[jonplackett]

Whatever the outcome of this specific case, we are clearly at a tipping point in history - it’s now basically impossible to say for certain if a fake video is real, and potentially even more problematic - also impossible to say for sure that a real video is not fake.

The whole concept of ‘video evidence’ is going up in smoke.

[pimlottc]

When it comes to actual court evidence, it’s just going to come back to chain of custody. What is the source of the video, how was it obtained, what hands did it go through before reaching the court, etc.

[jonplackett]

As we can see here though - newspapers and court of public opinion aren’t all that thorough!

I’m thinking back to various things like the videos of people being beaten up by the police, or that audio clip of trump talking about grabbing women.

Would any of these things carry the same weight today? And how much weight will they have by the next election?

Eve just being able to plausibly say ‘nah it’s just AI’ adds enough reasonable doubt that a lot of people will not believe it.

[vouaobrasil]

Easier said than done, though, especially when the sources themselves can be hacked and poeple can be bribed. When you make one step of a crime MUCH easier, finding evidence becomes much harder.

[gman83]

The 1992 book "Rising Sun" by Michael Crichton is basically about exactly this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_(Crichton_novel)

[jonplackett]

Oooh I haven’t read this and I usually love Crichton book.

[qingcharles]

Most of us on here have an acutely-tuned spidey-sense when it comes to detecting AI videos, but several times recently I've found myself completely unable to tell if a video is real or fake. The issue is: if it's real, then you can spend a ton of time trying to determine it's fake, when it's not, and still not be sure.

Either way, we're cooked.

[jq-r]

Ars Technica just did a nice article on purely generated videos and some of them look completely real to my eyes.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/05/ai-video-just-took-a-star...

[apwell23]

> The whole concept of ‘video evidence’ is going up in smoke.

are you talking legally?

not sure why that would be the case. Courts accept documents which can be forged. Doing that would be a crime.

[qingcharles]

When you submit a document to the court you must "lay a foundation" for it. That is, someone with personal knowledge of the document must testify under penalty of perjury about the contents being accurate and unmodified, etc.

[jonplackett]

Yeah and people forge things all the time. Which I’d imagine is quite problematic

[alwa]

It takes a certain degree of chutzpah to introduce those forged documents in court, though… you’re submitting them to adversarial scrutiny, it’s part of the court’s job to decide whether they’re reliable or not, and detection leads to criminal sanctions

[jonplackett]

I mean the other way around - you have to prove someone is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. What if there is some genuine footage, but there’s enough doubt that it could not be genuine

[apwell23]

they do? how do you know this?

[h1fra]

we need a modern 12 angry men were the main evidence is not testimony but AI video

[datadrivenangel]

Stabs a USB into the table And this identical footage of the judge doing the crime instead of the accused? Is this not plausible doubt?

[Terr_]

Y'know, that sounds like a potentially viable business model for an expert witness.

Counsel comes to you with footage, you create equally-plausible false footage to highlight how the original is doubtable.

[gosub100]

> also impossible to say for sure that a real video is not fake.

If you recall, when Epstein was arrested and awaiting trial, the media repeated the narrative that "deep fakes" were coming out now and some videos are completely fake.

It was never said in reference to Epstein specifically. But they were two independent stories at the same time. Almost as if it were a preparation for damage control should some compromising material be released.

[kjkjadksj]

Uhh, CGI is decades old now. Videos without sufficient provenance have always been suspect. Even beforehand you could do plenty of tomfoolery in the cutting room.

[amlib]

But that required lots of expertise and time to fabricate anything remotely convincing. We may now be close to an era where fakery at that level can be fabricated at industrial scale by any individuals and, most importantly, by powerful entities.

[wongarsu]

Powerful entities have always been able to hire VFX artists. Preferably fresh out of film school for 20% above industry wage and a sense of purpose. For the rest of us there's Fiverr. Some guy in Indonesia is unlikely to investigate whether he's editing part of a prank video or fabricating evidence.

Fabricating video absolutely became easier. But it's not so much about your video skills, you can buy those. It's about your organization and planning skills. Even a hilariously incompetent and unorganized entity with a lack of foresight can now fabricate reasonably convincing video

[jonplackett]

CGI is expensive, and also quite bad at people. So I think this is a whole new thing.

[deadbabe]

The punishment for using fake video evidence for accusing someone of a crime must also go up. Way up.

[kadoban]

Why? That's already illegal.