Keynote speakers - AI4MFDD2026

Prof. Sebastiano Battiato
University of Catania, Italy

Prof. Roberto Caldelli
Universitas Mercatorum (Rome) and
CNIT (Florence), Italy

Abstract: The rapid advancement of generative AI has fundamentally altered the landscape of multimedia authenticity, with text-to-image and text-to-video models now producing synthetic content of unprecedented realism. The forensic community faces a structural challenge: detection alone is insufficient in an ecosystem where generators evolve faster than detectors, adversarial counter-forensic techniques actively undermine recognition systems, and the human observers who interpret forensic evidence are themselves subject to systematic cognitive distortions. This talk examines the problem across three interconnected dimensions. The first is human: psychological research demonstrates that awareness of AI capabilities engenders measurable biases in forensic judgment — most notably the impostor bias, a pervasive skepticism that leads examiners to question even authentic media, compounded by automation bias when algorithmic outputs override critical reasoning. The second is technical: while deepfake detection and source attribution have advanced substantially, generalisation across unseen generators, robustness to post-processing, and interpretability of model decisions remain structurally open problems — and recent benchmarks reveal a persistent gap between academic performance metrics and operational forensic deployment. The third is adversarial: counter-forensic strategies, from imperceptible perturbations to anti-detection pipelines, evolve in parallel with detection methods, demanding that the field treat robustness not as an afterthought but as a design principle. These technical findings are situated within the current legal and normative landscape — including the transparency obligations of the EU AI Act (Article 50, enforceable August 2026), the fragility of watermarking standards, and the epistemic responsibilities of the expert witness in judicial proceedings. The talk also highlights ongoing community-building efforts — workshops, summer schools, and special issues — aimed at establishing shared scientific standards across research, law enforcement, and the judiciary. The talk concludes with an honest assessment of what current science can and cannot deliver: explainable results, quantified uncertainty, and the intellectual humility to communicate the boundaries of the knowable to courts, regulators, and the public.

Sebastiano Battiato is Full Professor of Computer Science at the University of Catania, Italy. His research interests include Computer Vision, Multimedia Forensics, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Imaging, with particular emphasis on digital media authenticity, deepfake detection, AI-generated content, and forensic analysis of images and videos. He has published extensively in leading international journals and conferences, coordinated and participated in numerous national and international research projects, and is co-inventor of about 25 patents. His research has also led to longstanding collaborations with industry, institutions, law-enforcement agencies, and forensic practitioners. He is co-founder of the academic spin-off iCTLab, promoting technology transfer and innovative solutions in AI, Computer Vision, and Digital Forensics. Over the years, he has held several academic leadership positions at the University of Catania, including Coordinator of the PhD Program in Computer Science and Vice Rector, and he currently serves as Vice Director of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. He is co-founder and Director of the International Computer Vision Summer School (ICVSS) and the International Forensics Summer School (IFOSS) and has been actively involved in the international Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition community. Among his recognitions, he received the 2017 PAMI Mark Everingham Prize and was named IAPR Fellow in 2026.

Abstract: Digital media manipulation has evolved from localized pixel editing into a complex, algorithm-driven challenge powered by generative AI. This keynote provides a deep technical exploration of how fake detection has adapted to this shift, charting the evolution of detection methodologies from traditional statistical heuristics to advanced deep learning architectures. The talk will analyze how the concept of fake detection has evolved through time from classic digital forensics, which relied on detecting hand-crafted artifacts, to the current AI-dominated landscape. As Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Diffusion Models eliminated these traditional traces, detection paradigms had to pivot. The session will try to understand how old clues can still be used for detection and how previous concepts can be applied yet. In order to redefine new opportunities for detection methods, the definition of what is “real” nowadays will be dissected. Finally, the keynote will address the core technical bottlenecks facing current detectors, including generalization gaps across unseen generative models and robustness in real-world applications; considerations and open issues for deepfake detection, also with respect to the EU AI Act, will be provided.

Roberto Caldelli (IEEE Senior Member 2017) graduated with honors in Electronic Engineering in 1997 and obtained a PhD in Computer and Telecommunications Engineering in 2001, both from the University of Florence. From 2005 to 2013 he was a researcher at the MICC (Media Integration and Communication Center) of the University of Florence. In 2014 he became a permanent researcher at the CNIT (National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications) and coordinates the Multimedia Forensics and Security Laboratory of the Florence Research Unit. In May 2018 he became Associate Professor at Mercatorum University, also holding the position of President of the Degree Course in Computer Engineering; since January 2023 he has assumed the role of Full Professor at the Mercatorum University. His more than twenty years of research activity, evidenced by numerous publications, focuses mainly on the study of techniques for digital image processing, digital watermarking of images and videos, cybersecurity, multimedia forensics, deepfake detection in images and video and adversarial attacks. He has participated in numerous national and European research projects also with coordination roles. He is co-author of two patents in the field of content security and multimedia interaction and of over 100 scientific articles published in international journals and conferences. He was an elected member of the Signal Processing Society IEEE Information Forensics and Security Technical Committee (2016-2008, 2021-2023) and has been an IEEE Senior Member since 2017. He has been Associate and Senior Area Editor of several international journals such as IEEE Transactions on Multimedia and IEEE Signal Processing Letters, he is nowadays Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security.