Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

A distinctive
feature of social and
cultural life at CMC

 

Trust and Truth in the Age of Generative AI

Thu, November 13, 2025
Dinner Program
Hany Farid

Generative AI—deepfakes—have captured the imagination of some and struck fear in others. Although they vary in their form and creation, deepfakes refer to text, image, audio, or video that has been automatically synthesized by a machine-learning system. Deepfakes are the latest in a long line of techniques used to manipulate reality, yet their introduction poses new opportunities and risks due to the democratized access to what would have historically been the purview of Hollywood-style studios. Hany Farid, professor of electrical engineering & computer sciences and the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley will discuss the decades long trajectory of technologies used to distort reality, how these latest AI powered technologies work, how deepfakes are being used and misused, and if (and how) they can be distinguished from reality.

 

Hany Farid is a professor with joint appointments in the School of Information and Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the co-founder and chief science officer at GetReal Security. His research focuses on digital forensics, forensic science, misinformation, image analysis, and human perception. 

Farid received his undergraduate degree in computer science and applied mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1989, and his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. Following a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, he joined the faculty at Dartmouth College in 1999 where he remained until 2019 when he joined the faculty at UC Berkeley. He is the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

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Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

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