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An aspect of artificial intelligence thats sometimes overlooked is just how good it is at creating fake audio and video thats difficult to distinguish from reality. The advent of Photoshop got us doubting our eyes, but what happens when we cant rely on our other senses?

The latest example of AIs audiovisual magic comes from the University of Washington, where researchers have created a new tool that takes audio files, converts them into realistic mouth movements, and then grafts those movements onto existing video. The end-result is a video of someone saying something they didnt. (Not at the time, anyway.) Its a confusing process to understand by just reading about it, so take a look at the video below:

You can see two side-by-side clips of Barack Obama. The one on the left is the source for the audio, and the one on the right is from a completely different speech, with the researchers algorithms use to graft new mouth shapes onto the footage. The resulting video isnt perfect (Obamas mouth movements are a little blurry a common problem with AI-generated imagery) but overall its pretty convincing.

The researchers said they used Obama as a test subject for this work because high-quality video footage of the former president is plentiful, which makes training the neural networks easier. Seventeen hours of footage were needed as data to track and replicate his mouth movements, researcher Ira Kemelmacher told The Verge over email, but in future this training constraint could be reduced to just an hour.

The researchers say their tech could be used to improve Skype calls

The team behind the work say they hope it could be used to improve video chat tools like Skype. Users could collect footage of themselves speaking, use to train the software, and then when they need to talk to someone, video on their side would be generated automatically using just their voice. This would help in situations where someones internet connection is shaky, or if theyre trying to save mobile data.

Of course, theres also the worry that tools like this can and will be used to generate misleading video footage the sort of stuff that would give some real heft to the term fake news. Combine a tool like this with technology that can recreate anyones voice using just a few minutes of sample audio and youd be forgiven for thinking there are scary times ahead. Similar research has been able to change someones facial expression in real-time; create 3D models of faces from a few photographs; and more.

The team from the University of Washington is understandably keen to distance themselves from these sorts of uses, and make it clear they only trained their neural nets on Obamas voice and video. (You cant just take anyones voice and turn it into an Obama video, said professor Steve Seitz in a press release. We very consciously decided against going down the path of putting other peoples words into someones mouth.) But in theory, this tech could be used to map anyones voice onto anyones face, will everyone be so scrupulous if the technology becomes widespread?

You can check a more detailed video of the neural nets in action below:

Excerpt from:
New AI research makes it easier to create fake footage of someone speaking - The Verge

ILLINOIS NEWS NETWORK

Critics of an Obama-era regulation that is in legal limbo say it would make small creeks on private property subject to the same environmental protection laws as major rivers. Now, President Trump's Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to make sure it never happens.

The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers announced in June that they would soon attempt to rescind the Waters of the U.S. rules put in place in 2015.

"This went way too far," said Lauren Lurkins, Director of Natural and Environmental Resources with the Illinois Farm Bureau. "Congress never intended for the federal government to have jurisdiction over all water, let alone the land that we were really talking about."

U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood's Central Illinois district is one of the highest-producing corn and soybean regions in the country. He said farmers are the best stewards of their land, not the government.

"They don't need EPA bureaucrats or the Army Corps of Engineers coming in and telling them how they should deal with a puddle, creek or stream on their land," said LaHood, R-Peoria. "The fact that this was done unilaterally without the legislative process left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths."

Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, called the announcement a win for farmers in his district.

"Congress never intended for EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to have jurisdiction over ditches, creeks and man-made ponds," he said.

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Environmental groups worry the rollback will pollute larger bodies of water. Collin O'Mara, President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation told a Senate Committee in April that rescinding the 2015 rule would create irrevocable damage on the nation's waterways.

The Clean Water Rule "is a product of years of transparent scientific and public deliberations, and it protects the drinking water for more than 117 million Americans," he said.

The regulation was live for a month before it was challenged in court.The new proposal would be subject to a public comment period and then could be legally challenged as was the case with Obama's rule. Should it be allowed to rescind the 2015 rules, the EPA said it would begin to work on new regulations that would return power to the states and create more regulatory certainty for farmers.

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Illinois congressmen praise rollback of Obama-era waters rule - Illinois News Network

Every 90 days, the State Department must certify whether Iran is complying with the nuclear deal that former President Barack Obama struck with the Tehran tyranny in 2015.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is approaching one of these 90-day deadlines. Instead of rubber-stamping re-certification, as his predecessor John Kerry did regardless of Iran's behavior, Tillerson should finally do something the U.S. government hasn't been doing for years. He should tell the truth about Iran's flagrant noncompliance with the deal, thus opening the way for Congress to impose sanctions against the rogue regime.

This is what four Republican senators Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and David Perdue, R-Ga. urged him to do this week.

In their letter, the senators restated what has been obvious for more than a year. Iran has trampled all over the terms of the deal struck by the ducking and bowing Obama administration. The agreement itself stipulates that the mullahs should be punished for their recalcitrance. If the administration keeps turning a blind eye to Iran's transgressions, as Obama did, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism will continue its belligerence with a free hand.

Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons and missile technology is unabated. It is, for example, operating more centrifuges than it agreed to with Obama, and storing more heavy water (composed of oxygen and the rare, heavy hydrogen isotope called deuterium) than is allowed.

Most importantly, it has refused to give inspectors access to its nuclear facilities. There can obviously be no "trust and verify," because if verification is blocked there is ample reason to mistrust. There may be many other violations of which Washington is unaware. Indeed, it seems highly likely.

"In light of Iran's malign actions since the signing of the [nuclear deal]," the senators wrote, "the only reasonable conclusion is that the full suspension of U.S. sanctions is not in the vital national security interests of the United States and that Iran has consistently violated the terms of the [nuclear deal]."

Iran's other malicious activities, such as its sponsorship of terrorist militias throughout the Middle East and its abduction of Americans in search of ransom, should also weigh heavily in the scales as the administration's assesses the best move to make next. Obama overlooked all these things to get a deal with Iran, in the irresponsibly fantastical belief that Tehran could become a strategic partner in the region. He was so committed to having a deal that he sacrificed much of what might have made some sort of deal worthwhile.

Tillerson has not committed to anything yet, but has sent the right signs that he knows what must be done. The last time he was required to recertify Iranian compliance, it was widely understood that he did so only to maintain the status quo temporarily at the inception of Trump's presidency.

Despite that initial recertification, he publicly disparaged Obama's lax approach to the deal even as he recertified Iranian cooperation. "Strategic patience is a failed approach," Tillerson said in April. "The Trump administration has no intention of passing the buck to a future administration on Iran."

Those are good, strong words. Now, it's time for Tillerson to back them up with actions and hold Iran accountable.

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Obama's gone, so it's time to deal with Iran - Washington Examiner

After leaving the White House, Michelle Obama might not be the first lady, but she might still be our gabber-in-chief shes added an appearance at a womens conference in Philadelphia to her chat-it-up tour.

Obama will headline the Pennsylvania Conference for Women in October, for an expected audience of 10,000, the nonpartisan organization announced. With her career-long devotion to improving the lives of children, increasing nutrition awareness, and advocating for equal access to education, Michelle Obamas impact clearly extends beyond her White House years, the groups board president, Leslie Stiles, said in the announcement.

The format of the former FLOTUSs cameo follows the pattern she has set since leaving 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Its a conversation, not a speech, which allows Obama to be more relaxed and, well, conversational, than a formal address dictates.

In April, she sat for a wide-ranging, and largely politics-free, Q&A at the American Institute of Architectures annual conference and in May at thePartnership for a Healthier America summit. Shes been relatively more free-spoken than when she was the on-message wife of the prez at the latter event, she poked fun at her husbands famously deeply unbuttoned shirts and countered proposed GOP cuts to the school lunch program with a salty retort: Think about why someone is okay with your kids eating crap.

No word on how much the popular former first lady is being paid, but Mike Allen of Axios reports that she commands a whopping $200,000, which is half of what her husband can earn but just as much as former president George W. Bush.

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Michelle Obama continues her speaking tour with appearance at women's conference - Washington Post

Michelle Obama returned to the spotlight as a presenter at The ESPYS, drawing the loudest ovation at the awards show honoring the past year's best athletes and moments in sports.

The former first lady made a rare public appearance since leaving the White House in January. She presented the Arthur Ashe Courage Award posthumously to Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of Special Olympics. Shriver's son, Tim, accepted on Wednesday night in Los Angeles.

"I am here tonight to honor a remarkable woman, a woman who believed that everyone has something to contribute and everyone deserves a chance. When we give others the chance to fulfill their greatest potential, we all win," Obama said before being joined onstage by eight Special Olympics athletes. "Through her passionate service, she made our world more welcoming, inclusive and fair."

Shriver accepted the silver trophy from Obama.

"Once a great first lady, still a great first lady," he said as the crowd roared.

Obama smiled with her arm on one of the athletes as Shriver urged that more work needs to be done to achieve equality toward people with intellectual disabilities.

"Our mother would have loved you," he said. "She would have loved your forthrightness, your honesty, your toughness, your commitment also to get everybody on the playing field. She would have been so honored that you are here for her tonight as we all are."

Obama walked off stage sharing a hug with one of the female athletes.

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Michelle Obama earns loud ovation from athletes at The ESPYS - ABC News