And comparing Palestine with school bully is exactly the opposite of the reality, where Israel is in fact the bully, who is by the way all the time getting a pass no matter what they do. But yes, keep living in your parallel reality. Look at the number of casualties on both sides historically. Even of kids and women. Look at the number of kids killed by Israeli forces or imprisoned without effective sentence.

I don't know where you get your propaganda from but I don't know anyone who is more biased than you. I am mostly reading the BBC which in my opinion are relatively impartial with a slight bias towards Israel. I can only assume that you are consuming content of Media with a huge bias.

I am just going to leave this here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67121414

It's war. It's tragic that people are dying and children orphaned. Tragic. But sadly that's what happens in war. In WW2 the UK bombed the daylights out of Dresden and it places. 2 MILLION innocent civilians were killed by this bombing alone.

Back then nobody bat and eyelid but today they'd call it massacre. Or would they? It seems only when Jews fight in a war that it's called massacre or genocide, but when others do it, it's fine.

Over the last few years Muslims have massacred close to a million other Muslims through the various wars in the middle east. Arab Vs Arab. Did you make posts on social media calling for the stopping of the massacre? No? Why not? Why only now when at most a few thousand have died, and that because Hamas was firing rockets directly out of those families homes

You have double standards.

Ah yes, repeating the same talking point to excuse your massacre with past massacres. You really are a wicked human being if you think this would justify what Israel is doing in Gaza.

The truth is that Israel long lost the credibility of this war.

Where is the source of your claim that Arabs killed 1Mln other Arabs. I am curious to see your copium. And all those humanitarian agencies and human rights organizations are all united against Israel, right? When everyone is telling you that you are wrong and you still think that you are right is perhaps a good time for self reflection.

Have you seen any pictures from Gaza? Or all of those independently verified pictures, satellite imagery are all fake and targeting Israel, correct? Israel really like portraying themselves as the sole victims, while refusing to admit that they are very much gullible.