Gabriel Bertocco, Anderson Rocha

In this tutorial, we will explore the burgeoning landscape of synthetic realities, their impact, technological advancements, and ethical quandaries. Synthetic realities provide innovative solutions and opportunities for immersive experiences in various sectors, including education, healthcare, and commerce. However, these advances also present substantial challenges, such as the propagation of misinformation, privacy concerns, and ethical dilemmas. We will discuss the specifics of synthetic media, including deepfakes and their generation and detection techniques, modern AI-empowered multimedia manipulations, (mis)information, and (dis)information. We will also touch upon the imperative need for robust detection and explainable methods to combat the potential misuse of such technologies. We will show the dual-edged nature of synthetic realities and advocate for interdisciplinary research, informed public discourse, and collaborative efforts to harness their benefits while mitigating risks. We also present future trends and perspectives of synthetic realities. This tutorial contributes to the discourse on the responsible development and application of artificial intelligence and synthetic media in modern society. We will cover real cases of study where people were fooled by deepfakes causing financial loss or had their integrity prejudiced. Upon these cases, we will show state-of-the-art generators and detectors in image, video, audio and text modalities. In the generator’s side, we will cover the main generation strategies such as Face Swap, Face Reenactment, Lip Syncing, Facial Attribute Manipulation, Entire Face Synthesis, Text-to-Speech, Voice Conversion, and LLM-based text generation. From the detector’s side, we will delve into different solutions in each modality, and discuss their explainability and deployability in real-world applications. We will also cover legislation and political aspects of the employment of synthetic realities in society.