The Edge #30 Deepfakes with Hany Farid
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Aug 14, 2025 
Hany Farid, a UC Berkeley Professor and digital forensics expert, dives into the alarming world of deepfakes and misinformation. He discusses how easily accessible technology is used for scams and political manipulation, raising concerns about media trust. With a focus on the ethical implications of rapid tech advancements, he emphasizes the need for effective verification tools and regulations. Farid warns of significant dangers to democratic processes, urging society and tech leaders to tackle misinformation proactively.
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Meeting Obama Made Zoom Call Real
- Hany Farid recounts being suspicious during a Zoom call with President Obama and later meeting him in person.
- He used small cues, like a hand crossing the face, to relax and confirm authenticity.
Hope In The Difficulty Of Perfect Forgeries
- Creating pixel-perfect, undetectable video is extremely hard because video includes dense spatial and temporal data.
- Commercial and open models also lack incentive to make perfect forgeries, giving defenders some hope.
Plausibility Undermines Shared Reality
- The mere plausibility of fakes enables denial of real events and erodes shared reality.
- Losing a shared sense of fact is an existential threat to governance, public health, and science.