However, For the upcoming U.S. election, advanced detection technologies can be a useful tool to help discerning users identify deepfakes.
Microsoft introduced a new tool that help people to detect deepfake photos and videos named Video Authenticator. Video Authenticator can analyze a still photo or video to provide a percentage chance, or confidence score, that the media is artificially manipulated.
In the case of a video, it can provide this percentage in real-time on each frame as the video plays. It works by detecting the blending boundary of the deepfake and subtle fading or greyscale elements that might not be detectable by the human eye.
The Video Authenticator tool has been developed by Microsoft Research, Microsoft’s Responsible AI team and the Microsoft AI, Ethics and Effects in Engineering and Research (AETHER) Committee.
Microsoft said in a blog post, Today, we’re also announcing new technology that can both detect manipulated content and assure people that the media they’re viewing is authentic. This technology has two components.
The first is a tool built into Microsoft Azure that enables a content producer to add digital hashes and certificates to a piece of content. The hashes and certificates then live with the content as metadata wherever it travels online.
The second is a reader which can exist as a browser extension or in other forms that checks the certificates and matches the hashes, letting people know with a high degree of accuracy that the content is authentic and that it hasn’t been changed, as well as providing details about who produced it.
This technology has been built by Microsoft Research and Microsoft Azure in partnership with the Defending Democracy Program.