Board of Directors

Treasurer

Işil Arican
Yalansavar

Directors

Bill Patterson

Herb Masters
Bay Area Science, SciSchmooze Newsletter, ExplOratorium

Steven Newton
College of Marin

6 August: Café Inquiry, Menlo Park
7 August: Skeptics in the Pub, Sunnyvale
18 August: North Bay Skeptics, Online
24 August: East Bay Skeptics, Berkeley
26 August: Skeptics in the Pub
10 September: SkepTalk, Berkeley

Café Inquiry: Menlo Park

POSTPONED
WHAT: A great gathering of nerds!

WHEN: 6PM Thursday 6 August

WHERE: Café Barrone, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park. A 2-minute walk from Menlo Park Caltrain. [Map]

HOW: Hosted by Center for Inquiry, SF and Bay Area Skeptics.

Skeptics in the Pub: Sunnyvale

WHAT: Upholding the tradition of skeptics groups: good free-flowing discussions with food and ale.

WHEN: 7PM Friday 7 August

WHERE: Firehouse Grill, 111 S. Murphy Avenue, Sunnyvale [Map]

HOW: Brought to you by the Silicon Valley Skeptics.

North Bay Skeptics: Online

What: Join the North Bay Skeptics celebrating the scientific method while discussing current topics and consuming non-homeopathic liquids.

When: 7PM Tuesday 18 August

Where: Online

East Bay Skeptics Dinner: Berkeley

POSTPONED
WHAT: Meet for dinner and discussion. Sometimes there is a topic and sometimes there is just open discussion of whatever is on people’s minds. Ordering dinner starts at 6pm, discussion starts after eating is finished.

WHEN: 6PM Sunday 24 August

WHERE: Barney’s Gourmet Hamburgers, 1600 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley [Map]

HOW: Hosted by the East Bay Skeptics.

Skeptics in the Pub

POSTPONED

Join lads & lassies from hill & dale
discussing pseudoscience & science
over good eats & ale.
WHEN: 7PM Wednesday 26 August (4th Wednesday)

WHERE: Fiddlers Green, 333 El Camino Real, Millbrae. A 10 minute stroll from the Millbrae BART & Caltrain station. [Map]

HOW: Hosted by the Bay Area Skeptics and Center for Inquiry, SF.

SkepTalk: Berkeley

Nicholas Dufour

WHAT: Deepfakes, GANs and Visual Misinformation
The rise of Deepfakes has prompted intense coverage in the press, concern from government officials, and fear among the public. Deepfakes, along with GANs (generative adversarial networks), are a class of “generative” neural networks capable of creating highly realistic synthetic images. The widespread availability of open-source Deepfake tools means anyone with access to a computer can potentially create photorealistic fake videos and images. These fakes can, for instance, portray high-profile individuals in arbitrary–possibly compromising–situations. Because of their wide availability, relative ease of use, and harm potential, the technology has been the subject of considerable scrutiny and debate.

In this talk, we’ll discuss the current state of AI-generated imagery, including Deepfakes and GANs: how they work, their capabilities, and what the future may hold. We’ll try to separate the hype from reality, and examine the social consequences of these technologies with a special focus on the effect that the idea of Deepfakes has had on the public. We’ll consider the visual misinformation landscape more broadly, including so-called “shallowfakes” and “cheapfakes” like Photoshop. Finally, we’ll review the challenges and promise of the global research community that has emerged around detecting visual misinformation.

WHO: Nick Dufour is a Senior Software Engineer at Google Research, and a member of the team overseeing research into Deepfakes and visual misinformation. Nick joined Google in 2016 following his graduate work in Machine Learning at Stanford University.

WHEN: 7:30PM Thursday 10 September

WHERE: La Peña Lounge, 3105 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley [Map]

HOW: This event is presented FREE by the Bay Area Skeptics.

WHY: Because we’re curious creatures.

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