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So I clicked the link in the article (for science, so you don’t have to) and I’m blown away. People are doing this on home computer rigs? I thought I was going

So I clicked the link in the article (for science, so you don’t have to) and I’m blown away. People are doing this on home computer rigs? I thought I was going to find some really crappy paste jobs but instead I found myself having to completely second guess what I was seeing. Some of the videos of course suffer from odd minor defects that give up their authenticity but others were flat out as real as anything else I’ve ever seen. Now I’m concerned about the implications of this. We already know any image can be faked and almost any video but we also laugh at people who say the moon landings were faked. Given this though how could anyone believe video evidence of say, the president with Stormy Daniels, which is a matter of unfortunate import with real consequences? How hard would it be to fake an international incident from multiple vantage points?

Florin_Andrei 9y ago
I've taken some machine learning classes and I've played with TensorFlow a bit. None of this was a big surprise to me. But the overall implications are deeply troubling. I am tempted to say we're not entering a "post-truth" era, but more like a "post-reason" era. It's almost like rational thought has painted itself in a corner. These videos are almost like a mathematical "proof" too complex to be independently verified, or too complex for a human (and those are happening too). If reason is hitting a ceiling, I'm not sure what else we could use to steer a coherent society through whatever murky waters might lay ahead.
- carapace 9y ago
  You go from rule-based thinking to feedback-based interaction. Part of the picture is described by the old saw about international politics: "No permanent allies, only permanent interests." I do believe we are entering what I call a "trans-rational" era. There are stable strange attractors beyond the Age of Reason. Our technology is forcing us to confront the questions of who we are and what we want to do with ourselves.

Florin_Andrei 9y ago

I've taken some machine learning classes and I've played with TensorFlow a bit. None of this was a big surprise to me. But the overall implications are deeply troubling. I am tempted to say we're not entering a "post-truth" era, but more like a "post-reason" era. It's almost like rational thought has painted itself in a corner. These videos are almost like a mathematical "proof" too complex to be independently verified, or too complex for a human (and those are happening too). If reason is hitting a ceiling, I'm not sure what else we could use to steer a coherent society through whatever murky waters might lay ahead.

carapace 9y ago
You go from rule-based thinking to feedback-based interaction. Part of the picture is described by the old saw about international politics: "No permanent allies, only permanent interests." I do believe we are entering what I call a "trans-rational" era. There are stable strange attractors beyond the Age of Reason. Our technology is forcing us to confront the questions of who we are and what we want to do with ourselves.