Post 418: Is this video for Real?

 Post 418: Is this Video for Real?

 

 

On What's App, my cousin sent me a video called, "Is this Video for Real?" by AJ Willingham.  This article describes different ways you can tell if a video has been faked or manipulated.  The article goes over different kinds of fake videos. Cheapfakes are videos that were altered by classic video editing like Photoshop.  Deepfakes are videos altered by artificial intelligence. The computer is fed that person's face many times and then after a while, the AI can extrapolate how that person can talk or move and then the video creator can then create a fake video from that AI metadata.  

The most interesting part of this article is that they put side by side the real video of Nancy Pelosi talking naturally, and then they had a fake video of Nancy Pelosi where her speech sounded slurred to make her seem like she was drunk. The fake video where they slowed down her speech through video editing looked so real that if you did not know it was fake, you would think Pelosi was drunk when she was not.

Then, there was another two videos a real and a fake of Obama speaking, but there was no audio to this excerpt.  I was asked to choose which of the Obama video was fake, and which one was real. I chose the WRONG one because they can make the fake video look so real, that I cannot tell the difference. Williingham states that to tell the difference, you have to look at how unnatural Obama's jaw moves as he speaks.

When listening to a fake audio of Trump talking, Willingham says be aware of you don't hear any fricatives in the speech. Fricatives are sounds where you have to breathe on the sound to make the sound like 't' or 'p'.  For some reason, machines think fricatives or breathable sounds are just noise so machines cannot yet replicate fricative sounds.

When looking at a face, make sure that the glasses, ears, are symmetrical or asymmetrical. In a natural face, the glasses can be asymmetrical. In a fake video, everything will look too perfect, too symmetrical. In a real face, you have imperfections like crooked teeth or realistic looking ears.

I was blown by the idea that a computer program named StyleGan by Philip Wang on the website, This Person does not Exist where the machine can create fake faces of people who do not exist. These fake faces look so real too! Then, you can put these fake people anywhere and just create people out of thin air!

Read this fascinating article to learn more about how videos and other online content can be faked at

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/10/us/manipulated-media-tech-fake-news-trnd/

Post 417: What is a good way to give feedback?

What is a good way to give feedback?

 

 

https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy 

"Focusing people on their shortcomings doesn’t enable learning; it impairs it"

In this article "Why Feedback Fails" by Marcus Buckingham, the best feedback you can give is to emphasize what the worker does well. For instance, if the worker is making a sale and the client is about to buy the product, then you as the boss would say to the salesman, "Keep doing THAT!" This is where you are excellent. In other words, during times your worker is succeeding, point out what he is doing well and how he is doing well.

Buckingham claims that when we criticize people, then the brain sees this as a threat and then the brain will initiate the 'flight or fight response' and that's why when people are criticized, they become defensive and emotional which impedes their ability to listen, learn and grow.

However, if you tell workers what they are already doing right and to encourage them to keep doing what they are doing right with a few improvements added, you initiate the creativity part of the brain, the 'rest and digest' part of the brain which is the time we are absorbing new info like when we talk to our friends, laugh at jokes, watch TV, and when we teach people to improve at their most creative moments, that's when they learn without the negative baggage of feeling threatened 'flight or fight' response.

Buckingham offers suggestions on how you can slightly change the wording of your tips to soften the blow of your feedback. Instead of pointing out a mistake like, 'You need better communication skills.", you can say, "If I were you...." scenario where you put yourself in that person's shoes and how you would handle that situation rather than tell the worker, show the worker through casual conversation so couch your feedback less like a mistake, but more like friendly advice and the worker will be more prone to listen to friendly advice from a 'friend' than from a micromanaging boss Ironically enough, this article on feedback came from my 'friendly advice' boss too! :).