Technology
These people’s faces share a SCARY secret – can you spot what it is?
THESE faces hide a mind-blowing secret most people won’t even realise.
They all have one key thing in common – they’re not real.
Not real
That’s right, all these head shots were synthetically put together by scarily sophisticated AI, showing just how far the technology has come.
And you’re not alone either.
A bunch of people struggled to pick out the real ones and the fake ones for a study.
They were shown an equal split of 400 fakes and 400 genuine head shots with a mix of different genders, ages and ethnicities.
Nightingale/Farid(R) for real and (s) for synthetic, alongside the accuracy percentage[/caption]
Participants found it so hard that the average accuracy rate was only 48.2 per cent, according to research published in the PNAS journal.
And a second group who were given some training on how to spot fakes didn’t perform much better either.
Their accuracy is just 59 per cent.
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But even more worrying is that people rated the fake faces more trustworthy than real ones.
And it all lies in the smile.
“A smiling face is more likely to be rated as trustworthy, but 65.5 per cent of our real faces and 58.8 per cent of synthetic faces are smiling, so facial expression alone cannot explain why synthetic faces are rated as more trustworthy,” stumped experts said.
Nightingale/FaridSmiling fake faces were rated more trustworthy than real ones who weren’t smiling[/caption]
Results also found that white faces were the least accurately classified, and even more so for male white faces.
Scientists believe this could be because white faces are overrepresented in the system meaning the AI has more data to make them appear more realistic.
Authors Sophie Nightingale from Lancaster University and Hany Farid from the University of California, Berkley, warn that the rapidly improving technology could cause a surge in so-called “deepfakes” used for revenge porn and fraud.
“Synthetically generated faces are not just highly photorealistic, they are nearly indistinguishable from real faces and are judged more trustworthy,” they write.
“Easy access to such high-quality fake imagery has led and will continue to lead to various problems, including more convincing online fake profiles and – as synthetic audio and video generation continues to improve -problems of nonconsensual intimate imagery, fraud, and disinformation campaigns, with serious implications for individuals, societies, and democracies.”
Artificial Intelligence explained
Here’s what you need to know
Artificial intelligence, also known as AI, is a type of computer software
Typically, a computer will do what you tell it to do
But artificial intelligence simulates the human mind, and can make its own deductions, inferences or decisions
A simple computer might let you set an alarm to wake you up
But an AI system might scan your emails, work out that you’ve got a meeting tomorrow, and then set an alarm and plan a journey for you
AI tech is often “trained” – which means it observes something (potentially even a human) then learns about a task over time
For instance, an AI system can be fed thousands of photos of human faces, then generate photos of human faces all on its own
Some experts have raised concerns that humans will eventually lose control of super-intelligent AI
But the tech world is still divided over whether or not AI tech will eventually kill us all in a Terminator-style apocalypse
In other news, the naughtiest emoji combinations have been revealed.
Tinder has revived the classic ‘blind date’ experience with a virtual twist.
And TikTok has announced new rules, banning users who deadname or misgender others.
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