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I'm sorry, "unexpected"? Did no one in the team at the New York Times understand what was meant by the term "post-truth world"? People on this site alone were t

I'm sorry, "unexpected"? Did no one in the team at the New York Times understand what was meant by the term "post-truth world"? People on this site alone were talking about how the advancement of AI tools would make the idea of video evidence of crimes obsolete years ago! Anyone who's been paying the slightest bit of attention to the capabilities of these tools and their immediate, obvious consequences has been anticipating this for a long time. Even the very idea of video and photographic evidence being fakable is going to result in people rejecting it when it conflicts with their narratives. And it's hard to fault them; we're living in Descartes' world now.

zadler 3y ago
What was descartes’ works, for the lazy and uninformed?
- tgv 3y ago
  I think the comment refers to Descartes idea of solipsism, where we can't know the truth, because something might be beguiling our senses. From there, Descartes derives his famous "cogito ergo sum." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum#Discourse_on_the_Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum#Discourse_on_...
- ben30 3y ago
  “Descartes’ world” implies radical doubt, even doubting what seems obvious. Relevant to AI and fake videos undermining trust in evidence.
- nightpenguin 3y ago
  I think he means the mind experiment from Descartes where he assumes everything around him has been created by some demon to fool him and in that case the only thing he can be certain about is that he is thinking (or you exist, I'm not sure). I'm also not an expert but that's what I understood from the original comment. Hope this helps
- postpawl 3y ago
  “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” -René Descartes
- alexvoda 3y ago
  GP is probably talking about Descartes's famous line "I think therefore I am" an the relation of this line to Solipsism. Solipsism, to quote Wikipedia: is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. GenAI reduces what once was photo/video/audio proof to uncertainty both through quality (AI can create better fakes) and quantity (it is much easier to use AI to create fakes, therefore much more people will do so).
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    AI Fakes are only good if you're too lazy to look for literally any counter evidence. I can make an AI Fake that Donald Trump has two heads. It could look convincing. It would not take much effort to disprove that. It's not clear to me why this is any bigger than rumors and propaganda and gossip. If you're susceptible to that, you're susceptible to deep fakes, but you were already trapped in a bed of lies. I still maintain that it has never been easier to seek the truth than today.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Imagine two lines. One is the availability of "real information". The other is availability of high quality bullshit/fake information. You're used to dealing with a past where there was a low availability of real information, but also low availability of high quality fake information. What many are pointing out is that it appears very soon a convergence will occur where most information becomes high quality bullshit. More and more of your time is going to be spent disproving it's not real and you fall into the trap of 'Bullshit Asymmetry'. You've fallen into a trap where you 'know' you'll recognize the truth when it occurs because 'reasons'. It's the wrong way to look at the problem. Instead say "How much energy/time am I going to spend debunking bullshit", because once it's more time/energy then you have, it's game over.
      - zadler 3y ago
        We’ve been there for a long time. “Don’t believe anything you read” is something I heard from my parents generation and I’m gen X. We’re just going to open the field of convincing looking bullshit to a whole bunch of newer and even more nefarious interests. Basically agreeing with you though.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
If we are going by, "random person on the internet prediction proves correct" then nothing is unexpected. I think that they are mostly correct here. > Disinformation researchers have found relatively few A.I. fakes, and even fewer that are convincing. Yet the mere possibility that A.I. content could be circulating is leading people to dismiss genuine images, video and audio as inauthentic. People don't expect the nihilistic second order effect where the mere existence of AI taints all evidence.
nonbirithm 3y ago
Knowing this, I think about another question. Is it reasonably possible to steer the direction or speed of advancement of technology, or is this scenario just the inevitable result of a society that continually iterates on past technology without end? I recall the demo video of that first person shooter a few months ago that people were saying was real life footage because it looked realistic enough. And once it was clear it was from a game engine with realism crossing a new threshold, some people raised concerns that the footage resembled police body camera footage and could perpetuate negative stereotypes. But a desire for more realism has persisted for the past several decades with the improvements in each console generation, graphics cards and so on, so it's hard to believe how the logical conclusion of more computing power doesn't converge to "police body camera footage simulator" at some point. At the next year's E3 it went unsaid that the graphics of the game titles on display would be slightly better and coverage at least a miniscule amount closer to those of real life, without a clearly defined end in sight. So what were we expecting to happen? I think it is interesting that in the case of media that is known to be fictional like video games, we now have to grapple with the novel question of how realistic is too realistic, all because we found out enough ways to make it realistic enough. What was once an implicit and invisible barrier mediated by the lack of advanced technology has become an ethical barrier that relies on persons refusing to use the technology for the harm it causes. Sometimes I liken the outcome to spicy peppers. I can imagine that at some point the spiciest pepper yet will be engineered such that an average person ingesting one will encounter severe health problems. And yet we can't help but ask the question of "how spicy we can go," so until that limit is reached we keep going. The question of harm that such a pepper could inflict is drowned out by the question of what stones humankind have still left unturned. Somehow we can't stop turning them. But unlike peppers, the results of these technologies will affect people that aren't interested in the question, and they will still be affected without any say in the matter.
- mikem170 3y ago
  > Is it reasonably possible to steer the direction or speed of advancement of technology, or is this scenario just the inevitable result of a society that continually iterates on past technology without end? The Amish limit their technology, in an attempt to prevent it from interfering with their culture. Theoretically we can decide to do whatever we (collectively) want.
permo-w 3y ago
of course it wasn't unexpected, but "expected thing came to pass" doesn't make for a clickbait headline

zadler 3y ago

What was descartes’ works, for the lazy and uninformed?

tgv 3y ago
I think the comment refers to Descartes idea of solipsism, where we can't know the truth, because something might be beguiling our senses. From there, Descartes derives his famous "cogito ergo sum." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum#Discourse_on_the_Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito,_ergo_sum#Discourse_on_...
ben30 3y ago
“Descartes’ world” implies radical doubt, even doubting what seems obvious. Relevant to AI and fake videos undermining trust in evidence.
nightpenguin 3y ago
I think he means the mind experiment from Descartes where he assumes everything around him has been created by some demon to fool him and in that case the only thing he can be certain about is that he is thinking (or you exist, I'm not sure). I'm also not an expert but that's what I understood from the original comment. Hope this helps
postpawl 3y ago
“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” -René Descartes
alexvoda 3y ago
GP is probably talking about Descartes's famous line "I think therefore I am" an the relation of this line to Solipsism. Solipsism, to quote Wikipedia: is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. GenAI reduces what once was photo/video/audio proof to uncertainty both through quality (AI can create better fakes) and quantity (it is much easier to use AI to create fakes, therefore much more people will do so).
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  AI Fakes are only good if you're too lazy to look for literally any counter evidence. I can make an AI Fake that Donald Trump has two heads. It could look convincing. It would not take much effort to disprove that. It's not clear to me why this is any bigger than rumors and propaganda and gossip. If you're susceptible to that, you're susceptible to deep fakes, but you were already trapped in a bed of lies. I still maintain that it has never been easier to seek the truth than today.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    Imagine two lines. One is the availability of "real information". The other is availability of high quality bullshit/fake information. You're used to dealing with a past where there was a low availability of real information, but also low availability of high quality fake information. What many are pointing out is that it appears very soon a convergence will occur where most information becomes high quality bullshit. More and more of your time is going to be spent disproving it's not real and you fall into the trap of 'Bullshit Asymmetry'. You've fallen into a trap where you 'know' you'll recognize the truth when it occurs because 'reasons'. It's the wrong way to look at the problem. Instead say "How much energy/time am I going to spend debunking bullshit", because once it's more time/energy then you have, it's game over.
    - zadler 3y ago
      We’ve been there for a long time. “Don’t believe anything you read” is something I heard from my parents generation and I’m gen X. We’re just going to open the field of convincing looking bullshit to a whole bunch of newer and even more nefarious interests. Basically agreeing with you though.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

If we are going by, "random person on the internet prediction proves correct" then nothing is unexpected. I think that they are mostly correct here. > Disinformation researchers have found relatively few A.I. fakes, and even fewer that are convincing. Yet the mere possibility that A.I. content could be circulating is leading people to dismiss genuine images, video and audio as inauthentic. People don't expect the nihilistic second order effect where the mere existence of AI taints all evidence.

nonbirithm 3y ago

Knowing this, I think about another question. Is it reasonably possible to steer the direction or speed of advancement of technology, or is this scenario just the inevitable result of a society that continually iterates on past technology without end? I recall the demo video of that first person shooter a few months ago that people were saying was real life footage because it looked realistic enough. And once it was clear it was from a game engine with realism crossing a new threshold, some people raised concerns that the footage resembled police body camera footage and could perpetuate negative stereotypes. But a desire for more realism has persisted for the past several decades with the improvements in each console generation, graphics cards and so on, so it's hard to believe how the logical conclusion of more computing power doesn't converge to "police body camera footage simulator" at some point. At the next year's E3 it went unsaid that the graphics of the game titles on display would be slightly better and coverage at least a miniscule amount closer to those of real life, without a clearly defined end in sight. So what were we expecting to happen? I think it is interesting that in the case of media that is known to be fictional like video games, we now have to grapple with the novel question of how realistic is too realistic, all because we found out enough ways to make it realistic enough. What was once an implicit and invisible barrier mediated by the lack of advanced technology has become an ethical barrier that relies on persons refusing to use the technology for the harm it causes. Sometimes I liken the outcome to spicy peppers. I can imagine that at some point the spiciest pepper yet will be engineered such that an average person ingesting one will encounter severe health problems. And yet we can't help but ask the question of "how spicy we can go," so until that limit is reached we keep going. The question of harm that such a pepper could inflict is drowned out by the question of what stones humankind have still left unturned. Somehow we can't stop turning them. But unlike peppers, the results of these technologies will affect people that aren't interested in the question, and they will still be affected without any say in the matter.

mikem170 3y ago
> Is it reasonably possible to steer the direction or speed of advancement of technology, or is this scenario just the inevitable result of a society that continually iterates on past technology without end? The Amish limit their technology, in an attempt to prevent it from interfering with their culture. Theoretically we can decide to do whatever we (collectively) want.

permo-w 3y ago

of course it wasn't unexpected, but "expected thing came to pass" doesn't make for a clickbait headline