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Genuine question, why is this a problem? Sure, someone may be able to generate thousands of real-sounding fake news articles, but it's not like they will also b

Genuine question, why is this a problem? Sure, someone may be able to generate thousands of real-sounding fake news articles, but it's not like they will also be able to flood the New York Times with these articles. How do you worry you will be exposed to these articles?

xerxespoy 6y ago
Journalists are paid by the word.
hnlmorg 6y ago
If recent times have told us anything, it's that the biggest distributor of "news" is social media. And worse still, people generally have no interest in researching the items they read. If "fake news" confirms their pre-existing bias then they will automatically believe it. If real news disagrees with their biases then it is considered fake. So in theory, the rise of deep fakes could lead to more people getting suckered into conspiracy theories and other such extreme opinions. We've already seen a small trend this way with low resolution images of different people with vaguely similar physical features because used as "evidence" of actors in hospitals / shootings / terrorist scenes / etc. That all said, I don't see this as a reason not to pursue GPT-3. From that regard the proverbial genie is already out of the bottle. What we need to work on is a better framework for distributing knowledge.
chimprich 6y ago
It's not me I'm worried about - it's the 50% [1] of people who get their news from social media and "entertainment" news platforms. These people vote, and can get manipulated into performing quite extreme acts. At the moment a lot of people seem to have trouble engaging with reality, and that seems to be caused by relatively small disinformation campaigns and viral rumours. How much worse could it get when there's a vast number of realistic-sounding news articles appearing, accompanied by realistic AI-generated photos and videos? And that might not even be the biggest problem. If these things can be generated automatically and easily, it's going to be very easy to dismiss real information as fake. The labelling of real news as "fake news" phenomenon is going to get bigger. It's going to be more work to distinguish what is real from what is fake. If it's possible to find articles supporting any position and a suspicion that any contrary new is then a lot of people are going to find it easier to just believe what they prefer to believe... even more than they do now. [1] made-up number, but doesn't feel far off.
- profunctor 6y ago
  That fact that you made up that number is extremely funny in this context.
  - chimprich 6y ago
    I don't think so - I was aware that it was a made-up number, and highlighted the fact that it was. It's the lack of awareness of what is backed up by data that is the problem I think. Or am I missing your point?
    - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
      Right, it's definitely goof that you cited it being fake, but I think the parent was pointing out the subtle (and likely unintentional) irony of discussing fake news while providing _fake_ numbers to support your opinion.
- perpetualpatzer 6y ago
  > made-up number, but doesn't feel far off. Pew Research says 18% report getting news primarily from social media (fielded 10/19-6/20)[0]. November 2019 research said 41% among 18-29 year olds, which was the peak age group. Older folks largely watch news on TV[1]. [0] https://www.journalism.org/2020/07/30/americans-who-mainly-get-their-news-on-social-media-are-less-engaged-less-knowledgeable/ https://www.journalism.org/2020/07/30/americans-who-mainly-g... [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/pathways-2020/NEWS_MOST/age/us_adults https://www.pewresearch.org/pathways-2020/NEWS_MOST/age/us_a...
  - chimprich 6y ago
    Thanks for providing data. Evidence is better than making up numbers.
- jokethrowaway 6y ago
  The majority of "fake news" are factual news described from a partial point of view and with a political spin. Even fact checkers are not immune to this and brand other news as true or false not based on facts but based on the political spin they favour. Fake news is a vastly overstated problem. Thanks to internet, we now have a wider breadth of political news and opinions and it's easy to label everything-but-your-side as fake news. There are a few patently false lies on the internet which are taken as examples of fake news - but they have very few supporters.

xerxespoy 6y ago

Journalists are paid by the word.

hnlmorg 6y ago

If recent times have told us anything, it's that the biggest distributor of "news" is social media. And worse still, people generally have no interest in researching the items they read. If "fake news" confirms their pre-existing bias then they will automatically believe it. If real news disagrees with their biases then it is considered fake. So in theory, the rise of deep fakes could lead to more people getting suckered into conspiracy theories and other such extreme opinions. We've already seen a small trend this way with low resolution images of different people with vaguely similar physical features because used as "evidence" of actors in hospitals / shootings / terrorist scenes / etc. That all said, I don't see this as a reason not to pursue GPT-3. From that regard the proverbial genie is already out of the bottle. What we need to work on is a better framework for distributing knowledge.

chimprich 6y ago

It's not me I'm worried about - it's the 50% [1] of people who get their news from social media and "entertainment" news platforms. These people vote, and can get manipulated into performing quite extreme acts. At the moment a lot of people seem to have trouble engaging with reality, and that seems to be caused by relatively small disinformation campaigns and viral rumours. How much worse could it get when there's a vast number of realistic-sounding news articles appearing, accompanied by realistic AI-generated photos and videos? And that might not even be the biggest problem. If these things can be generated automatically and easily, it's going to be very easy to dismiss real information as fake. The labelling of real news as "fake news" phenomenon is going to get bigger. It's going to be more work to distinguish what is real from what is fake. If it's possible to find articles supporting any position and a suspicion that any contrary new is then a lot of people are going to find it easier to just believe what they prefer to believe... even more than they do now. [1] made-up number, but doesn't feel far off.

profunctor 6y ago
That fact that you made up that number is extremely funny in this context.
- chimprich 6y ago
  I don't think so - I was aware that it was a made-up number, and highlighted the fact that it was. It's the lack of awareness of what is backed up by data that is the problem I think. Or am I missing your point?
  - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
    Right, it's definitely goof that you cited it being fake, but I think the parent was pointing out the subtle (and likely unintentional) irony of discussing fake news while providing _fake_ numbers to support your opinion.
perpetualpatzer 6y ago
> made-up number, but doesn't feel far off. Pew Research says 18% report getting news primarily from social media (fielded 10/19-6/20)[0]. November 2019 research said 41% among 18-29 year olds, which was the peak age group. Older folks largely watch news on TV[1]. [0] https://www.journalism.org/2020/07/30/americans-who-mainly-get-their-news-on-social-media-are-less-engaged-less-knowledgeable/ https://www.journalism.org/2020/07/30/americans-who-mainly-g... [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/pathways-2020/NEWS_MOST/age/us_adults https://www.pewresearch.org/pathways-2020/NEWS_MOST/age/us_a...
- chimprich 6y ago
  Thanks for providing data. Evidence is better than making up numbers.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
The majority of "fake news" are factual news described from a partial point of view and with a political spin. Even fact checkers are not immune to this and brand other news as true or false not based on facts but based on the political spin they favour. Fake news is a vastly overstated problem. Thanks to internet, we now have a wider breadth of political news and opinions and it's easy to label everything-but-your-side as fake news. There are a few patently false lies on the internet which are taken as examples of fake news - but they have very few supporters.