I was going to tell a science fiction story about mass blackmail.
It had a protagonist and a narrative,
and a beginning, middle and end,
and a warning about the future.
And it was going to start with a fictional app,
an app that let you swap your face into movie scenes.
So, take a clip from a movie,
emote a bit into your smartphone's camera,
and it would put you in the scene.
I actually can't believe no-one's built that yet.
I was going to explore how that technology could be used and misused and abused...
And then the news happened,
and I realised the future had arrived a lot faster than I thought it would.
Just so you know, I'm not going to show anything adult-rated or ethically questionable in this video.
All the faceswapping that I've been working on has been entirely clothed and consensual.
So when I saw that story, I had to find out: is this a real bit of code?
Has Hollywood-grade faceswapping become available to the world that quickly?
So I went and found the software itself.
And it turns out the raw code for this has been around for a couple of months;
and it had been developed and used pretty much exclusively for creating non-consensual pornography.
Taking the face of someone who hasn't consented
and putting it on the body of someone else who hasn't consented.
Last week, someone decided to package up this complicated bit of code,
this whole massive project that required large amounts of technical skill and knowledge,
and turn it into a Windows app that anyone with a bit of time and a bit of tech skills could use.
The system requirements were:
a Windows 10 PC, a powerful Nvidia graphics card, moderate tech skills
and poor or no sense of empathy.
And if you want to find someone with a fast computer and no empathy,
you of course go to Reddit.
I found the software there, downloaded it, and realised I wasn't going to run
2.6 gigabytes of unknown code, designed to create unethical porn, on my own computer.
So I dug out an old machine, wiped it clean, and ran the code.
And it gave me... just a box, really, with unfriendly error messages and no help files.
It reminds me a lot of the hacked-together Windows stuff I used to code many years ago,
only mine was for creating steps for Dance Dance Revolution games.
So you know, bit of a different audience there.
Probably only a slightly different audience, actually, but...
To make the code work, you have to assemble images of the source and the target.
So I asked my friend Matt Parker if I could use his videos as an example,
and he was fine with it.
So I extracted 500 frames from his YouTube channel, and 500 from mine.
The first thing the software does is called extraction:
get all the faces from those images,
and put the eyes, nose and mouth in the same place for each.
And you might think, "Tom, did you make a creepy GIF out of this?"
And the answer is yes, of course I did.
Two, actually.
I had slightly more hair then.
Mind you, so did Matt.
After it had finished, the computer was still kind-of churning away,
working on something in the background
and I was a little bit worried about what it was doing,
so I had a look in the Task Manager.
It turns out Windows 10 was trying to update, so I turned that off.
And it still updated.
And rebooted itself.
Twice.
Anyway, I got it training.
And as it trains, it shows you a load of faces that look like some sort of 'wall of ham'.
The right one of each triple are what it's adjusted the face into, what you're looking for.
After 10 minutes, they were rough;
after an hour, they were starting to become recognisable;
but then it all slowed down.
After 24 hours of whirring fans and a nearly-overheating graphics card, it was still blurred;
but after 48 hours, I thought that some of it might be good enough to try.
So here's the question: with 48 hours of training, on a graphics card from a couple of years ago,
can you convincingly faceswap Matt Parker into this video?
No.
No, not really.
Not at all.
The other question is, can you convincingly faceswap the other way around?
And the answer is still no.
So I was trying to figure out: how can I demonstrate to an audience on YouTube
that the code is a real thing?
And then this news article came along.
I don't know what the copyright situation is on what I'm about to show you, but...
To try and make sure that this counts as criticism and review: that faceswap is perfect.
The lighting matches. The expression matches.
That looks like a Hollywood CGI team spent an enormous amount of time and money changing a face,
instead of one person taking a couple of days on their own computer.
The user in question said this:
Try explaining that sentence to someone 20 years ago.
Actually, never mind copyright, is that ethically okay?
Neither of the people involved in that clip, Amy Adams or Nicolas Cage, have consented to it.
I think it's just about OK, but then everyone draws the moral line of what's acceptable
just slightly below what they're actually doing.
Maybe even faceswapping people like that isn't OK.
Making clips like that is only going to get easier.
Yes, it requires days of training now, but it won't for long.
Someone's going to come along and package up an algorithm in a way that doesn't seem questionable:
it'll be a fun app about putting your face in movies rather than the current horrible use.
That's just a question of marketing.
As of last week, you can no longer trust a video of someone unless you also trust its source.
If you wanted to fake a certain alleged Donald Trump tape,
then all you need is a body double, a few days of compute time, and no conscience.
The story I was going to tell was about algorithmic blackmail.
The idea that someone could write a script to pull out selfies from Instagram accounts,
and train up an algorithm to create plausible fake porn, as if from a hidden or hacked webcam,
and then send out blackmail threats automatically.
And even if only a few people fall for it, that could still be enough to make a decent income,
particularly if the sender's in a developing country with a lower cost of living.
All they have to do is cause emotional trauma to a huge number of people.
But they're just people on the internet, right?
They don't count(!)
We're not ready for this. As society, as humanity.
Normally when I tell a story like this I try to end on an upbeat note:
the people in the sci-fi tale that I had to ditch, they sort-of ended up okay in the end,
because it's fiction and you can make sure that happens.
But this isn't science fiction any more.
I don't have an upbeat note to end on.
All I have is a vague sense of future shock,
and 500 distorted images of Matt Parker.
That would've been a lot easier without the dogs barking in the background.