5 ms·

I've come around to the idea that the hype around criminal or bad actor uses of AI is the same as the hype around other uses. Some real uses will shake out but

by andy99 3y ago

I've come around to the idea that the hype around criminal or bad actor uses of AI is the same as the hype around other uses. Some real uses will shake out but the delta between what's actually enabled by the tech and what was possible anyway is way smaller than people like to represent.

nolok 3y ago
I am not talking about criminals or similar, for that I agree with you. I am talking about political. There has been a MASSIVE explosion of fakeness since covid, coupled with people who completely lost their ability to actually check information, and anything that makes it easier for anyone to propagate is dangerous in my view. We've reached the point where "check by yourself / do your own research" moved from what the proponent of the truth used to tell people to go check, to what the other side is now using to give as much value to their facetok videos and whatnot (I am speaking in the general sense).
- psychoslave 3y ago
  Or an other perspective is that politics and religions are just byproducts of propaganda mesmerizing people. So they are already many battle proofed efficient way to brain wash people, and probably many more furtive and cost effective than these new stuffs. Thankfully you still can rely on fellow HN commenters like myself to bring you thoughts free of any mind binding manipulations and exempt of sarcasm.
- cruffle_duffle 3y ago
  > There has been a MASSIVE explosion of fakeness since covid, coupled with people who completely lost their ability to actually check information, and anything that makes it easier for anyone to propagate is dangerous in my view. The best part about this statement is it doesn’t even matter what “side” you are describing because all “sides” are subject to the same issue. Hell for more than a year every covid article from New York Times quoted an obscenely high 4% “death rate” despite it being off by multiple orders of magnitude. And if pressed they’d be able to easily “prove” their rate by citing some dodgy data model, using badly collected data, or just not understanding how to interpret the data. And that “truth” propagated by the NYT was cited all over causing all kinds of wildly over the top responses. We live in a post truth world. You can always find some authoritative sounding source to support whatever it is you want to believe. There is always a way to massage the data and “facts” in a way that supports your claim as the “true truth”. It does even matter what “team” you are on… you’ll always be able to craft “the truth” by selectively using whatever source material you want. I don’t even know how you’d solve this problem because it is a core issue with trust. It’s very, very hard to establish “knowledge trust” on something like the internet.
  - ranger_danger 3y ago
    After having very similar observations I accidentally went down the philosophy rabbit hole. I would look up wiki pages like "Newton's flaming laser sword" and get into a neverending cycle of reading all the "see also" links recursively and started to realize just how meta-ly subjective literally everything is. And while I was already super logical being a programmer and such, I don't even think that I like having did this, because now I am starting to lose the ability to "posit" or believe something is true, because one can always argue that so many things are subjective that it is impossible to come to an agreement on something in any reasonable amount of time.
unraveller 3y ago
It's not a very consistent pearl clutch either, would they deny all access to computers because terrorists will use them to fire heat-seeking missiles? I think it's just a lack of imagination, we can do this funny offensive misleading thing right now, it can surely be used in other ways but you'd have to let your mind wonder for one extra moment after your social media induced reaction fixation episode. This could be depression hack to hear your own voice in different accents motivate you.
jddj 3y ago
I'm not sure. Maybe I'm caught in the hype but I feel like possible is one thing, scalable is another. We're at the point now where, for example, a leak of phone number + address book would enable a high quality, large scale automated impersonation pipeline that many here could put together in a weekend. Install a compromised app (or just be a once-user of a newly-compromised app), then answer the phone for a minute and then everyone you know receives a somewhat believable phonecall to empty their wallets / your accounts?
- effluvium 3y ago
  It is the scalability. A motivated well-funded bad actor could reek total havoc.
  - Onawa 3y ago
    Because English sucks and doesn't have phonetic spelling: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wreak%20havoc https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wreak%20havoc
    - NetOpWibby 3y ago
      Because PEOPLE suck. We could be speaking Martian and the situation would be unchanged. “Because Martian sucks and doesn’t have bleep blorps.”
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  It will happen, then people will adapt. Those that don't will suffer. It is tragic but not new. People are getting scammed now by being told in broken English that they need to buy gift cards in order to fend off Tax evasion charges or whatever. The fact is that everyone gets taken for a ride at least once. Many people never admit it to themselves, but we have all been or will be taken advantage of. Some of us end up devastated by it or are an 'eternal mark', but the vast majority of us just learn a lesson. What happens to society when trust becomes risky to the point that everything could be a ruse by a bad actor? It ends up doing what it always does in that situation -- authoritarian regimes can be looked at for examples of what will happen: people will rally around family and extremely close friends, and close off all vulnerability and vastly decrease their tolerance for risk around everyone else, unless they have no other choice.

by andy99 3y ago

nolok 3y ago

I am not talking about criminals or similar, for that I agree with you. I am talking about political. There has been a MASSIVE explosion of fakeness since covid, coupled with people who completely lost their ability to actually check information, and anything that makes it easier for anyone to propagate is dangerous in my view. We've reached the point where "check by yourself / do your own research" moved from what the proponent of the truth used to tell people to go check, to what the other side is now using to give as much value to their facetok videos and whatnot (I am speaking in the general sense).

psychoslave 3y ago
Or an other perspective is that politics and religions are just byproducts of propaganda mesmerizing people. So they are already many battle proofed efficient way to brain wash people, and probably many more furtive and cost effective than these new stuffs. Thankfully you still can rely on fellow HN commenters like myself to bring you thoughts free of any mind binding manipulations and exempt of sarcasm.
cruffle_duffle 3y ago
> There has been a MASSIVE explosion of fakeness since covid, coupled with people who completely lost their ability to actually check information, and anything that makes it easier for anyone to propagate is dangerous in my view. The best part about this statement is it doesn’t even matter what “side” you are describing because all “sides” are subject to the same issue. Hell for more than a year every covid article from New York Times quoted an obscenely high 4% “death rate” despite it being off by multiple orders of magnitude. And if pressed they’d be able to easily “prove” their rate by citing some dodgy data model, using badly collected data, or just not understanding how to interpret the data. And that “truth” propagated by the NYT was cited all over causing all kinds of wildly over the top responses. We live in a post truth world. You can always find some authoritative sounding source to support whatever it is you want to believe. There is always a way to massage the data and “facts” in a way that supports your claim as the “true truth”. It does even matter what “team” you are on… you’ll always be able to craft “the truth” by selectively using whatever source material you want. I don’t even know how you’d solve this problem because it is a core issue with trust. It’s very, very hard to establish “knowledge trust” on something like the internet.
- ranger_danger 3y ago
  After having very similar observations I accidentally went down the philosophy rabbit hole. I would look up wiki pages like "Newton's flaming laser sword" and get into a neverending cycle of reading all the "see also" links recursively and started to realize just how meta-ly subjective literally everything is. And while I was already super logical being a programmer and such, I don't even think that I like having did this, because now I am starting to lose the ability to "posit" or believe something is true, because one can always argue that so many things are subjective that it is impossible to come to an agreement on something in any reasonable amount of time.

unraveller 3y ago

It's not a very consistent pearl clutch either, would they deny all access to computers because terrorists will use them to fire heat-seeking missiles? I think it's just a lack of imagination, we can do this funny offensive misleading thing right now, it can surely be used in other ways but you'd have to let your mind wonder for one extra moment after your social media induced reaction fixation episode. This could be depression hack to hear your own voice in different accents motivate you.

jddj 3y ago

I'm not sure. Maybe I'm caught in the hype but I feel like possible is one thing, scalable is another. We're at the point now where, for example, a leak of phone number + address book would enable a high quality, large scale automated impersonation pipeline that many here could put together in a weekend. Install a compromised app (or just be a once-user of a newly-compromised app), then answer the phone for a minute and then everyone you know receives a somewhat believable phonecall to empty their wallets / your accounts?

effluvium 3y ago
It is the scalability. A motivated well-funded bad actor could reek total havoc.
- Onawa 3y ago
  Because English sucks and doesn't have phonetic spelling: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wreak%20havoc https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wreak%20havoc
  - NetOpWibby 3y ago
    Because PEOPLE suck. We could be speaking Martian and the situation would be unchanged. “Because Martian sucks and doesn’t have bleep blorps.”
Eisenstein 3y ago
It will happen, then people will adapt. Those that don't will suffer. It is tragic but not new. People are getting scammed now by being told in broken English that they need to buy gift cards in order to fend off Tax evasion charges or whatever. The fact is that everyone gets taken for a ride at least once. Many people never admit it to themselves, but we have all been or will be taken advantage of. Some of us end up devastated by it or are an 'eternal mark', but the vast majority of us just learn a lesson. What happens to society when trust becomes risky to the point that everything could be a ruse by a bad actor? It ends up doing what it always does in that situation -- authoritarian regimes can be looked at for examples of what will happen: people will rally around family and extremely close friends, and close off all vulnerability and vastly decrease their tolerance for risk around everyone else, unless they have no other choice.