Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video • Hacker News Board

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#61

Post by threatofrain » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

hanbura wrote: post #50

threatofrain wrote: post #11

People don't underestimate it, they just don't know what to do about it. That's arguably more of a technological problem than a policy problem, the technical and philosophical problem of how to detect fakes.

Technological solutions will help, but software to spot fake videos will lead to an arms race between video creation and video classification. The more promising angle is imho the society angle. Most people view their memory as the best source of truth, when in reality it's well established in psychology that our memory is incredibly unreliable. Previously this was mostly a problem for the justice system, now we risk…

I don't think people see enough with regards to the situations they are called to judge, so I see local politics of a small town barely scaling okay that way. People do trust their memories, but I don't think journalling is going to improve civic judgment that much.

Most of the issues discussed in the presidential elections are way beyond personal observation. Are we to throw our votes to the wind since it falls outside our experience?

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#62

Post by creaghpatr » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #53

dosycorp wrote: post #6

But not fake narratives, fake writing or fake news. Convenient that new media celebrities and individuals have greatest audience creation power through video, whereas traditional media still holds sway in print / news. So clearly, understand the origins of the narrative that "fake video" is more dangerous: creator videos are stealing mindshare from traditional media. So of course trad media wants to believe it's dang…

I perceive your comment as nothing more than an ad hominem attack, so I struggle to understand why others have apparently voted it up. The main reasons I trust any sources of information is that I trust that they hold themselves to a standard of journalism - such as verifying their sources. Doing original primary research into subjects. When a video shows up in my Facebook news feed, I'm now more suspicious of it tha…

We have front page stories in the NYT, WSJ et al that hinge entirely on 'unnamed sources' '[gov org] senior officials' and 'people familiar with the matter'.

Video should be easy because it's either real or it's not. For stories based on secret sources, we never get a chance to ask the source if they really said that.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#63

Post by jdietrich » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #11

People don't underestimate it, they just don't know what to do about it. That's arguably more of a technological problem than a policy problem, the technical and philosophical problem of how to detect fakes.

People do underestimate it, especially people who see themselves as critical thinkers. Your conscious mind might know that a photo or video is fake, but your unconscious mind still gives it some credibility. Our ability to remember and process facts is much worse than we think and we're highly prone to creating false memories. No-one is immune to these shortcomings.

Fake images on social media are much more than just a nuisance - they represent a fundamental threat to liberal democracy. Our brains simply aren't evolved to cope with convincing but fake images and we don't have any effective countermeasures.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.10.006

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#64

Post by fooblitzky » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #47

snowwrestler wrote: post #45

It seems like fake video can be handled the same way we handle fake text. We're just not used to doing that yet. Anyone can write an article and sign it "Barack Obama," and post it online somewhere. Not many folks will fall for it. Most people understand how easy it is just write someone else's name down, so they look for provenance to help decide what is real. An article by "Barack Obama" on the Wall Street Journal…

> Anyone can write an article and sign it "Barack Obama," and post it online somewhere. Not many folks will fall for it. That's just stunningly naive. Imagine if Pizzagate or some other such nonsense was accompanied by a video of Podesta mumbling something about sex slaves. Fake News is a a real thing even without video corroboration. > Naked video files, found at random places on the Internet, You honestly think Bre…

snowwrestler is right though, the real power of the fake videos stems from the immense trust we have that a digital video (or photo) portrays the truth - I believe they can usually be used as evidence in court?

Perhaps it's a time for a renaissance of film? Or a service that detects doctoring, like Snopes for video (I imagine these AI video doctors probably leave some detectable characteristics in their pixel manipulations).

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#65

Post by Sevii » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

amirmc wrote: post #57

chiefalchemist wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "His thread references the "debate" over climate change, and his point is that the debate most people participate in isn't truly a debate over facts, but rather a debate over trust..." Spot on. What the more purely science-mind can't seem to grasp is facts are only as good as the receivers' trust of the source. The irony is, there's plenty of science to support this. Yet, ironically, science too ignores itself. If…

> (e.g., consuming Y is safe only to find out it causes birth defects, cancer,etc.) Science blames the customer/consumer. It feels like there's a conflation of science and science reporting in here somewhere. Most of the actual research output makes measured claims but the journalism around it ends up being sensationalised (yes, some researchers also participate in that but not as a rule).

Science is science reporting. Normal people can only understand what is reported. If you want to read the actual papers, prepare to spend a couple hours to barely understand what is going on. Most people aren’t able to do that for all of the hundreds of papers published each year that could be relevant to their lives.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#66

Post by wufufufu » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

So what? If I didn't have access to any news outlets for the past 2 years, my life wouldn't have changed at all.

Let's say there's a percentage of the population X% which is capable of being tricked by the current level of fake news. Do you think with new technologies, X will increase drastically? I guess that it will not change at all.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#67

Post by kolbe » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #48

uptown wrote: post #41

There's a relevant and insightful thread on Twitter posted by David Roberts here: https://twitter.com/drvox/status/988144274720964608 His thread references the "debate" over climate change, and his point is that the debate most people participate in isn't truly a debate over facts, but rather a debate over trust. That matters of complexity are too distant from any one individual to have direct exposure-to, so in orde…

>That matters of complexity are too distant from any one individual to have direct exposure to In the case of climate change it is actually possible to self-inform yourself about some of the key aspects of climate change. Raw data is freely available (noaa and others), and some simple scripts can answer questions like "are the claimed warming trends real or artifacts of bias due to adjustments or other factors". This…

You highly overestimate...

...how many people can do data analysis.

...how many people can write scripts.

...how many people know what a script is.

...how many people can do basic arithmetic.

Your example of self-enrichment is perfectly fine for people with a good education, but it's insufficient at 'democracy scale' where elections are decided by voters who cannot do anything beyond trusting the people who are informing their decisions.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#68

Post by VikingCoder » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

creaghpatr wrote: post #62

VikingCoder wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I perceive your comment as nothing more than an ad hominem attack, so I struggle to understand why others have apparently voted it up. The main reasons I trust any sources of information is that I trust that they hold themselves to a standard of journalism - such as verifying their sources. Doing original primary research into subjects. When a video shows up in my Facebook news feed, I'm now more suspicious of it tha…

We have front page stories in the NYT, WSJ et al that hinge entirely on 'unnamed sources' '[gov org] senior officials' and 'people familiar with the matter'. Video should be easy because it's either real or it's not. For stories based on secret sources, we never get a chance to ask the source if they really said that.

Yes, and the NYT, WSJ, and many others, have an excellent track record of only publishing stories that hinge on "unnamed sources" "senior officials" and "people familiar with the matter" when they should.

They are asking me to trust them that, if I knew who their sources were, that I would trust their sources. As journalists, they ask that I believe them that they have confirmed the matter through multiple independent means.

And they are judged entirely on their track record.

This is not science. We cannot see their original research, we cannot reproduce their results.

> Video should be easy because it's either real or it's not.

Did you watch the videos in this story? That's simply not true. It's actually never been completely true, but now video is less trustworthy than before because it's getting vastly easier to create convincing fake video.

We used to have to contend with dishonest people editing context out, or even hiring actors. Now we can see convincing but completely fake video produced quickly and cheaply by "somebody sitting on their bed weighing 400 pounds". [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfVce4rELAY

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#69

Post by acjohnson55 » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

I think it's important to note that the truth has never been widely available, to the point where it might be useless to think of truth as being a real concept to begin with. One could say that for a blip of time, we lived in a world where a large percentage of human were pushed largely accurate (if incomplete) information by mass media, allowing for something resembling consensual reality and informed democracy. We have always had to delegate verification of information to third-parties, whether those be text books, media organizations, or government officials.

I don't think we should be overly sentimental about the passing of this "golden age". We have never been a society ruled by facts and logic and we have been regularly misinformed all along. The difference now is perhaps a decentralization of who is controlling this misinformation and the realization by elite institutions that they now have to contend with their loss of monopoly, either by combatting perceived and real falsehood or coopting it.

It is admittedly deeply unsettling, but only to what was probably a false sense of security. Maybe instead of fretting about how to obtain more truthiness in the face of these new dynamics, the more fundamental question remains how can we achieve human welfare in a world where informed democracy is an illusion?

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#70

Post by snowwrestler » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

kneel wrote: post #59

snowwrestler wrote: post #45

It seems like fake video can be handled the same way we handle fake text. We're just not used to doing that yet. Anyone can write an article and sign it "Barack Obama," and post it online somewhere. Not many folks will fall for it. Most people understand how easy it is just write someone else's name down, so they look for provenance to help decide what is real. An article by "Barack Obama" on the Wall Street Journal…

>It seems like fake video can be handled the same way we handle fake text. We're just not used to doing that yet. What happens when someone synthesizes fake anchors in fake news segments and posts them on fb/twitter? You're severely underestimating how news propagates.

I think we're talking about different things. You're asking what happens today. I agree with you that audiences are not yet equipped with the proper skepticism for fake video involving real, unwitting participants.

I'm talking about the long-term implications in society. We treat video as more trustworthy today, but I think that can (and will, I'm sure) change. I think it already is changing for those amazing "WOW" social videos like the whale landing on the kayaker, etc.