With the release of artificial intelligence (AI) video generation products like Sora and Luma, we’re on the verge of a flood of AI-generated video content, and policymakers, public figures and software engineers are already warning about a deluge of deepfakes. Now it seems that AI itself might be our best defense against AI fakery after an algorithm has identified telltale markers of AI videos with over 98% accuracy.

The irony of AI protecting us against AI-generated content is hard to miss, but as project lead Matthew Stamm, associate professor of engineering at Drexel University, said in a statement: “It’s more than a bit unnerving that [AI-generated video] could be released before there is a good system for detecting fakes created by bad actors.”

… The breakthrough, outlined in a study published April 24 to the pre-print server arXiv, is an algorithm that represents an important new milestone in detecting fake images and video content. That’s because many of the “digital breadcrumbs” existing systems look for in regular digitally edited media aren’t present in entirely AI-generated media. — Read More

Startup Synthesia’s AI-generated avatars are getting an update to make them even more realistic: They will soon have bodies that can move, and hands that gesticulate.

The new full-body avatars will be able to do things like sing and brandish a microphone while dancing, or move from behind a desk and walk across a room. They will be able to express more complex emotions than previously possible, like excitement, fear, or nervousness, says Victor Riparbelli, the company’s CEO. Synthesia intends to launch the new avatars toward the end of the year.  — Read More

Beauty pageant contestants have always been judged by their looks, and, in recent decades, by their do-gooderly deeds and winning personalities.

Still, one thing that’s remained consistent throughout beauty pageant history is that you had to be a human to enter.

But now that’s changing.

Models created using generative artificial intelligence (AI) are competing in the inaugural “Miss AI” pageant this month. — Read More

Today, I’m talking with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan — and let me tell you: this conversation is nothing like what I expected. Eric started Zoom after working at Cisco and realizing there was an opportunity to make videoconferencing simpler and easier to use. And he was right: Zoom is now a household name — especially after usage exploded during the pandemic.

But usage has since come down, and Zoom faces a number of business challenges he and I talked about. Yet, it turns out, Eric wants Zoom to be much, much more than just a video chat platform. He wants to take on Microsoft and Google in the enterprise software market by making docs and email and other productivity tools like chat. And like virtually every other company, Zoom now has a big investment in AI — and Eric’s visions for what that AI will do are pretty wild.

See, Eric really wants you to stop having to attend Zoom meetings yourself.  — Read More

If you search “shrimp Jesus” on Facebook, you might encounter dozens of images of artificial intelligence (AI) generated crustaceans meshed in various forms with a stereotypical image of Jesus Christ.

Some of these hyper-realistic images have garnered more than 20,000 likes and comments. So what exactly is going on here?

The “dead internet theory” has an explanation: AI and bot-generated content has surpassed the human-generated internet. But where did this idea come from, and does it have any basis in reality? — Read More

There was something strange about her voice, they thought. It was familiar but, after a while, it started to go all over the place.

Science presenter Liz Bonnin’s accent, as regular BBC viewers know, is Irish. But this voice message, ostensibly granting permission to use her likeness in an ad campaign, seemed to place her on the other side of the world.

The message, it turns out, was a fake – AI-generated to mimic Bonnin’s voice. Her management team got hold of it after they saw the presenter’s face on online ads for an insect repellant spray this week, something for which she did not sign up. — Read More

I’m stressed and running late, because what do you wear for the rest of eternity? 

This makes it sound like I’m dying, but it’s the opposite. I am, in a way, about to live forever, thanks to the AI video startup Synthesia. For the past several years, the company has produced AI-generated avatars, but today it launches a new generation, its first to take advantage of the latest advancements in generative AI, and they are more realistic and expressive than anything I’ve ever seen. While today’s release means almost anyone will now be able to make a digital double, on this early April afternoon, before the technology goes public, they’ve agreed to make one of me. — Read More

Last week, Ernie Smith, the publisher of the website Tedium, got a “copyright infringement notice” from a law firm called Commonwealth Legal: “We’re reaching out on behalf of the Intellectual Property division of a notable entity, in relation to an image connected to our client,” it read. 

… In this case, though, the email didn’t demand that the photo be taken down or specifically threaten a lawsuit. Instead, it demanded that Smith place a “visible and clickable link” beneath the photo in question to a website called “tech4gods” or the law firm would “take action.” Smith began looking into the law firm. And he found that Commonwealth Legal is not real, and that the images of its “lawyers” are AI generated.  — Read More