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I agree tht I find it all pretty silly. You know what else can produce horrifying and immoral images? Pencil and paper. I suspect that quite a lot of this caut

I agree tht I find it all pretty silly. You know what else can produce horrifying and immoral images? Pencil and paper. I suspect that quite a lot of this caution is driven by Google and other large companies which want to slow everyone else down so they can win the new market on this tech. The remaining part of the caution appears to come from our neo-puritan era where there is a whole lot of pearl clutching over everything. Newsflash, humans are violent brutes, always have been.

jmfldn 4y ago
The key difference with pencil and paper being that I can't produce photoreal deep fakes at the speed of processing. That's not a valid comparison. You might be right in the second paragraph about the motivations for slowing this down. There clearly are reasons to be cautious here though, even if this isn't the real reason for the current caution.
- betwixthewires 4y ago
  Replace pencil and paper with a camera then if it makes you happy, although I don't think the quality of the images make a single bit of difference. Why should only the few have access to such a technology? Because some people will use it for naughty things? And that's what we are talking about here, about whether a minority should have permissioned access to a new technology, and particularly one that cannot directly actually cause physical harm. I can glean motivations surrounding all this from that observation alone.
  - NateEag 4y ago
    The digital camera is still several orders of magnitude slower and more expensive to operate than DALL-E or SD. Side note: if you're a materialist, you should believe that psychological harm is physical harm. It's obvious that being able to publish images of someone doing things they themselves find reprehensible could cause lots of trauma.
    - betwixthewires 4y ago
      Well thankfully I'm not, but even if I were I think that's a bit of a stretch. A materialist acknowledging an effect he cannot quantify or directly observe is not much of a materialist.
      - NateEag 4y ago
        I suppose that's fair. My point was that if there's only matter, then mental / psychological harm must be in some sense physical harm. (FWIW I lean not-materialist myself, but it's a common perspective around here so I thought it was worth pointing out)
  - jmfldn 4y ago
    I didn't say they shouldn't have access, re-read what I wrote. I was responding to the specific claim that AI-driven art generation is essentially the same as pencil drawing. Your point about photography is also comparing apples and oranges. There are fundamental differences here down to scale and accessibility of techniques that means anyone will soon be able to deep fake anything instantly. Fwiw, do I think this technology should be controlled by big tech? No way. Do I think this is Pandaora's box? Yes. If we don't reconcile the tricky tradeoffs between radical democratisation of this technology on the one hand vs heavy handed control on the other, we are in hot water. Tldr... it's complicated and it is not zero sum.
Bakary 4y ago
I am inclined to agree with OP's view, but consider the following scenario: mass uploads of brutal deepfaked pornographic videos involving your likeness and/or that of your loved ones. What would your reaction be? Personally, I would find that very disturbing to the point where it would affect my life. This isn't even a hypothetical but a reality celebrities already face to some extent. I'd say the usage of the tech will stabilize, but it's also the case that we have dark days ahead of us.
- thomastjeffery 4y ago
  Rumors are not a new social pattern. We've handled them fine so far. Your discomfort is not enough reason to stop the free speech of everyone else. It never was, and never will be. The most effective way to deal with the damage of deepfakes is to make them ubiquitous and accessible. The more familiar people are with the ability to create deepfake content, the more prepared they are to think critically and distrust it. The average person already knows that still images aren't flawless evidence. The world didn't fall apart after the first release of Photoshop.
  - croo 4y ago
    Is there any tool that can safely spot and decide between a picture of a deep fake and of a real one? So far the most reliable tool for that was a human moderator. With the new era of generated images there is no way to tell. You will simply have to distrust every image you see on the web.
    - thomastjeffery 4y ago
      Context. The more insulated a person is from the surrounding context of a video, the less leverage they have to determine its validity. It's just like speech: the farther gossip spreads, the less trustworthy it becomes.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Sure, with 14 fingers and 3 ears. Someone could also use photoshop and get a better result. This is nothing new in terms of risk, just a new tool.
pixl97 4y ago
Part of the disconnect you appear to be experiencing is the inability to take this just beyond "draw a picture". You seemed to have missed out on software driven machine control and decision making. Of course you may not mind whom the drone decides to kill as long as you're not the target. Also you seem to be affected by American sensibilities. If your AI decides to go full hiel in Germany you may find that the authorities have a lot of talk about with you.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  The AI draws something close to what you ask it to draw. Then you look at the results and decide to share it or delete it. You are in control, not the AI. The AI is a tool. Likewise with other AI applications. People decide to create these things, decide on the datasets they are trained on, and put them in the pipeline and every day decide to keep them plugged in. This is still human centered technology.

jmfldn 4y ago

The key difference with pencil and paper being that I can't produce photoreal deep fakes at the speed of processing. That's not a valid comparison. You might be right in the second paragraph about the motivations for slowing this down. There clearly are reasons to be cautious here though, even if this isn't the real reason for the current caution.

betwixthewires 4y ago
Replace pencil and paper with a camera then if it makes you happy, although I don't think the quality of the images make a single bit of difference. Why should only the few have access to such a technology? Because some people will use it for naughty things? And that's what we are talking about here, about whether a minority should have permissioned access to a new technology, and particularly one that cannot directly actually cause physical harm. I can glean motivations surrounding all this from that observation alone.
- NateEag 4y ago
  The digital camera is still several orders of magnitude slower and more expensive to operate than DALL-E or SD. Side note: if you're a materialist, you should believe that psychological harm is physical harm. It's obvious that being able to publish images of someone doing things they themselves find reprehensible could cause lots of trauma.
  - betwixthewires 4y ago
    Well thankfully I'm not, but even if I were I think that's a bit of a stretch. A materialist acknowledging an effect he cannot quantify or directly observe is not much of a materialist.
    - NateEag 4y ago
      I suppose that's fair. My point was that if there's only matter, then mental / psychological harm must be in some sense physical harm. (FWIW I lean not-materialist myself, but it's a common perspective around here so I thought it was worth pointing out)
- jmfldn 4y ago
  I didn't say they shouldn't have access, re-read what I wrote. I was responding to the specific claim that AI-driven art generation is essentially the same as pencil drawing. Your point about photography is also comparing apples and oranges. There are fundamental differences here down to scale and accessibility of techniques that means anyone will soon be able to deep fake anything instantly. Fwiw, do I think this technology should be controlled by big tech? No way. Do I think this is Pandaora's box? Yes. If we don't reconcile the tricky tradeoffs between radical democratisation of this technology on the one hand vs heavy handed control on the other, we are in hot water. Tldr... it's complicated and it is not zero sum.

Bakary 4y ago

I am inclined to agree with OP's view, but consider the following scenario: mass uploads of brutal deepfaked pornographic videos involving your likeness and/or that of your loved ones. What would your reaction be? Personally, I would find that very disturbing to the point where it would affect my life. This isn't even a hypothetical but a reality celebrities already face to some extent. I'd say the usage of the tech will stabilize, but it's also the case that we have dark days ahead of us.

thomastjeffery 4y ago
Rumors are not a new social pattern. We've handled them fine so far. Your discomfort is not enough reason to stop the free speech of everyone else. It never was, and never will be. The most effective way to deal with the damage of deepfakes is to make them ubiquitous and accessible. The more familiar people are with the ability to create deepfake content, the more prepared they are to think critically and distrust it. The average person already knows that still images aren't flawless evidence. The world didn't fall apart after the first release of Photoshop.
- croo 4y ago
  Is there any tool that can safely spot and decide between a picture of a deep fake and of a real one? So far the most reliable tool for that was a human moderator. With the new era of generated images there is no way to tell. You will simply have to distrust every image you see on the web.
  - thomastjeffery 4y ago
    Context. The more insulated a person is from the surrounding context of a video, the less leverage they have to determine its validity. It's just like speech: the farther gossip spreads, the less trustworthy it becomes.
dougmwne 4y ago
Sure, with 14 fingers and 3 ears. Someone could also use photoshop and get a better result. This is nothing new in terms of risk, just a new tool.

pixl97 4y ago

Part of the disconnect you appear to be experiencing is the inability to take this just beyond "draw a picture". You seemed to have missed out on software driven machine control and decision making. Of course you may not mind whom the drone decides to kill as long as you're not the target. Also you seem to be affected by American sensibilities. If your AI decides to go full hiel in Germany you may find that the authorities have a lot of talk about with you.

dougmwne 4y ago
The AI draws something close to what you ask it to draw. Then you look at the results and decide to share it or delete it. You are in control, not the AI. The AI is a tool. Likewise with other AI applications. People decide to create these things, decide on the datasets they are trained on, and put them in the pipeline and every day decide to keep them plugged in. This is still human centered technology.