The pandemic has changed our sleeping habits. Now that we don’t have to travel much anymore, we are going back to our natural sleep rhythm. The Optimist explains why we should stick to this habit.
The pandemic has changed their morning routine for many people. Now that working from home is the norm, we can stay in bed longer. According to a study by the University of Colorado Boulder, we make great use of this. Since the corona crisis, students have been sleeping half an hour longer on weekdays and got out of bed almost an hour later.
Natural sleep rhythm
While a workday usually lasts from 9am to 5pm, that doesn’t mean it’s best for everyone. On the contrary, the natural sleep rhythm differs from person to person and depends on genetics, hormones and external factors such as light and sound. When we deviate from our natural rhythm, this increases the risk of fatigue and inattention. This reduces the quality of the work. The risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes also increases.
Better performances
Flexible work schedules improve productivity and health. For example, it appears that secondary school students perform better when schools start later. By having the opportunity to sleep more, the students get better grades and are more mentally present. The pressure to get up early is therefore social rather than biological. When we follow our own sleep rhythm, we become both more productive and healthier. Therefore, stick to this new sleeping habit. Even if we do travel to work again.
When you are self-aware, you live your life according to your own values. You make your own choices and feel what is right for you. The Blogging Optimist Danny Jibodh, presents four benefits of increased self-awareness.
Self-care
Without self-awareness, you easily neglect yourself and take less care of yourself. Increased self-awareness has a positive impact on your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. You become less emotional, you are more steadfast in life and you can look at yourself with a mild look.
Improving relationships
When we don’t know what we want or need, it’s hard to form a good relationship with someone. When you get to know yourself well, the way you stand in relationships changes. You learn to set limits and you know when someone is not good for you. You gather people around you who share the same values and have a positive influence on you. At the same time, it makes you aware of your own responsibility within relationships.
Work smarter, more productive and mindful
When you are self-aware, you make better career choices and reduce work stress. You know what your strengths are, but you also know what you don’t excel at. This allows you to work smarter and you know better what you need to do to achieve your goal. Your productivity also increases. When you have trouble getting to work, it’s usually because thoughts, emotions, or habits are getting in the way. Increased self-awareness removes these obstacles.
Keeping calm in a crisis
Everyone has to deal with setbacks or stressful situations from time to time. Poor decision-making often stems from confused thinking and emotional reactions. Before you jump into action mode and do things you’ll regret later, take a step back.
There are countless ways to increase your self-awareness. This can be done, for example, through meditation, coaching or keeping a diary. The most important thing is to look critically at yourself. How do you feel? How do you react to something? And what is the impact of your actions?
Everyone desires to live a balanced and healthy life, and this reflects in the type of foods we choose to eat or ignore, exercising our body regularly, and seeing a doctor when we feel the symptoms of sickness. There is another aspect to our overall well-being that most people rarely give the right attention to; mental health.
Think about it for a minute: when was the last time you assessed your mental health, and what are you consciously doing to improve your mental state?
If you barely know the simple routines you can start to practice today to improve your brain function and mental health, these next tips will suffice.
1. Practise Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a therapeutic technique that is achieved when you become fully aware of your present moment. It makes you accept and own up to your thoughts, emotions, feelings, and body sensations without judgment, denying, or shying away from them.
It encourages you to live in the moment, such that you’re not anxious about what the future holds, nor are you worried about any negative experiences of the past.
To practice this, you can start by becoming more conscious of your everyday routine and take note of how your mind and body react to smells, sounds, or even tastes.
This awareness may not happen overnight, as you could even fail to notice as much as you should. But if you persevere, it’ll become second nature and improve your mental health.
2. Stop Excessive Thinking
Have you ever felt so lost in thought that you forget about your present environment? If you’re in the habit of overthinking about anything, make up your mind from now on to stop; Because it does more harm to your mental health than good.
If you find yourself overthinking, try doing these:
A. Incorporate 15 minutes of Thinking Time into your daily routine and keep to it. When your time is up, move on with other activities.
B. Focus only on things you can control, and instead of thinking about a problem too much, start by writing out 5-10 solutions. It will challenge and calm your thoughts.
C. Move on to something else; a project, an activity, etc that can distract you.
3. Be Organized
One of the underlying causes of poor mental health is disorders. It could be at work or even at home, but it always has the same effects every time.
Here are some of the best ways to organize for your mental health:
A. Break down your goals into bite-sized pieces that make them easier to achieve.
B. Remove distractions and declutter.
C. Perfection is great to attain, but normalize your desire to make everything perfect; it often puts you under too much mental pressure.
4. Regular Exercise:
When some people hear ‘exercise,’ what comes to their mind is running on a treadmill or doing something as strenuous as lifting weights, but exercise does not always have to be that way.
Exercise can be as simple as taking a 10-minute walk. Engaging in regular workouts gives you clearer thoughts and memories, helps reduce stress, and allows you to sleep well at night.
If you are struggling with staying consistent with your workout routine, you can enroll in a gym close to you; that way, you can connect with other people who could hold you accountable.
5. Practise Gratitude:
This simply means you are thankful for the things you have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have. Practicing gratitude sounds very easy, but it could be challenging, especially during tough times.
However, once you master it, you tend to live a happier and more fulfilling life. You may have observed that people who practice gratitude are more optimistic about life than those who do not.
Make it a habit to write out at least things 5 you are grateful for every morning. This would help set the tone of your day the right way.
6. Take a break from Social Media:
With the increasing rate of cyberbullying, social comparison, and toxicity on social media, taking social media breaks is not an option but a necessity for the sake of your sanity.
We can’t deny the fact that social media has bridged the communication gap that existed before the introduction of the internet and social media. But we also know that it can cause anxiety, undue pressure, mental fatigue that comes from too much comparison, and the need to be available online most of the time.
Take a break from social media from time to time; your mental health will thank you for that.
7. Open Up To Someone
Let’s admit it, talking to someone else about your mental health might not seem like an option you prefer, but it is one of the best ways to a speedy recovery. It is okay to look vulnerable at times like this, but once you get the mental help you need, you could be the one extending the same support to others.
A. Ideally, if you have a friend or family member you can confide in, go ahead and talk to them about your mental state.
B. On the other hand, you may prefer to remain anonymous and join an online support group where you can bare all your worries.
C. If that still doesn’t work for you, consider booking an appointment with a doctor or find a local support group that can help you every step of the way.
If you practice any of these, you’ll see lots of improvement in your mental health.
The race between creating and eliminating deepfakes is in full swing. Technology is becoming more and more accessible and deepfakes are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from real ones.
What exactly are deepfakes? A refresher
How are deepfakes made?
The Good – An Optimistic View
The dangers of deepfakes
What can we do to distinguish fake from real?
The future of fake – and other considerations
Despite a huge increase in positive applications, the dangers of deepfakes continue to raise widespread concern as they become more widely known and better understood. We are inundated with content describing how rapidly this deep learning technology is being developed, that deepfake tech is becoming more sophisticated and easier to access, and what the risks are when this technology falls into the wrong hands. Like it or not, and as disturbing as the negative consequences of using deepfakes may be, they are and will remain a part of our lives. And even though deepfakes receive mostly negative publicity, there are also many reasons to be excited about this technology and its many positive applications. Deepfake technology, for example, makes it possible to create completely new types of content and democratize access to creation tools – which until recently were either too expensive or too complicated for the average person. The use of artificial intelligence to create realistic simulations could actually be a positive development for humanity.
What exactly are deepfakes? A refresher
Giving a comprehensive definition of deepfakes is not easy. The term deepfake combines the words deep (from deep learning) and fake (fake). We know that deepfakes are made possible by deep learning technology, a machine learning technique that allows computers to learn by following examples. Deepfake technology uses a person’s behavior – such as the voice, image and typical facial expressions or body movements – to create completely new content that is virtually indistinguishable from authentic content. This technology can also be used to make people say or do things in videos that they never said or did, or to replace someone in a video with another person, or to create video content featuring important political figures or celebrities or even with people who don’t exist at all. The manipulation of existing – or the creation of new – digital images is not new. In fact, AI-generated pornographic content first surfaced in late 2017. The creation of this type of video material initially took at least a year and was done by experts in high-tech studios. But thanks to the rapid development of deepfake technology in recent years, this can now be done a lot faster and easier and the results are much more convincing. The term deepfakes was originally used for specific pornographic content, but now it is applied much more broadly to describe many different types of AI-generated or synthetic video content. AI-generated pornographic content first surfaced in late 2017. The creation of this type of video material initially took at least a year and was done by experts in high-tech studios. But thanks to the rapid development of deepfake technology in recent years, this can now be done a lot faster and easier and the results are much more convincing. The term deepfakes was originally used for specific pornographic content, but now it is applied much more broadly to describe many different types of AI-generated or synthetic video content. AI-generated pornographic content first surfaced in late 2017. The creation of this type of video material initially took at least a year and was done by experts in high-tech studios. But thanks to the rapid development of deepfake technology in recent years, this can now be done a lot faster and easier and the results are much more convincing. The term deepfakes was originally used for specific pornographic content, but now it is applied much more broadly to describe many different types of AI-generated or synthetic video content. But thanks to the rapid development of deepfake technology in recent years, this can now be done a lot faster and easier and the results are much more convincing. The term deepfakes was originally used for specific pornographic content, but now it is applied much more broadly to describe many different types of AI-generated or synthetic video content. But thanks to the rapid development of deepfake technology in recent years, this can now be done a lot faster and easier and the results are much more convincing. The term deepfakes was originally used for specific pornographic content, but now it is applied much more broadly to describe many different types of AI-generated or synthetic video content.
How are deepfakes made?
To create a realistic deepfake video of an existing person, a neural network must be trained using video images of this person, including an extensive range of facial expressions, in all kinds of different light and from every angle imaginable, so that the artificial intelligence gains a deep ‘understanding’ of not only the appearance but also the ‘essence’ of the person in question. The trained network is then combined with techniques such as advanced computer graphics to place a made-up version of this person on top of the person in the original video, as it were. While this process is much faster than it was a few years ago, truly credible results are still quite time consuming and complicated. However, cutting-edge technology, such as Samsung AI technology developed in a Russian AI lab, makes it possible to create a deepfake video with just a handful of images – or even just one.
The Good – An Optimistic View
While the not-so-kosher uses of deepfakes are quite frightening, this technology also offers many benefits and we regularly find new, positive uses for deepfaketech. Think, for example, of editing video images without having to do reshoots, or ‘ bringing it back to life’from artists who are no longer with us. For example, researchers at the Samsung AI lab in Moscow recently succeeded in converting Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa into video. Through deep learning technology, they managed to make this famous lady move her head, mouth and eyes. Deepfake technology was also used at the Dalí Museum in Florida to display a life-size deepfake of surrealist artist Salvador Dalí that features several quotes he has written or spoken during his art career. With deepfake technology, we can experience things that never existed, or see all kinds of future possibilities before us. In addition to the many different possible applications in art and entertainment, this technology can also do all kinds of impressive things in education and healthcare. Below are a few more interesting examples of this groundbreaking technology.
Speech manipulator converts text to speech
Adobe’s VoCo software – still in the research and prototype phase – lets you convert text into speech and edit it, just as you would images in Photoshop. Suppose you want to comment on a film clip by, for example, David Attenborough or Morgan Freeman. With VoCo, this is now possible without having to spend a fortune hiring the real voice actors. The software allows you to modify an existing audio recording of a person by adding words and phrases, without the original narrator ever saying them. During a live demo in San Diego, an Adobe employee transformed a digitized recording of a man who had originally said “I kissed my dogs and my wife” to “I kissed Jordan three times.” A 20 minute speech recording was used to arrive at this result. The transcribed version of this recording was then modified and converted into the new voice clip at the touch of a button. As impressive as this technology may be, these kinds of developments could further exacerbate the already problematic situation of fake news and further undermine public trust in journalism. However, Adobe has announced that it is taking action to address these potential challenges. Such developments could further exacerbate the already problematic situation of fake news and further undermine public trust in journalism. However, Adobe has announced that it is taking action to address these potential challenges. Such developments could further exacerbate the already problematic situation of fake news and further undermine public trust in journalism. However, Adobe has announced that it is taking action to address these potential challenges.
Convincing dubbing through automated facial resuscitation
Synthesia, an AI software company founded by a team of researchers and entrepreneurs from Stanford, Cambridge, University College London and the Technical University of Munich, introduces a new kind of media – facial resuscitation software – that enables automated and highly persuasive dubbing. The AI startup was put on the map with the release of a synthetic video in which David Beckham talks about the deadly disease Malaria in nine different languages. This technology can be used in a variety of ways and offers creators around the world an enormous amount of additional possibilities. Synthesia and the international news service Reuters recently teamed up to create the world’s first synthesized, newsreader-spoken newscasts. For this they used basic deepfake technology, with which they made new newscasts based on pre-recorded clips from a newsreader. By far the most remarkable thing is that this technology makes it possible to automatically generate news items that can also be personalized for individual viewers. Synthesia’s technology can be used for training purposes to develop video modules in more than 40 languages and create or modify content easily and quickly. With this technology, you can also turn text and slides into video presentations in minutes, without the need for video editing skills. This is useful for purposes such as business communication, among other things. Synthesia’s technology can be used for training purposes to develop video modules in more than 40 languages and create or modify content easily and quickly. With this technology, you can also turn text and slides into video presentations in minutes, without the need for video editing skills. This is useful for purposes such as business communication, among other things. Synthesia’s technology can be used for training purposes to develop video modules in more than 40 languages and create or modify content easily and quickly. With this technology, you can also turn text and slides into video presentations in minutes, without the need for video editing skills. This is useful for purposes such as business communication, among other things.
With deepfakes anyone can dance like a pro
Tinghui Zhou, CEO and co-founder of Humen AI, a dance deepfakes startup, has teamed up with his research colleagues at UC Berkeley to develop technology that lets anyone dance like a pro. Think, for example, of the impressive dance moves of Bruno Mars. For this, the gentlemen used a type of artificial intelligence called GANs (generative adversarial networks), with which you can ‘read’ someone’s dance steps, copy them and ‘paste’ them on a target body. The system can be used for all kinds of dance styles – such as ballet, jazz, modern or hip-hop. First, videos of the source dancer and the target dancer are recorded. Then the images of the dancers turned into stick figures. After that, the swap takes place through a neural network synthesis video of the target dancer based on the stick figure movements of the sourcedancer – and voila! All you need for this are some video images and the right AI software. It’s impressive work and traditionally this kind of video manipulation with a whole team would take you several days. Humen AI aims to turn the dance video gimmick into an app and eventually develop a paid service for advertising agencies, video game developers, and even Hollywood studios. Ricky Wong, co-founder of Humen AI, says: “With three minutes of motion images and material from professionals, you can make anyone dance. We try to bring joy and fun to people’s lives.” Zhou adds, “The future we envision is one where anyone can create Hollywood-level content.”
Smart assistants and virtual people
Smart assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana have been around for a while and have improved a lot in recent years. However, they still feel somewhat like a new user interface that should give you exact instructions, rather than a virtual creature that you can interact with naturally. And one of the most important steps in creating credible virtual “human” assistants that we can interact with is the ability to mimic facial expressions, body posture, gestures and voices. These so-called virtual persons are slowly but surely becoming mainstream – think of digital influencers for example – and with them we communicate just like we do with real people. And while digital influencers don’t really respond to you in their own words, because their content is created by storytellers, they herald a future of “natural” interaction with real virtual creatures. With deepfake technology trained with countless examples of human behavior, we could give smart assistants the ability to make and understand high-quality conversations. And thanks to the same technology, even digital influencers can develop the ability to respond visually – in real time – in credible ways. Welcome to the future of virtual people. And thanks to the same technology, even digital influencers can develop the ability to respond visually – in real time – in credible ways. Welcome to the future of virtual people. And thanks to the same technology, even digital influencers can develop the ability to respond visually – in real time – in credible ways. Welcome to the future of virtual people.
Deep generative models offer new possibilities in healthcare
Deepfake technology can also offer many benefits in other sectors, such as healthcare. The tech can be used to synthesize realistic data to help researchers develop new treatment methods for diseases so that they are no longer dependent on patient data. Work in this area has already been conducted by a team of researchers from the Mayo Clinic, the MGH & BWH Center for Clinical Data Science, and NVIDIA, who have collaborated on using GANs (generative adversarial networks) to create synthetic brain MRI scans. develop. The team trained its GAN with data from two brain MRI datasets: one contained about two hundred MRIs showing tumors and the other thousands of MRIs showing signs of Alzheimer’s. According to the researchers, algorithms trained with a combination of “fake” medical images and 10 percent real images became just as adept at detecting tumors as algorithms trained only with real images. In their paper the researchers say: “Data diversity is critical to success in training deep learning models. Medical imaging data sets are often unbalanced because pathological findings are generally rare, which poses quite a few challenges when training deep learning models. We propose a method to generate synthetic MRI images of brain tumors by training a GAN. This provides an automatable, low-cost source of diverse data that can be used to complement the training set.” Because the images are generated synthetically, you no longer have to deal with privacy or patient data challenges. The generated data can be easily shared with different medical institutions, creating an endless variety of combinations that can be used to improve and speed up the work. The team hopes the model will help scientists generate new data that can be used to detect anomalies more quickly and accurately.
The dangers of deepfakes
As exciting and promising as deepfake technology may be, these developments also pose several serious challenges. The most important of these is the distribution of pornographic material featuring persons who have not given their consent. And according to a DeepTrace report, a whopping 96 percent of the deepfakes currently found online are made up of this type of material. There have also been several reports of deepfake audio being used for identity theft and extortion. The use of deepfakes potentially poses a huge security and political destabilization risk, as the technology can be used to spread fake news and lead to an increase in cybercrime, revenge porn, harassment, abuse and (fake) scandals. There is also a good chance that video images and audio files will soon no longer be allowed to be used as evidence in court, as they will become almost indistinguishable from the real thing. according to Brookings Institution, the social and political dangers of deepfakes include “disrupting democratic discourse; rigging elections; decreased trust in institutions; declining journalistic quality; exacerbation of social divisions; undermining public security; and inflicting hard-to-repair damage to the reputation of prominent individuals.” Deepfakes can also cause serious financial problems. Some examples include a British energy company that was tricked into making a $243 million fraudulent wire transfer and an audio deepfake used to defraud a US CEO out of $10 million. And here are some more important examples of the dangers of deepfakes.
New Year’s video speech leads to attempted military coup poging
The fact that more and more – and increasingly sophisticated – deepfakes are circulating on the internet can mean that any video that seems slightly outlandish can cause chaos. An example is the New Year video speech by Gabon’s President Ali Bongo in 2019. The president had not been seen in public for several months and the lack of answers from the government led to more and more speculation and doubt. The video subsequently caused growing suspicion among people in Gabon and international observers about the president’s well-being. Although the purpose of the video was to speculation about the poor health of the president of the world to help this plan failed because Bongo’s opponents were not convinced of the video’s authenticity. The opposition believed there was something odd about the president’s locomotion in the video footage. A week after the video’s release, Gabon’s military called for a coup d’état, which ultimately failed. Hany Farid, a computer science professor who specializes in digital forensics, said: “I just watched several other videos of President Bongo and they don’t resemble the speech patterns in this video, and even his appearance doesn’t look the same” . Farid added that he could not give a definitive assessment but that he felt “something was not right”.
Deepfakes as blackmail material for cheerleaders
A Pennsylvania woman was recently arrested for creating deepfakes of underage cheerleaders. The victims were her daughter’s rivals for the local cheerleading squad. With the fake images, the 50-year-old mother tried to put the girls in a bad light. Using photos and videos that the teens had shared on social media, the woman created fake photos and videos, in which it appeared that the girls were drinking alcohol and taking drugs naked. The woman then sent these deepfakes to the coaches to get the teens disqualified. The fake material was also sent to the girls themselves with a message urging them to commit suicide. According to the American media, the daughter herself would not have known about her mother’s actions. The mother is being charged with cyber abuse and related crimes. With regard to the first victim says Matt Weintraub, DA of Bucks County: “The suspect edited a real photo with some photoshop app to make it look like this teenage girl had no clothes on. But it was a social media screenshot showing the teen wearing swimsuits.”
Deepfake bots on Telegram create nude photos of women and children
Last year, more than 100,000 fake nude photos were generated by an ecosystem of bots at the request of Telegram users . The foundation of this ecosystem is an AI-powered bot that allows users to “strip” the clothing of images of women so that they appear naked. according to a report from the visual threat intelligence firm Sensity, “most of the original images appeared to have come from social media pages or directly from private communications, which the individuals in question probably didn’t know were being targeted. While this case mostly involved individuals, we also identified a significant number of social media influencers, game streamers and celebrities in the entertainment industry. In addition, a limited number of images appeared to be underage, suggesting that some were primarily using the bot to generate and distribute pedophile content.” The deepfakes have been shared on various social media platforms with the aim of public shaming, revenge or extortion. Most deepfake bots use DeepNude technology, but we see more and more similar apps popping up on the internet. All you have to do is upload a photo and then you’ll get a manipulated image back in minutes. Unfortunately, since Telegram uses encrypted messages, users can easily create anonymous accounts that are virtually impossible to trace. And while encryption technology is meant to protect users’ privacy and evade surveillance, it’s not hard to see how you can use these features for shady ends as well. Unfortunately, users can easily create anonymous accounts that are virtually impossible to trace. And while encryption technology is meant to protect users’ privacy and evade surveillance, it’s not hard to see how you can use these features for shady ends as well. Unfortunately, users can easily create anonymous accounts that are virtually impossible to trace. And while encryption technology is meant to protect users’ privacy and evade surveillance, it’s not hard to see how you can use these features for shady ends as well.
What can we do to distinguish fake from real?
As it stands, the number of deepfake videos circulating online has increased at an astonishingly estimated 900 percent annual rate. As technological advances have made it increasingly easy to produce deepfake content, more and more experts are wondering how we can curb the malicious use of this technology. One of the ways to do this – as in the case of cybercrime and phishing – is to raise public awareness and educate people about the dangers of deepfakes. Many companies have now launched technologies to recognize fake content, prevent its distribution or verify authentic content through blockchain or watermarks. However, the downside is that these detection and authentication methods can also be used by those same malicious actors to create even more convincing deepfakes. Here are some examples of technologies that have been developed to combat the misuse of deepfakes.
Deepfake policies of social media platforms
Social networks play the most important role in preventing deepfakes from being used for malicious purposes. Deepfakes are currently seen by social media platforms as any other content that is misleading or could lead to people being duped or otherwise disadvantaged. The policy of Instagram and Facebook for example to ‘manipulated media removal, excluding parodies. YouTube bans manipulated content that is misleading or poses serious risks, and TikTok removes “digital counterfeits” — including false health information — that are misleading and can cause harm. Reddit removes content that deceptively or deceptively impersonates people or entities, but makes an exception for satire and parody. However, as the number and quality of deepfakes continue to increase, it is unclear how social networks will be able to maintain these policies in the future. One thing they could do is automatically label deepfakes, whether or not they are harmful, so that at least more awareness is created.
Spotting super realistic deepfake images
Researchers at the University of Buffalo have developed an ingenious new tool that allows them to spot super-realistic deepfakes. In their paper tell the researchers about the method they have developed to distinguish authentic images from images generated by deepfake technology. They do this by carefully studying the eyes of the person in the picture. What the researchers found is that the reflections in both eyes of the person in an authentic photo due to the same lighting conditions are usually identical. With manipulated images, however, this is usually not the case. The tool has so far succeeded in recognizing images generated by deepfake technology in 94 percent of the cases. Incidentally, the tool is most accurate with photos taken with the portrait setting, which is often the case with close-up portrait photos.
Real attendance guarantee
In the fight against the abuse of deepfakes, it is critical that you can verify that the person you think you are dealing with online is actually real – and this can be done with iProov Genuine Presence Assurance. The iProov system uses biometric scans that can identify whether the person in question is indeed a living person and not a photo, video, mask, deepfake or other method to circumvent a (biometric) security system. The system works on mobile devices, computers or in unattended kiosks and is used by organizations around the world, such as the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. The NHS has opted for iProov biometric facial authenticationto improve users’ onboarding experience. Thanks to iProov’s Flashmark facial authentication technology, remote users can securely log into the NHS app to make appointments, access medical records and request repeat prescriptions. The process consists of submitting an ID photo and positioning the face on the screen. After a short series of flashes, the user’s identity is verified and he or she can use the NHS app.
Deepfake Antivirus
Sensity, an Amsterdam-based company developing deep learning technologies for monitoring and detecting deepfakes, has developed a visual threat intelligence platform that applies the same deep learning processes used in creating deepfakes. The system combines deepfake detection with advanced video forensic analysis and monitoring capabilities. The platform is a kind of antivirus for deepfakes and monitors more than 500 sources on the open and dark web where the chance of finding malicious deepfakes is high. It warns users when they view anything that may be AI-generated synthetic content and provides detailed ratings and threat analysis. When you upload URLs or your own photo and video files, Sensity analyzes them to get the latest, detect AI-based media manipulation and synthesis techniques, including fake human faces in social media profiles, dating apps or online financial services accounts. Sensity also provides access to the world’s most comprehensive deepfake database and other visual media targeting public figures, including insights into the sectors and countries most affected by this technology.
The future of fake – and other considerations
Pandora’s box has been opened and it seems that the race between creating deepfakes and detecting and preventing them will intensify in the future. Deepfake technology is becoming more and more accessible and it is becoming easier for ‘the average person’ to create deepfakes themselves. In addition, it is also becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish deepfake content from authentic content. Deepfakes will continue to evolve and spread. And challenges like the lack of detail in the synthesis will no doubt be overcome in the short term. Furthermore, improvements in neural network structures and advances in hardware are expected to significantly reduce training and delivery times. There are already new algorithms that can generate increasingly realistic – and almost real-time – outputs.
And while the use of deepfakes for good is rapidly increasing in industries such as entertainment, news and education, these developments will simultaneously lead to even more serious threats. Think of increasing crime, the dissemination of fake information, synthetic identity fraud, election manipulation and political tensions. Another aspect to consider is that deepfakes also have a very negative impact on our freedom of choice and identity. Using a photo you can actually make someone do all kinds of things – which in reality never happened at all – without anyone’s permission or even knowing anything about it.
It is clear that the misguided, deceptive use of deepfake technology needs to be curbed and tech experts, journalists and policy makers will play a crucial role in this. They are the right people to inform the public about the possibilities and dangers of synthetic media such as deepfakes. And if we teach ourselves to only trust content from solid, verified sources, we may discover that the good use of deepfakes outweighs the bad. With greater public awareness, we can mitigate the negative impact of deepfakes, find ways to deal with them, and in the future even see that we can also take advantage of the possibilities of deepfake technology.
If you want to get what you want, you first have to know what you want. Many people have no idea what they really want. Too busy scrolling, running and clicking. By definition, if you don’t know what you want, you can never get what you want. Because even if you had what you really long for, you wouldn’t recognize it as such. Think of the entrepreneur with a laptop on his lap. Working hard until late at night.
So that one day there. Time is for the other.
The other one who is now staring glassily ahead. Next to that entrepreneur on the couch.
Who is so busy with that screen. And has no eye for the other.
Make it measurable
As soon as you know what you really want (that’s less than you think) you have to break that life mission into concrete goals.
Specific.
A word I like to use. In a world where I see more and more people using more and more vague language. The benefit of vague language: Vague goals. The advantage of vague goals: It is not clear that you will not achieve them.
The advantage of being unclear about not controlling your shit: less pain.
The advantage of less pain: No incentive to change anything.
And so everything remains as it is. The result of the above cycle: Anesthesia for the pain that you feel that you are not living the way you want to live. I wish you pain if you don’t live the way you want to live now. So that you can do something about it. Now it’s still possible.
Levers!
If you have made your goals concrete, you want to look for the leverage for each goal: That one thing that takes care of almost all the results. Remember: Sometimes you have to do one thing right and the rest changes along with it.
If you want to live a healthier life, you can buy the most expensive supplements, worry about what material your yoga mat is made of and how many degrees the perfect angle is for your shoulder press and hardly achieve results. Or you don’t worry about anything and only focus on one thing: eating 500 grams of vegetables every day (leverage).
And you will notice that everything starts to improve positively. From your appearance to your energy, injuries and emotions.
Break up and schedule You then break that lever down into small concrete tasks and processes. And after all, you plan it in your agenda with a start and end time.
Dream big and blurry. Plan small and concrete.
I have gone through the above process for you on the four most important pillars of life: • Vitality • Power • Link • Trust
Getting a grip on your life before you die is simple and cheap. As long as you use the right structure and always keep refining.
Join the winning minority. Be the antivirus and break through
The power of your thoughts is enormous. Your thoughts determine your feelings. Your feelings determine your behavior. Your behavior determines your habits. Your habits determine your character – and your character determines your life. It all starts with what you think every day. Watch with me and find out for yourself:
Your thoughts determine your feelings.
Almost every feeling arises from a thought. Let’s take two people with two different thoughts on the same subject: The first person thinks, “Change is scary, I want to leave things as it is.” The second person thinks, “New things are interesting, I like change.”
The first person gets a bad feeling about change. The second gets excited and overcomes every challenge. That difference in feeling is no coincidence, it can hardly be otherwise. What you think about a particular topic determines how you feel about that topic.
Your feelings determine your behavior.
How you feel about a situation determines your behavior in that situation. That is why one person will love to be the center of attention, while the other likes to crawl under the table. The former can be found on the stage in the karaoke bar and act like a professional entertainer. Behavior that the other will rarely display, because there is no feeling for it.
Your daily behavior determines your habits.
Your behavior slowly becomes a habit. Maybe you have a habit of being around people a lot, or withdrawing from yourself on a regular basis. Regular exercise becomes a habit, going out regularly becomes a habit. It is my habit to read daily. What is your habit?
Your habits determine your character.
Does someone have a cheerful character, a difficult character, a critical character, a strong character, a social character? That does not happen automatically, it takes a lot of repetition! Much of our character comes from our habits – which we do every day. At birth everything is still free, but slowly our character takes shape.
When people say, “That’s just how I am”, they are referring to their character. Their character is their identity, it is who they are. They are unaware that they were not born with this. A character is the result of what we think, feel and do every day. That’s why people don’t just change. All those daily thoughts, feelings and habits have now become ingrained..
Your character determines your life
Tell me what you do on a daily basis and I predict where you are likely to be in five years. That’s no hocus-pocus. If you eat a bag of chips every day, you will probably be fatter in five years. If you read a book every day, you’ll probably be smarter in five years. If you walk and your course doesn’t change, we can see where your final destination is, can’t we?
What you think, feel or do every day is reinforced. The power of this is enormous. Change rarely comes in one huge step. Change is usually the result of hundreds of small steps. So the steps you take consistently every day. The steps you take in your work, in your relationships, in your health, in your personal growth. That determines where you go.
And the circle is complete!
Now we’ve come to the end – but it’s a circle, not a dead end. The experiences in your life reinforce your character. Your character reinforces what you do. That in turn reinforces how you feel. And that reinforces what you think. Now we are back at the beginning – to your thoughts. It is a continuous circle. Everything influences each other..
This whole story has only one point: Everything starts with what you think every day. If you generally have constructive and positive thoughts, you will feel good every day. From that good feeling you will make choices that suit you – and you will achieve your personal goals. This slowly shapes your habits and character. Be aware of what you think every day, because this determines your life..
You can do anything with a lot of energy. When you increase your energy level, you really start to live. But how do you get more energy?
Do as many things as you want. Ignore, avoid, or delegate the rest. Stop wasting your time doing things you don’t actually want to do. It’s your life. Don’t put it off anymore.
This is how you get 10 times more energy:
But first…
WHY DO WE WANT ENERGY?
Yes, why actually? That seems like a stupid question, but it is certainly not. As long as you don’t know the answer, you will keep looking in the wrong direction. Think about it: “Why do I want more energy?”
Most people answer, “So that I can do more things that need to be done.” More energy ensures that you can get through all the to-do lists, don’t get behind schedule – and hopefully have enough time for yourself afterwards.
That’s why people invented Time Management …
You just can’t do everything.
Unless you have very small goals (for example, getting up every day), you won’t be able to do everything you need to do. Not a chance!
Most people have more goals and then wish they had time for them. People who are actively engaged in time management are the same people who structurally take on too much hay.
They desperately try to plan everything in their agenda.
But that doesn’t solve the problem …
WHAT IS THE REAL PROBLEM?
The real problem with time is this: when you’re managing the things you need to do, you are missing out on the things you want to do.
In fact, that’s what it’s all about. And time management does not solve that problem. We need something else for that: Energy management.
What is Energy Management?
Energy management is based on managing your energy, not your time. Have you ever done what you thought was fantastic? Did you notice that it was no effort at all for you? That you could go on for hours? That it just made you happy?
Time was not important – it was about the energy it gave you. You don’t care how long it took.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN AND A HOT STOVE.
You have also experienced the opposite. Tasks that you dreaded enormously and that cost you a lot of energy. If you were doing that, time crawled. It took a lot of effort.
You only thought of one thing: “If only I were done with this!”
Einstein explained his Theory of Relativity: “When you’re with a beautiful woman, an hour seems to last only one minute. If you put your hand on a hot stove, one minute seems to take more than an hour. ”
That is the difference between things that give you energy and take energy.
Time is therefore relative and depends on what you do. Energy is absolute: either you have it – or you don’t.
Energy management in practice.
How do you apply this in practice now? How do you get more energy?
It’s all a matter of focus. Focus on the things you like. That make you happy, that make you happy. Spend more time on things:
1. Who you love. 2. That you easily go off. 3. Who inspire and stimulate you. 4. Which you could do for hours (or days!). 5. Which you also want to do in your spare time.
Ignore, avoid, or delegate what you don’t like.
What do you do with the things you don’t like? Try not to do as many of those things as possible.
You can also outsource them: get someone else to do it.
It gives me a lot of energy not to be busy with my accounting! And the person who does it for me actually gets energy from it. The perfect solution.
So do as many things as you want. Ignore, avoid, or delegate the rest. Stop wasting your time doing things you don’t actually want to do.
Read an inspiring book, look for your dream job, buy a hammock, spent your time with people you love or start a new hobby.
It’s your life. Only you decide how you want to spend it …
When do you really start to live?
When you increase your energy level, you really start to live. Gone are the moments when you sat exhausted on the couch and fell asleep in front of the TV. Gone are the spasmodic to-do lists. Gone is the feeling that you are waiting for your real life.
The moment you focus your attention on the things that give you energy, everything becomes easier.
You race through the day and hardly get tired. You achieve more and faster results. You become much more productive. You become happier and enjoy life more.
The question was, “Why do I want more energy?” The best answer is, “So I can do more things I want!”
Read also the following article:
How to manage and control strategic change in 2021:
