AI-generated faces are more trustworthy than real ones

People can't tell the difference between faces generated by artificial intelligence (using StyleGAN2) and real faces, the researchers said, calling for measures to prevent "deepfakes

AI-synthesized text, audio, images and video have been used for so-called "revenge porn", fraud and propaganda

Dr.

The results show that the synthetic faces are not only highly realistic, but also nearly indistinguishable from real ones, and even considered more trustworthy

"Our evaluation of photo-realism of artificially synthesized faces shows that the synthesis engine has passed the uncanny valley and is able to create faces that are more indistinguishable and trustworthy than real faces

The researchers warn that people fail to recognize the possible impact of AI-generated images

"Perhaps the most pernicious consequence is that in a digital world where any image or video can be faked, the authenticity of any inconvenient or unwelcome recording may be called into question

• In the first experiment, 315 participants selected 128 faces out of 800 to classify, either real or synthetic

  
  

• In a second experiment, 219 new participants were trained and given feedback on how to classify faces

  
  

The researchers decided to find out whether perceptions of credibility could help people identify artificial images

Faces provide a rich source of information, and exposure times of just a few milliseconds are sufficient to make implicit inferences about personal characteristics such as trustworthiness

A third study asked 223 participants to rate the trustworthiness of 128 of the same set of 800 faces, on a scale ranging from 1 (very untrustworthy) to 7 (very trustworthy)

The average rating of the synthetic face is 7.

"Perhaps most interestingly, we found that synthetic faces were more trustworthy than real faces

• Black faces were seen as more trustworthy than South Asian faces, but other than that, this had no effect across races

  
  

• Women are significantly more trustworthy than men
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"A smiling face is more likely to be considered trustworthy, but 65.
5% of real faces and 58.
8% of synthetic faces are smiling, so facial expressions alone cannot explain why synthetic faces are seen as more trustworthy
.
"

The researchers believe that synthetic faces may be more trustworthy because they resemble normal human faces -- which themselves are also considered more trustworthy
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To protect the public from "deepfakes," they also propose guidelines for the creation and dissemination of synthetic images
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“Security measures can include, for example, the incorporation of robust watermarks in image and video synthesis networks, which will provide a downstream mechanism for reliable identification
.
As democratizing access to this powerful technology is the most serious threat, we also encourage re-creation Consider the usual laissez-faire policy towards the public, and the unrestricted release of code, allowing anyone to incorporate it into any application
.

"At this critical time, as other fields of science and engineering have done, we encourage the graphics and visual community to develop guidelines for the creation and distribution of synthetic media technologies that incorporate ethical guidance for researchers, publishers and media distributors policy
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"

Magazine

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.
1073/pnas.
XXXXXXXXXX

method research

Experimental Study

research topic

people

article title

AI-generated faces are indistinguishable from real faces and more trustworthy

Article publication date

February 14 - 2022