Some 25 years ago, my postdoc advisor Ted Adelson told me that some of his best ideas came when he was playing around in Photoshop. He was right. As I was just starting my first faculty job in 1999 I used Photoshop to splice the head of a tennis buddy onto the body of tennis great Andre Agassi. As I did this, I realized that the resulting fake image would leave behind a specific artifact because of the way I resized the head to fit the body. This simple observation led me on a 25 year journey of thinking about how to detect manipulated content. While 10 years ago this would have been considered a niche field, today, with the rise of generative AI and deepfakes, determining the integrity of content has taken on a more urgent need. Working with an amazing group of digital forensic researchers and cybersecurity experts and after two years of building solutions to detect all forms of manipulated media, we are launching GetReal Labs with a mission to protect organizations worldwide from the threats posed by the malicious use of manipulated and synthetic information. Press release: https://lnkd.in/gdNrdvPy Blog: https://lnkd.in/gskcwnYj Wired: https://lnkd.in/gHfcTPyp
Congratulations!!! This is so needed, excited for you and your team!
Many congrats, Hany! This is such critical work, and I can't think of a more thoughtful person to lead it. Let me know how I can support you as you build GetReal.
Hi Hany I run a large conference and would love to connect with you to help share your work here
Congrats on the new venture! Love the little Photoshop anecdote, your work on fighting digital manipulation has always been amazing and well documented. Best of luck! P.S. hope to explore career opportunities and collaborations with the lab once it's up and running. 😊
Hany Farid fascinating work, I'd like to have you consider joining the conversation at Rebooting the Web of Trust, Joe Andrieu and Christopher Allen this would make a great paper topic, correct?
Dan Kinney
3w
I'm thrilled to read this news. Congratulations to you Hany, and to all involved!
Hany Farid -- you are the best person to do this! You are a technical pioneer in this space and have the integrity to do it right -- thank you!
Roger Solin
3w
Fabulous. The world needs this.
CEO at Truepic | Building Authenticity Infrastructure for the Internet | WEF Global Innovator
3wCongrats, Hany Farid - this is such important work. And, there is no one in the world better suited to build a company in this space leveraging detection/forensics!