5 ms·
I said this over a year ago elsewhere: Electronic engineers spent decades overcoming thermal noise floors so that humans could communicate over vast distances
by tompccs 2y ago
I said this over a year ago elsewhere:
Electronic engineers spent decades overcoming thermal noise floors so that humans could communicate over vast distances with small amounts of energy.
AI researchers, in a few short years, undid all that by making computer-generated chatter and images indistinguishable from messages sent by humans.
Until such a time as we live in a Bladerunner-like world of Replicants, being in-person will be the only reliable way to convey a message from human to human.
I'm long on travel and in-person meetings, short on VR and telecoms.
- changoplatanero 2y agoIsn't it also possible to scam people in in person meetings by pretending to be someone you aren't? The new thing with deepfakes is that you can pretend to be someone that the victim knows.
- tompccs 2y agoYes but the cost is much higher as is the risk of being caught and arrested.
- another-dave 2y agoWhen you say in-person in that sense, do you mean video call rather than DM? I took the GP comment to mean truly in-person, like face-to-face across a table
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tgv 2y agoYes, you can also bludgeon someone to death with a rock, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for everyone to have nukes.
- cageface 2y agoScaling up in-person fraud is also much, much harder.
- dmos62 2y agoWhat you said only applies to communication that requires authenticating a party. Most cases that doesn't matter. Voice or video communication used to be inherently unfakeable, now that it is fakeable, we'll just treat it like text comms, relying on secure channels, signing etc.
- ta93754829 2y agowe're probably ~10 years away from replicants. in 20years there's going to be millions of tesla humanoid robots all over the place
- binvader 2y ago[flagged]
- thedrbrian 2y agoWe’ve had millions of robotaxis since 2017
- sambazi 2y agodo you have actual numbers? thought it was a couple thousand
- tsimionescu 2y agoThe whole point of Replicants is that they look exactly like humans in person. Even if we assume AI and robotics advance 100 times or more in the next 10 years to allow the technical part of this, we are not even close to any makeup and prosthetics tech that could make a robot even slightly resemble a human in-person. And I have to mention, Tesla robots are way behind the competition, it's not even clear if their robot does anything really on its own, given how much they fake their videos of it with "creative" editing.
- spacebanana7 2y agoHuman written text has been indistinguishable from machine written text for a very long time. We've still managed to maintain chains of trust to discern legitimate messages with decent success rates.
- mulmen 2y agoOr we’re really bad at detecting fraud.
- blitzo 2y agoWe need new ident protocol just for AI. I think that's part of Altman doing that orb thingy with iris scanner. It's creepy though and I'll never touch that things.
- malermeister 2y agoWhat's wrong with good ol' private keys?
- Muromec 2y agoSame as with public transport. You can’t have because it’s haram for some political position
- pjc50 2y agoNobody is anti-public-key crypto per se any more, the US government export control war ended long ago. It's just too much of a hassle to do the key management.
- ben_w 2y agoThe ability to make an infinite number of them. And that most people have no idea how to verify any ID, so they need a system that turns any given form of ID into a nice and simple "yes" or "no". I'm not at all clear what kind of ID is going to be genuinely useful for video calls, given we should only be trusting existing contacts anyway? But those things are why "private key" isn't sufficient in isolation.
- malermeister 2y agoWhat's wrong with making an infinite number? You just need to check it against one public key.
- ben_w 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack
- csomar 2y agoIf only, you know, had a simple and efficient way to authenticate messages and emails...
- pjc50 2y agoThe tech has existed for decades but is clearly not simple.
- persnickety 2y ago> making computer-generated chatter and images indistinguishable from messages sent by humans. That's a false dichotomy. "computer-generated chatter and images" ARE messages sent by humans. There are no cases of computers having agency known to me yet. The root of the problem is humans who lie and mislead. Now they merely have more avenues to do so. In the same vein, you could blame the electronic engineers for allowing people to lie quickly and over vast distances.
- sgt101 2y agoJust use a trusted channel? I mean - we have authentication for bank accounts, why wouldn't that be demanded for transactions like this? Without proper authentication of the authorities there's no way that a transaction like this should be put through.
- mrkramer 2y agoGuess what? Cryptography exists.
- masto 2y agoWhen I'm on a company video call, the people I'm meeting with are logged into their company accounts, through the fancy company authentication system. Large warnings are displayed if there are any external participants, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's possible to disable the ability to even have guests. Third-party video conference software is banned and blocked from installation on work computers. I am not in the finance department, but in software engineering and operations, two-party controls are everywhere. I can't check in code without reviews. I can't access production systems or make changes without approval from another team member. I would think that similar processes could be put into place for transferring tens of millions of dollars. In other words, there are ways to deal with this that don't come down to "mistrust all technology and revert to face-to-face meetings and handing cash to each other".
- bongodongobob 2y agoAlmost everywhere I've worked disallows external participants on Teams by default. We add exceptions when needed. I don't know if this is standard, but has been at the larger companies I've worked at.
- michaelt 2y agoIf I was the attacker, I'd use credential-stuffing or something to get access to some random employee's account. Doesn't have to be anyone important. Then I'd set up a short-notice multi-way meeting between the target, the CEO and the hacked account. The deepfake 'CEO' then turns up with no alarms raised, except one wrong name - easily dismissed as a glitch, or an assistant having booked the meeting.
- david_allison 2y ago$10k/week in crypto lets you easily 'hack' a random corporate account
- echoangle 2y agoSo your method assumes you can easily take over an employee account? Isn't that the hard part?
- imgabe 2y agoI know it's a meme and all, but doesn't blockchain solve this? Ok, Mr. Guy who looks like my boss on Video Call, I can send those funds, just sign the transaction with your private key and it'll all be done.
- hacker_88 2y agoThat's just regular Crypto stuff not Cryptocurrency
- pjc50 2y agoBlockchain does not authenticate the receiver, so there are all sorts of attacks involving substituting the payment address, from dumb (stickers over QR codes) to sophisticated.
- imgabe 2y agoThat’s a completely different thing though. The problem here is deepfakes where someone pretending to have the authority to send money tells you to send money.
- mewpmewp2 2y agoWhy do you need blockchain for signing with private key.
- jessetemp 2y agoNot that it changes your point much, but AI research also took decades. It’s just that the last few years are when all these milestones were achieved
- noAnswer 2y agoCryptographically sign all the things!!!!! A L L T H E T H I N G S !!!!