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Pentagon Docs: US Wants to "Suppress Dissenting Arguments" Using AI Propaganda
- actionfromafar 1y agoOnly overseas? If the Pentagon is deploying troops in DC, why not AI too?
- spectraldrift 1y agoI assumed they were already doing this domestically.
- robotnikman 1y agoIIRC there was an act passed in the early 2010's that allowed them to legally do this. Probably been going on for a decade at least
- hungmung 1y agoReminds me of those Army recruitment commercials from a few years back that were advertising their psyops as a career path.
- throwawayq3423 1y agoPSYOPs meaning targeting foreign nations and foreign people. That's not what this is.
- hungmung 1y agoWell, maybe.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
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- throwawayq3423 1y agoQuite the opposite. There are strict rules against producing propaganda with the American people (in the US) as a target. I'm not aware of any agency with the authority to do so.
- candiddevmike 1y agoSource? There are plenty of counter examples from WW2, Vietnam War, Iraq War(s), etc...
- throwawayq3423 1y agoI'm not aware of any examples of the US government producing propaganda to influence the American people.
- anonymousiam 1y agoI suggest that you review the 2013 NDAA amendment that basically repealed the Smith-Mundt Act, which prohibited the U.S. government from disseminating propaganda to the American public. The original intent was to prevent the State Department and its agencies from engaging in domestic propaganda. One could argue that the changes require that the material be originally intended for foreign consumption, but how does one prove "intent?" https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/oversight/legislation/smith-mundt-faqs/ https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/oversight/legislation/smith...
- throwawayq3423 1y agoThe Smith-Mundt Act was not repealed. It was updated so that content intended for foreign audiences can now be accessed within the U.S. upon request, such as by researchers. The update was necessary because of the global nature of digital information. It became impossible to produce content for foreign audiences that was not also consumed in some way by Americans. It remains strictly forbidden to use government funds to influence public opinion in the United States.
- sneak 1y agoSomeone tell all of the Hollywood producers making war movies that the DoD gets final cut on.
- cookiengineer 1y agoImagine an AI impersonating your friends and relatives and trying to tell you that you are not trans/gay/green/vegan or whatever the president doesn't like that very morning. They're building the Ministry of Truth. If you need an AI and propaganda to convince someone instead of neutral, rational, and educational means - then guess what, you are in the wrong.
- lettergram 1y agoThey tried it last administration too -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_Governance_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_Governance_Boar... To be honest, it's been going on for effectively forever. See operation mockingbird -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
- throwawayq3423 1y agoYour first citation exposes disinformation it doesn't create and disseminate it. Your second citation was a Cold War shitshow that has no relevancy today.
- jerkstate 1y agoeven the word "disinformation" is just a frame
- malfist 1y agoThat's the tolerance paradox. Things can be disinformation without playing games with equivocation. If Phillip morris is running a bot farm or paying people to tell others that smoking is healthy and doesn't cause cancer, then we have a duty to call that disinformation and strive to correct it. And I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell me about the growing lung cancer rates in nonsmokers or that lung cancer is more deadly in nonsmokers.
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- mgh2 1y agohttps://archive.is/eDZXn https://archive.is/eDZXn
- jbm 1y ago[flagged]
- bilbo0s 1y agoAmerican elites have never been like MLK in any way. That's why they jailed, beat, firebombed, and finally just shot him in the head. ETA: Didn't have my glasses on. Wrong Martin Luther.
- ceejayoz 1y agoML (1400s German) !== MLK (1900s American)
- virgil_disgr4ce 1y agoNot to be pedantic but the person you're replying to never said anything about MLK
- b59831 1y ago[dead]
- throwawayq3423 1y agomarketing and advertising was never illegal but Facebook doesn't have a monopoly on violence and can't disappear you into a series of prisons There is a fundamental difference between the private sector and the government performing these actions.
- jbm 1y agoWe can both agree that the government has a monopoly on violence and thus the controllers and owners of government control violence. There is no contradiction. (Bill Gates getting his car legalized is a great non-controversial example of how this had been the case for a LONG time.)
- throwawayq3423 1y ago
- ronbenton 1y agoI would be unsurprised that the US wants to "suppress dissenting arguments" using anything at their disposal
- real_marcfawzi 1y ago[dead]
- irjustin 1y agoFlip side is we just use AI to promote dissenting arguments. This feels like the war on drugs and it won't end well in that nobody wins.
- SilverElfin 1y agoOther governments already do this. See China’s 50 cent army: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party And the USSR had its propaganda arm too. The US also effectively did this but without the same labels criticizing them - for example recently when the Biden administration was pressuring tech companies to censor or ban opinions they didn’t like. The fact that AI may now be used for this purpose isn’t offensive. It’s that governments (or corporations or any other group) interfere with free speech much more broadly than we think, and don’t just limit that to a few exceptions. Whether the use people or AI, it’s wrong.
- cronelius 1y agobut they're not doing here it at home, of course. that would be silly
- yosito 1y agoAnyone who's been paying attention to AI probably already has an intuition that this is the whole purpose of companies like OpenAI.
- morgengold 1y agoI think we head in a direction where people will not trust digital content altogether. The question is what will happen thereafter? What are new and reliable trust indicators?
- tempodox 1y agoThat must have been the plan behind buying Twitter, even if not the Pentagon’s.
- tempodox 1y agoPast mind control experiments have all failed, but there is hope!
- throw0101c 1y agoOr the Russian way: > We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.” > Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency. > Interestingly, several of these features run directly counter to the conventional wisdom on effective influence and communication from government or defense sources, which traditionally emphasize the importance of truth, credibility, and the avoidance of contradiction.3 Despite ignoring these traditional principles, Russia seems to have enjoyed some success under its contemporary propaganda model, either through more direct persuasion and influence or by engaging in obfuscation, confusion, and the disruption or diminution of truthful reporting and messaging. * https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
- daft_pink 1y agoIt’s easy to blame the United States for psychological operations, but the reality is that every country around the world is working on this and has this goal. Basically every country is working on this technology. The US is doing it. China is doing it. Russia is doing it. Europe is doing it. Propaganda is everywhere
- phendrenad2 1y agoLike all the other projects it has failed, "just run some AI on it" will not be successful here, either.