BBC documentary used face-swapping AI to hide protesters' identities

The documentary is available on iPlayer¹; You may need to be in the UK or have an IP that at least looks that way to see it :&#x2F;<p>It immediately made me think of Channel 4&#x27;s alternative Christmas message from 2020². While the technique is obviously different between the two, the step change in quality feels immense <i>to me</i>. Channel 4&#x27;s was a few minute long heavily staged piece that didn&#x27;t hold up to close scrutiny in my eyes, and the BBC&#x27;s far more convincing example is applied to — I&#x27;ll trust — somewhat organic recordings of multiple people.<p><i>Edit to add</i>: I attempt to draw the connection here because we&#x27;re talking about relatively cheap broadcast television and not $500,000,000 movies.<p>¹ <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;iplayer&#x2F;episode&#x2F;m001f7t5&#x2F;hong-kongs-fight-for-freedom-series-1-episode-1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;iplayer&#x2F;episode&#x2F;m001f7t5&#x2F;hong-kongs-fi...</a><p>² <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.channel4.com&#x2F;press&#x2F;news&#x2F;deepfake-queen-deliver-channel-4s-alternative-christmas-message" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.channel4.com&#x2F;press&#x2F;news&#x2F;deepfake-queen-deliver-c...</a>

Another interesting example of face swapping is DeepPrivacy. [1]<p>Example of it used by Benn Jordan (aka, The Flashbulb) [2]<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;hukkelas&#x2F;DeepPrivacy" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;hukkelas&#x2F;DeepPrivacy</a><p>2. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;ibZNByVdH0E?t=551" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;ibZNByVdH0E?t=551</a>

It says in the article that the faces are swapped with those of actors. Are those something like film actors? Because that would actually be amazing, completely dodging the drawback several commenters here have mentioned that faces of innocent people could be used.<p>Actors faces are already public. Then again,I would probably be pissed when my face would be used as a mask to say something I might not agree with. Interesting question if that is ethical or not.

This seems to have a glaring flaw in that a fake AI generated person could have a real-world doppelganger, which a tyrannical government could mistakenly arrest, or worse.

Wow, that&#x27;s cool! For years I&#x27;ve been wondering about all the places my face must have ended up with all the crowdshots people like to take at busy train stations and such; now, I see a way for this issue to become unnecessary as there could be cameras that just replace unnecessary faces. Paving the road to the future!

Why even bother with this? I understand to preserve facial expressions, but why not fully use actors or sacrifice “the art” of it all and hide the faces completely. This opens up the possibility of reversing the inference of the face-swapping AI and generating the original face.

Does it really protect identity? Aren&#x27;t swapped faces mapped to the same landmarks that would be used for facial recognition and could just as easily be extracted?

Reminds me of the scramble suit in A Scanner Darkly.

&quot;an artificial intelligence was used&quot; this is weird phrasing? Why &quot;an&quot; is that normal?

This makes absolutely no sense.<p>If you wanted anonymity and were willing to go to these lengths, then the face could be fully fictitious and AI generated. Thereby placing no one in fear of government retribution.<p>This only makes sense if you filmed actors and wanted to cover that glaring mistake in your propaganda, because you lack the necessary talent to actually render them with AI.<p>I don&#x27;t buy it. Not a fan of authoritarian regimes, but this stinks.

What happens if the fake looks like a real person.

what an interesting use of this technology.

Paywalled.

Can anyone provide an alternative source please? I&#x27;ve done a quick search and can&#x27;t find any other sources reporting on this apart from 2x New Scientist links which are both pay-walled (as is the single Internet Archive submission) so my b.s detector is in the red on this one.<p>If in fact the BBC did do this (and that&#x27;s a BIG if) that would be a huge story and a major breach of the BBC&#x27;s editorial policies.

Why are we still wasting time on this? Hong Kong has been lost. China won. Democracy in HK is dead.<p>The actions of these freedom protesters are moot and useless. There&#x27;s no sense reporting on their endeavors as the outcome is clear cut. Most of them will eventually end up in jail, dead or will have fled to the West.

Why West can promote separatists, terrorists and internal divisions with zero consequences? If Texas had a separatist movement that wanted to start a civil war to secede from the United States do you think it wouldn&#x27;t be crushed?<p>The United Kingdom is the worst offender in this, they violently repressed any revolutionary attempt in their colonies.<p>Honk Kong is a chinese teritory, end of story. Like Texas, or the city of London. If those regions started violent protest to independize, they would be repressed. End of story. Shame on the West for such blatant imperialist attempt at meddling with chinese internal affairs.