Belz...
Fiend God
Within a short time it'll be near-impossible to know what's real and not on the internet.
Time to pull the plug. Inventing computers was a mistake. And I'm a tech guy!
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Deepfake videos muddy the water even more.
- Thread starter Skeptic Ginger
- Start date
Within a short time it'll be near-impossible to know what's real and not on the internet.
Time to pull the plug. Inventing computers was a mistake. And I'm a tech guy!
Belz...
Fiend God
And that's the problem. It's becoming more and more difficult to identify them, and for them to identify other good sources as well.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Alarming, but not unexpected. Another milestone along a route we have been traveling for a while.
As I age I find myself questioning whether some new development (be it a trending outlook or behavior that I find irrational, or a technology that seems troublesome and unnecessary at the same time) is causing me rational alarm, or simply triggering some kind of "get off my lawn" knee jerk defensiveness.
I can't see the erosion of every source of information about things that I did not personally witness as having any redeeming characteristics though. However hard I try to avoid being a technological Luddite.
You do realize that human perceptions are not reliable indicators of how things actually are, right? Nothing has changed: we are all still just minds using fallible tools to attempt to know things outside of ourselves. Video can deceive you? Your eyes deceive you! They always have.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
On this I disagree. Commodity video has only been a recent addition to how we "know" things about the world. A hundred years ago, and for thousands of years before that, people managed to learn about the world just fine without needing to see video footage from someone's
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I disagree about this. Deepfakes are the end of viral videos purporting to be leaks of real police camera footage.
Police camera footage with a known chain of custody, presented at evidence in a controlled venue such as the courtroom, and subjected to expert analysis, is going to be fine for the forseeable future.
Butter!
Rough Around the Edges
Great. Cue fake revenge porn in 5... 4... 3...
"That's not me, boss, I swear - it's a deepfake."
"Maybe. But I think we're going to go in a different direction."
"That's not me, boss, I swear - it's a deepfake."
"Maybe. But I think we're going to go in a different direction."
Butter!
Rough Around the Edges
Looking around here, most of the example videos I'm seeing still look pretty darn weird and fake. I don't think your average person would necessarily be fooled. Of course, the tech will surely improve, so who knows how long that will be the case.
Also, I suppose it doesn't really matter whether I can tell something is fake if a bunch of loons on the internet believe it and make a fuss about it. It's hard for me to tell if those touting the "drunk Pelosi" video truly believe it or if they're just trying to make trouble. I'm sure at least a few people have genuine belief.
Info about "drunk Pelosi" deepfake - https://slate.com/technology/2019/0...s-artificial-intelligence-disinformation.html
I honestly don't understand how people don't hear a pitch-shift there. I'm an audio nerd, but still.
Also, I suppose it doesn't really matter whether I can tell something is fake if a bunch of loons on the internet believe it and make a fuss about it. It's hard for me to tell if those touting the "drunk Pelosi" video truly believe it or if they're just trying to make trouble. I'm sure at least a few people have genuine belief.
Info about "drunk Pelosi" deepfake - https://slate.com/technology/2019/0...s-artificial-intelligence-disinformation.html
I honestly don't understand how people don't hear a pitch-shift there. I'm an audio nerd, but still.
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alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
As demonstrated in Memphis today, fake video is not needed to get a mob riled up. Just rumors and instant social media.
I think at this point deepfakes in general aren't good enough for people to literally believe on some real intellectual level.
They are simply good enough to be used as a means to an end.
Which is again why I'm not really seeing the "tipping point" here.
Literally nobody who liked Pelosi didn't like here after watching that video and literally nobody who disliked her before need the video to dislike her. And that would have held accurate had the video been undetectably perfect. Sure once it's perfected there's gonna be a few people in the margins swayed by it, but it's not gonna make a statistical difference for a public video, lest of all one who's in a leadership position in one of the tribes.
All deepfakes, once "perfected" on a practical level which is gonna be any day now technologically speaking, are gonna do is preach to the choir.
I'm a lot more worried about one one one deepfakes ("Pay me 200,000 in bitcoin or this video of you screwing the babysitter gets sent to your wife" kind of thing) then them being used to sway public opinion about politics. That would be pissing in the ocean level of pointless at point. Political discourse is already intellectual dead, there's no point in putting a bullet in its head.
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theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
I just assume that any viral video supporting a political point is fake. Either deep, or misrepresented, or out of context, or something, but fake.
I'm still willing to provisionally accept video clips hosted on a mainstream media site. One day, we'll hear about CNN.com being hacked and serving a deepfake as if it were real events, and that will be the end of my provisional acceptance of reputably-hosted video.
I'm still willing to provisionally accept video clips hosted on a mainstream media site. One day, we'll hear about CNN.com being hacked and serving a deepfake as if it were real events, and that will be the end of my provisional acceptance of reputably-hosted video.
Distracted1
Philosopher
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Why on earth would anybody waste this technology on politics? The clear purpose of it is for entertainment. I want a video of Hitler singing "Poker Face". I want a video of Divine giving the stewardess airline safety speech. I want a video of Queen Elizabeth II giving Jerri Blank's "I like the pole and the hole" speech.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Now you're getting it.
Oh I'm sure we'll get a lot of stuff like that.
Hell even beyond that this a technology that can be used for good. Amateurs using commercial or even free software on home PC level hardware where able to remove Henry Cavill's mustache in Justice League footage and insert Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia into Rogue One with results far superior to what we got from full on special effects studios.
This is not a dark cloud with no silver lining.
I also wonder about it's ability to do things like general film restoration.
Belz...
Fiend God
If CNN can't tell the difference between a real video portraying a political candidate doing or saying something terrible, it might make the news, be nearly impossible to dispel, and thus have an impact on an election. I'd be concerned about that.
Distracted1
Philosopher
Or a video of a missile hitting the Pentagon on 9/11/2001 ?
A video of Rodney King striking police officers before his beating?
The ability to more effectively disseminate propaganda is not disconcerting to you?
Belz...
Fiend God
Our increasing inability to tell fact from fiction is already causing problems.
But that's kind of what I'm saying. We had footage of man walking on the moon in 1969 way before "fake video" was even a thing and people still don't believe that happened.
People already look a fake videos and go "That's real" and real videos and go "that's fake" now.
"Fact from fiction" is gone, off the table, probably never coming back. We're in a post-truth worth. The concept is dead.
People already look a fake videos and go "That's real" and real videos and go "that's fake" now.
"Fact from fiction" is gone, off the table, probably never coming back. We're in a post-truth worth. The concept is dead.
Belz...
Fiend God
Yes and my point is that this is just going to make it worse. Perhaps take things beyond the truth horizon.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
As Distracted1 just pointed out, we've always had this inability. Deepfakes are just doing for video news what has always been the case for printed news.