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

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#121

Post by eric_h » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 7:30 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…

Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but isn't the technology to detect fake video in fact part of the process of generating it? I was under the impression that these deep fakes used an adversarial network, thus, the better the detection of fakes, the better quality of the generated fakes.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#122

Post by VikingCoder » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 7:36 PM UTC

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…

I heartily agree with your core point.

> encouraging people to trust untrustworthy sources for information which doesn't necessarily square with the scientific evidence

To offer up some compassion to those people, you have to remember that we're daily barraged with p=0.05 experiments getting breathless coverage in the media. "Scientists say peanut butter cures cancer." "Scientists say peanut butter causes cancer."

Remember back when it was going to be a new Ice Age? Now it's "Global Warming?"

The media's coverage of science does not portray research in the proper light, does not give context, etc.

So I have a lot of sympathy for people who are skeptical of trusting "science."

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#123

Post by lolc » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 7:36 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #100

lolc wrote: post #25

There will be a plethora of "Deepfake" apps for your pocket computer tomorrow. People will learn quickly not to trust video. They will have no choice because they don't want to fall for pranks. Humanity will stand through this.

> Humanity will stand through this. Or not. What if the Great Filter isn't a nuclear war but collapse of ability to tell truth from falsehood? To tell reality from fake images and videos?

We've managed so far! Try to follow the war in Syria for a little bit and you will find that people can fake video just fine even in a warzone. They don't need "Deepfake". Even presidents of nation-states want to believe those fakes. Nothing new under the sun.

We had verification problems since video existed:

- When was that video taken?

- Where was that video taken?

- Are the objects in the video what they seem to be?

- Is the people in the video the people we think they are?

- Is the video grainy because it's a shit camera?

- Which of the possibly conflicting interpretations is right?

- Why is only this angle published when we know the event was filmed from another?

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#124

Post by Bartweiss » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

lkbm wrote: post #74

snowwrestler wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people believe Pizzagate is real? Shall we litigate the exact numerical definition of "not many?"--which is what I said, not "none."

> How many people believe Pizzagate is real? That's a question that made me want an answer. It seems that, as of 2016, it may have been a lot: > Among the questions asked by pollsters was whether respondents believed that leaked emails stolen from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager and published by WikiLeaks prior to the Nov. 8 election “contained code words for pedophilia, human trafficking and satanic ritual abuse — w…

A few thoughts here.

First, the difference between the two surveys is probably because they asked very different questions.

YouGov's question doesn't actually ask if Comet Pizza was a front for a sex ring, or if Clinton was involved in same. It only asks whether leaked email from Clinton staffers contained code words on the topic. It's still not something I think is true, but it appears that "yes" means "yes the memo with those code words existed" and "probably" means "the email probably existed and probably its wording was code for this stuff". Public Policy Polling asked about Clinton and the pizzeria being connected to a real ring, and consequently saw more 'no's.

Second, this looks like a Lizardman Constant thing. For those unfamiliar, PPP polls find that ~10% of Americans say lizardmen might be running the planet. Which means that any weird opinion showing up in polls may well get 10% just from indifference, trolling, or lunacy.

On the same poll, 5% of Obama supporters answered that yes, Obama was the anti-Christ. And here, 5% of Clinton supporters said that yes, she was involved in a child sex ring. If those people were sincere with both answers, I have some serious questions for them.

All of which is to say that this sort of polling produces nutty results no matter what you aim it at. The most interesting part to me is honestly the uncertainty numbers, which seem high enough to be 'real' answers. I could buy that we've reached a point where large swaths of electorate are willing to say "shit, anything's possible these days".

http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-...

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#125

Post by Senderman » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

royjacobs wrote: post #16

tgamba wrote: post #15

Except all video is fake, that is, all videos are artifacts, artificial things. "We’re not so far from the collapse of reality" -- am I the only one who finds this inane? No video is real. Critical thinking as applied to the written word applies equally to the image. It's not rocket science.

Except everyone has been conditioned over the latest ~100 years to assume that everything they see in a video is real. That is: unless explicitly contextualised as fake, like when watching a movie. Your premise that everyone should just "apply some critical thinking" directly contradicts the events of the last couple of years, not just in the field of video but within any form of media.

It sounds like you're agreeing with the original comment, but I think you might be paraphrasing it to highlight the absurdity.

And it does seem absurd, but it's true: almost everyone has been conditioned to accept news footage as 'pure' truth, something at the other end of a reality-scale from, say, movies.

I think it's hard to remember is that the majority of video is tailored with intent to evoke specific a response: To some degree, your reaction and emotions are at the mercy of the video producer - just like in a movie. Except in a movie, you have the safety switch of remembering it's "not real" - I think the lack of a corresponding mental failsafe with news causes subtle hysteria, confusion, and frustration.

Contrary to a lot of conspiracy, I don't think it's malicious (mostly), and I believe fundamentally journalism has noble goals - but I don't see it as deniable that "news" as a whole is under pressure to be compelling, and that, albeit subtly, twists what we're exposed to.

Crying "be more sceptical" isn't very helpful - it certainly wouldn't have helped me. I think more knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes of newsmaking might be more along the lines of what would help people, but I don't really know.

"Fake" almost isn't the right word. "Disconnected from reality" - subtly - that's the phenomenon causing trouble, in my view. But anything that's disconnected from reality, taken as truth, is open to manipulation; scepticism is appropriate.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#126

Post by jerf » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 7:59 PM UTC

unabst wrote: post #111

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…

> fake videos are used to compromise the voices of those which deserve our trust Which leads to what needs to be considered the greatest sin and betrayal of all: The creating and promoting of such videos. No one creates a false video by accident. They know what they are doing, and their intentions are clear. And this is not free speech. Putting words in other people's mouths and manipulating voices is fake speech, an…

"Putting words in other people's mouths and manipulating voices is fake speech, and is the direct opposite of free speech."

Another example of where a sufficiently large quantitative change becomes a qualitative change. Historically speaking there's nothing new about false attributing speech to some authority, but people had built-in instincts to deal with people simply saying that X said Y and could treat it with some salt. But easy fake videos reverses the situation; we have built-in instincts that say we should trust the video as a reliable representation of the putative speaker, even if we in intellectually know better.

Even if you flashed a warning "THIS IS A FAKE VIDEO" constantly, I bet you'd still be able to run studies that show disproportionate effects on people as a result of a sufficiently good fake video.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#127

Post by artursapek » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 7:59 PM UTC

floatrock wrote: post #88

artursapek wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter how much you disagree with FOX, it's in their best interest to make damn sure they never print "fake text" or play "fake videos" on their platforms.

https://www.google.com/search?q=fox+news+misleading+graphs

I don't watch cable news or even have cable to begin with, nor do I like FOX. And these are fucking hilarious. But they're not quite as bad as a completely fabricated video or quote of somebody like Obama.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#128

Post by throwaway5752 » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #122

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…

I heartily agree with your core point. > encouraging people to trust untrustworthy sources for information which doesn't necessarily square with the scientific evidence To offer up some compassion to those people, you have to remember that we're daily barraged with p=0.05 experiments getting breathless coverage in the media. "Scientists say peanut butter cures cancer." "Scientists say peanut butter causes cancer." Re…

Remember back when it was going to be a new Ice Age? Now it's "Global Warming?"

No, I don't remember that, because that was never actually the case. If you "remember" it, it is a false impression and you should really deeply introspect why you hold it. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-global-co...

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#129

Post by baq » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 8:08 PM UTC

lolc wrote: post #115

baq wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now everybody will be able to create convincing fakes. That's not continuous progress, that's a phase change.

I'm sure the same line of argument was made when desktop printers became abundant.

there's a reason photoshop won't work with scans of currency.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#130

Post by robotresearcher » Mon, Apr 23, 2018, 8:15 PM UTC

Sevii wrote: post #65

amirmc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (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.

Most people didn’t read Jon Postel’s papers but they enjoy the internet. Same with pharmacology, semiconductors, radio comms, etc. Science is mostly reporting to other scientists and to engineers that turn it into usable stuff.

Popular science writing is very important, but it’s just a small part of the practice. Doing more of it would mean less actual research unless funds and bodies are added for it. I'd like to think that as a community we servo around the sweet spot given the resources.