[richbell]

> Why would governments be using this content to look for people to arrest?

Why wouldn't oppressive regimes that are arresting dissidents review footage of dissidents that makes them look bad? Harassing reporters and their sources is a very common way to suppress information.

Scientology does it, why wouldn't a government? https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2020/08/05/sciento...

[chrisseaton]

> Why wouldn't oppressive regimes that are arresting dissidents review footage of dissidents that makes them look bad?

Because the faces aren’t real? They want to arrest dissidents not random people.

[richbell]

> Because the faces aren’t real? They want to arrest dissidents not random people.

How can you tell? The entire point of the GP's comment is that they could be mistaken.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33735239

[dmix]

This ignores how information spreads. Given how unlikely a randomly generated face will match a relevant person in a local area related to the protest or gov, that means the AI technology will also be widespread (otherwise it’s statically a non-problem because it will be significantly even more unlikely to happen IRL).

If it is widespread then the government workers doing facial recognition should be keenly aware of its existence and adapt by seeking photos from non-activist/protected sources… like the thousands of photos posted on social media after every protest.

The bad government doesn’t want to be arresting random people either they want the real ones.

[richbell]

FWIW I agree. We are dangerously close to living in a world where you cannot trust any videos, pictures, or audio.

I just think that this approach is perhaps more 'cool' than it is useful, it makes me think of Mr. Swirl[0] who got caught because of a fancy effect. Is face-swapping an actor's face really better than just using the actor outright?

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Paul_Neil

[chrisseaton]

> How can you tell?

They literally say so in the documentary.

[richbell]

That doesn't stop clips from this or future videos that use this technique from being taken out of context.