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

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#191

Post by msla » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 9:27 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #173

amirmc wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, Science makes no effort to own those mistakes. That sounds ludicrous to me. The entirely of the scientific method is about generating hypotheses, testing them out, finding out you're wrong , and then refining/rewriting those hypotheses and trying again, ad infinitum. Plenty of scientists have been 'wrong' for years. I'd argue the problem you're trying to highlight isn't about 'Science' per se, but the fact…

Exactly!!! The scientific method is such that Science is never wrong. It's god-esque. There's no step in the process - a la 12 Step Process for example - that acknowledges past transgressions. It just hypes up the glory and ignores the mistakes. That's. Not. Working. That's. Not. Good. Enough. That's. Bullshit.

> The scientific method is such that Science is never wrong. It's god-esque.

This is wrong.

> There's no step in the process - a la 12 Step Process for example - that acknowledges past transgressions. It just hypes up the glory and ignores the mistakes.

This is also wrong.

Wrong as in factually incorrect.

You're seeing something in science that doesn't exist.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#192

Post by msla » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 9:28 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #174

gaius wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But instead of owning it's many shortcomings and past transgressions (e.g., consuming Y is safe only to find out it causes birth defects, cancer,etc. Science gave us CFCs then berated us for the hole in the ozone layer...

Yes! And the list goes on and on. Science can't seem to tie its mistakes to lack of credibility. Imagine that. Even Science, like CNN, doesn't know correlation from cause. That's. Just. Sad.

> Even Science, like CNN, doesn't know correlation from cause.

This is factually incorrect, aside from bringing CNN in for absolutely no comprehensible reason.

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#193

Post by VikingCoder » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 10:13 PM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #189

VikingCoder wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's "common sense" to you undoubtedly relies on your culture, and core assumptions you make. The things you value, and the things you discredit. Your world view. I have bought lottery tickets, even though I know it's a "Stupid Tax." And apparently many other people do, too: "Americans Spend More On Lottery Tickets Than On Movies, Video Games, Music, Sports Tix And Books Combined" [1] Even though there's ample evid…

We'll have to agree to disagree. Perhaps both of our approaches have merits in different situations, but in the case where something is concretely falsifiable then people can be wrong not different. Perhaps convincing them otherwise is a job best left to kinder people than me.

I'm genuinely curious:

Can you name anything interesting which is concretely falsifiable?

Just to list a few things that I believe in, and they're very important to me, but which I assert are not "concretely falsifiable":

Anthropogenic Climate Change

Evolution as the origin of species

Reducing (not necessarily eliminating) access to guns is effective at reducing gun deaths

Bombing Nagasaki was the wrong thing to do

Torturing people is not an effective way to gather intelligence, and it's bad policy

Waterboarding is torture

The US has committed very many war crimes in the last thirty years

Abandoning the Gold Standard was a great decision

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#194

Post by throwaway5752 » Tue, Apr 24, 2018, 10:57 PM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #193

throwaway5752 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Perhaps both of our approaches have merits in different situations, but in the case where something is concretely falsifiable then people can be wrong not different. Perhaps convincing them otherwise is a job best left to kinder people than me.

I'm genuinely curious: Can you name anything interesting which is concretely falsifiable? Just to list a few things that I believe in, and they're very important to me, but which I assert are not "concretely falsifiable": Anthropogenic Climate Change Evolution as the origin of species Reducing (not necessarily eliminating) access to guns is effective at reducing gun deaths Bombing Nagasaki was the wrong thing to do T…

You don't get falsifiable in the real world in a computability sense. But > 99% confidence is completely reasonable and should be synonymous in an epistemological sense.

1, 2 are falsifiable and true. They are observed, modeled, and predictions have been demonstrated accurate. 3 is falsifiable and true, but I believe misses the point in the controversy there. 4 is not, ethics are not falsifiable. I lack the knowledge to say on 5 (people who I trust agree on both). 6 is just stupid, it tautologically is - not a question of falsifiable or not. I lack the knowledge to say on 7. I agree 8 but don't believe it's falsifiable (or I cannot prove it).

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#195

Post by VikingCoder » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 12:06 AM UTC

throwaway5752 wrote: post #194

VikingCoder wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious: Can you name anything interesting which is concretely falsifiable? Just to list a few things that I believe in, and they're very important to me, but which I assert are not "concretely falsifiable": Anthropogenic Climate Change Evolution as the origin of species Reducing (not necessarily eliminating) access to guns is effective at reducing gun deaths Bombing Nagasaki was the wrong thing to do T…

You don't get falsifiable in the real world in a computability sense. But > 99% confidence is completely reasonable and should be synonymous in an epistemological sense. 1, 2 are falsifiable and true. They are observed, modeled, and predictions have been demonstrated accurate. 3 is falsifiable and true, but I believe misses the point in the controversy there. 4 is not, ethics are not falsifiable. I lack the knowledge…

Newtonian physics was observed, modeled, and predictions were demonstrated accurate. Until Relativity and Quantum Mechanics showed us that our models were too simple.

This whole argument you're making that things are "concretely falsifiable" is still entirely about trust, and faith, and "good enough" in practice. It's nowhere near as rock solid as you're portraying it.

With guns, if you can't even agree that reducing access would decrease gun violence, it's hard to then debate whether we should, and whether we would need to modify the Constitution in order to do so. We can't even start the conversation.

"Abandoning the gold standard was good" is theoretically falsifiable, but you'd need to explore the multi-verse, or you'd need to run grand experiments in other countries. (Other countries DID do that for us, and it was bad for them.)

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#196

Post by amarant » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

hsribei wrote: post #83

One point that is often lost on the discussions of fake video/"deepfake" is that this development won't only make it easier to fool people into believing something that's made up, but it might also make people more distrustful of things which are actually true. When it's been spread out enough that anything can be doctored to an indistinguishable extent, everything becomes deniable by those being caught, and the skep…

The optimist in me wants to say that this in turn might lead to people actually researching stuff and forming their own opinion instead of just going along with whatever headline they see first, but the pessimist in me says that's probably a pipe dream

Re: Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#197

Post by amirmc » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 12:10 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #173

amirmc wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, Science makes no effort to own those mistakes. That sounds ludicrous to me. The entirely of the scientific method is about generating hypotheses, testing them out, finding out you're wrong , and then refining/rewriting those hypotheses and trying again, ad infinitum. Plenty of scientists have been 'wrong' for years. I'd argue the problem you're trying to highlight isn't about 'Science' per se, but the fact…

Exactly!!! The scientific method is such that Science is never wrong. It's god-esque. There's no step in the process - a la 12 Step Process for example - that acknowledges past transgressions. It just hypes up the glory and ignores the mistakes. That's. Not. Working. That's. Not. Good. Enough. That's. Bullshit.

> * The scientific method is such that Science is never wrong. It's god-esque.*

You've misunderstood my point. The scientific method is such that 'Science' is always wrong. It's a method to continually try to become less wrong about how the world works.

I don't even know what you're referring to when you capitalise 'science' the way you have been. It's not like there's a single entity called 'Science' that issues proclamations.