[vitalus]

Bystander cellphone footage is often used as evidence in courts, at least in the USA.

This comment seems to imply that all court admissible video evidence comes from trusted chains of custody and thereby trusted sources, which isn't necessarily the case.

[DINKDINK]

>This comment seems to imply that all court admissible video evidence comes from trusted chains of custody and thereby trusted sources, which isn't necessarily the case.

What's stopping a defense attorney informing a jury about DeepFakes and having that fact factor into their "beyond a reasonable doubt" criterium for criminal cases?

DeepFakes have more potential in PsyOps than legal cases.

[matt4077]

Just informing them of that possibility will render such evidence basically useless. Once video can be faked where it can no longer be detected, video just doesn't carry any more information than, say, "we got this anonymous letter saying the defendant is guilty".

So, yes, that information should be given to the jury (as soon as it becomes accurate), and it will lower the potential for false positives (convictions), but with an equal and opposite increase in false negatives.

[quietbritishjim]

> Just informing them of that possibility will render such evidence basically useless.

Is a verbal statement from an impartial witness useless? What if they say recognise the defendant as the criminal they witnessed? Obviously it's not as ideal as unfakable video evidence, but it is useful and has been the basis of legal systems for the millennia before computers and photography arrived.

Fakable video evidence is somewhere between these: you still have to account for the possibility that the person isn't honest, but don't have to worry about the fallibility of human memory.

[Bjartr]

Assuming, of course, that currently video is an equally occurring factor in both values and invalid convictions

[snowwrestler]

No, no, that's not what he's saying. He's saying that in court, proving the provenance of a piece of physical evidence is more important than the technical factors of the thing itself. But what everyone is focused on with deep fake videos, is how technically good they are.

My daughter's birth certificate could be reproduced 100% indistinguishably by a Fedex Office print shop. But it is backed up by a chain of people who, if necessary, will testify that it is authentic.

People think that testimony requires physical evidence to back it up (look at the reaction to Dr. Ford's accusations). But the legal reality is the opposite... physical evidence is only useful at trial to the extent that credible testimony can establish its authenticity and relevance.

So a deep fake video that looks exactly like a real video will only be useful at trial if it can be established as credible, by the testimony of credible witnesses.

All that said... there is more to life than the justice system. Forgeries have always taken in the gullible, so deep fakes will undoubtedly have a social impact, especially in the early days before the public is generally aware of the capabilities. This is undoubtedly one reason the press is starting to cover this technology so aggressively.