James F. O'Brien is a computer graphics researcher and professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also co-founder and chief science officer at Avametric, a company developing software for virtual clothing try on.[1] In 2015, he received an award for Scientific and Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
O'Brien has published an extensive collection of research papers on topics such as surface reconstruction, human figure animation, mesh generation, physically based animation, surgical simulation, computational fluid dynamics, and fracture propagation.[3]
"To Ben Cole for the design of the Kali Destruction System, to Eric Parker for the development of the Digital Molecular Matter toolkit, and to James O’Brien for his influential research on the finite element methods that served as a foundation for these tools. The combined innovations in Kali and DMM provide artists with an intuitive, art-directable system for the creation of scalable and realistic fracture and deformation simulations. These tools established finite element methods as a new reference point for believable on-screen destruction."
Prof O'Brien is a noted expert on detection and analysis of fake images and video.
He has frequently worked with news organizations on exposing fake or altered photographs,[7][8][9][10] as well as images created by generative artificial intelligence software.[11][12] His methods have been used to expose fabrication of medical research records [13] prosecute child pornographers, validate evidentiary videos,[14][15] and rule out conspiracy theories relating to photographs of the Moon landing.[16][17] In response to their work debunking assertions that the shadows in photos of the 1969 Moon Landing[18][19][20] and of Lee Harvey Oswald, coauthor Hany Farid has been accused by conspiracy theorists of being a time-traveling CIA operative.[21]
In addition to developing methods for detecting fake images and video,[22][23][24] O'Brien's has studied the impact of fake media on viewers and investigated what factors contribute to a viewer's acceptance or skepticism regarding the media they consume.[25][26][27] Prof. O'Brien has stated that due to rapid progress in machine learning "it will be impossible to tell the difference between a generated image and a real one" and that detection software will be in an arms race that will eventually be lost to generative AI. He advocates for changing societal attitudes regarding trusting media and that viewers should suspect everything as potentially fake.[28][29]
