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Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#101

Post by bittercynic »

asveikau wrote: post #86
nemild wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the scariest quotes for me was Facebook's Little Red Book in 2012 (a book handed out to every employee) that had this quote: > "When everyone has a printing press [i.e., Facebook], the ones with the best ideas are the ones people listen to." In retrospect, it gives a ton of insight into the flawed beliefs within the company. https://twitter.com/nemild/status/1006533287378968576 https://www.businessinsider.com/…

I think in part Zuckerberg thinks of his own personal success this way. In his mind, he did well because He was Him, and right all the time. A more humble view might include that he was raised in relative privilege, a lot of doors were open to him, and there was a lot of good luck involved.

He was also more willing than most to abuse the trust of his fellow students at Harvard.

I imagine it is only a small fraction of people who would be so brash as to ask fellow students for their email passwords, but with the benefit of hindsight, it seems clear that someone who asks for that information probably wants to do something nasty with it.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#102

Post by hooande »

This is just using GANs to generate fake profiles. It does scale better than making up fake people by hand, but to what end? I'm not sure if there's a direct relationship between the ease of creating fake accounts and their cultural influence. And it seems like facebook doesn't have trouble detecting them.

Convince me that this isn't just "add AI to the headline" clickbait

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#103

Post by throw_m239339 »

sjg007 wrote: post #79
throwawaybbb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic that all journalists got the Iraq war wrong without the need for fake news. We don't need real journalists, we need a way to pay for news that makes accurate reporting profitable.

Journalists were lied to and have very little means of independent investigation. The "fake news" here was actually the lie pandered by the White House. The fact that the House and Senate went a long with it is concerning but I imagine you only have to get the House and Senate intelligence committees onboard to get the rest of them to tag along.

> Journalists were lied to and have very little means of independent investigation

Plenty of foreign journalists didn't buy what the US government was saying and refuted its claims with facts, the whole idea that Saddam Hussein had nukes or WMD was completely preposterous, it's just that US journalists were afraid of being labelled traitors if they didn't go along with the Irak war. Journalists are people after all. So they "chose" to listen to Rumsfeld instead of Hans Blix.

Journalists aren't trusted anymore and their work isn't valued by the public because things like the Covington school incident happens, where Journalists just keep using tweets as a meaningful source of information, with no serious investigative work.

Journalists don't like Facebook, Google and co because they are direct competitors to them in terms of attention and ad revenue. Ironically they somehow like Twitter and are all on Twitter even when Twitter is actually competition to them, way more than Facebook or Google. Why bother visiting the nyt when all the drama is already on Twitter?

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#104

Post by mattr47 »

jedberg wrote: post #73
throwawaybbb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironic that all journalists got the Iraq war wrong without the need for fake news. We don't need real journalists, we need a way to pay for news that makes accurate reporting profitable.

Good journalism is still no match for a functioning US intelligence apparatus intent on disinformation.

Any competent government intelligence agency. Every government puts their own spin on information.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#105

Post by primitivesuave »

nemild wrote: post #9
jedberg wrote: post #4

It's ironic that as we move into a world where anyone can be a "journalist" and anyone can have a voice, we need professional journalists more than ever. Now a journalist will not only need training in writing well, conveying a story with facts, and investigating, but they will also need to become experts in identifying fake source material. In a world where anyone can make a video or photo of anyone doing anything,…

One of the scariest quotes for me was Facebook's Little Red Book in 2012 (a book handed out to every employee) that had this quote: > "When everyone has a printing press [i.e., Facebook], the ones with the best ideas are the ones people listen to." In retrospect, it gives a ton of insight into the flawed beliefs within the company. https://twitter.com/nemild/status/1006533287378968576 https://www.businessinsider.com/…

In the century that the printing press was invented, one of the most popular books to be printed was the Malleus Maleficarum, which systematized the practice of witch burning in the following centuries. Better dissemination of ideas does not necessarily mean better ideas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#106

Post by mattr47 »

eivarv wrote: post #48
rvz wrote: post #5

And so it appears that the inevitable has 'finally happened'. Mark Zuckerberg's website is now a place not to be trusted as a source of news, finding friends and meeting others if there's a possibility of AI generated profiles being proliferated on the website. I've heard that meeting real humans outdoors makes it less likely to be deceived. Their authenticity is vouched via word of mouth and experience by other huma…

I don't think social media should ever be trusted as a source of news (by itself) – and frankly, I don't know many people who have seen Facebook as such.

obviously someone must use FB for their news because that's all I read about in the news now.

Wait, that sounds circular. Bottom line is profit overrides truth most times now.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#107

Post by mattr47 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #15
rvz wrote: post #5

And so it appears that the inevitable has 'finally happened'. Mark Zuckerberg's website is now a place not to be trusted as a source of news, finding friends and meeting others if there's a possibility of AI generated profiles being proliferated on the website. I've heard that meeting real humans outdoors makes it less likely to be deceived. Their authenticity is vouched via word of mouth and experience by other huma…

Require manual profile validation for new Facebook accounts? Probably would get downvoted if I said SSN + a credit check. Phone number required + needs to be validated + can not be reused + can not be Twilio. Prove your address? Prove your ISP cable bill? I don't know. Everything I guess, people here are going to tell me it's an invasion of privacy and they don't trust Facebook to do it. But they'll let CreditKarma h…

So more big brother stuff is what you are suggesting. How about people not rely on FB for news.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#108

Post by burtonator »

jedberg wrote: post #4

It's ironic that as we move into a world where anyone can be a "journalist" and anyone can have a voice, we need professional journalists more than ever. Now a journalist will not only need training in writing well, conveying a story with facts, and investigating, but they will also need to become experts in identifying fake source material. In a world where anyone can make a video or photo of anyone doing anything,…

> In a world where anyone can make a video or photo of anyone doing anything, we'll need to rely on reputable journalists to vet that material for us.

signed media is going to become FAR more important in the future.

We're going to have cameras shipping with crypto so that news agencies can sign their video.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#109

Post by buzzkillington »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #103
sjg007 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalists were lied to and have very little means of independent investigation. The "fake news" here was actually the lie pandered by the White House. The fact that the House and Senate went a long with it is concerning but I imagine you only have to get the House and Senate intelligence committees onboard to get the rest of them to tag along.

> Journalists were lied to and have very little means of independent investigation Plenty of foreign journalists didn't buy what the US government was saying and refuted its claims with facts, the whole idea that Saddam Hussein had nukes or WMD was completely preposterous, it's just that US journalists were afraid of being labelled traitors if they didn't go along with the Irak war. Journalists are people after all.…

I don't understand why you're being downvoted. This was a fact during the Iraq invasion. Anyone who got the story right got fired. Everyone who parroted the administration line, even when it was blindingly obvious it was a lie, got promotions.
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