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Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#161

Post by StuffedParrot »

throwawaybbb wrote: post #69
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,…

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.

How was the nytimes not “fake” during the lead up to the iraq war?

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#162

Post by airnomad »

scarejunba wrote: post #32

The most fascinating thing to watch is the democratization of propaganda. Now you no longer need the printing press. You can speak with a million voices without being a Getty or Rockefeller. The NYT no longer has a monopoly on convincing lies. These are interesting times. I think we're close to the emergence of trustworthy celebrity journalists.

I'm not sure why people are downvoting this

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#164

Post by kortex »

qznc wrote: post #155

Recently I played around with the newest iPhone filters. The pictures had weird shadows and distorted backgrounds. Are distorted backgrounds really an indicator for fake profiles? Smartphones do all kind of weird stuff to "real" images.

GANs tend to leave a very distinctive kind of artifact which is hard to describe but I think anyone who goes through a lot of GAN imagery knows what I am talking about. It's a particular kind of distortion which is a liquidy psychedelic weirdness, that you don't really see in other media fakery.

If you are interested, media forensics is an entire field about this sort of thing.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#165

Post by Cougher »

throwawaybbb wrote: post #69
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,…

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.

The entire build-up toward the Iraq War was based on fake news as was true for most of our wars.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#166

Post by bostik »

nemild wrote: post #10
dv_dt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In part, imho, the distrust comes from the the standards of the highest tiers of professional journalists being on a low right now too.

I'm doubtful that most journalists actually want it to be that way. Those are just the economic and reader incentives in journalism today. There are some great stats about just how much the number of professional journalists has shrunk in the social media era.

I know it's easy (and tempting) to put the blame on social media alone, but there's more than that. The rise of social media certainly accelerated the evisceration, gutting, and - as some might say, annihilation - of journalism but the tailspin trajectory has been in the making for quite a bit longer.

Here's a thread from January this year, where a journalism professor lays bare the facts about the decline of his domain: https://twitter.com/jeremylittau/status/1088503510184927233?...

If my memory serves me right, that thread was on the HN front page at the time. Essentially the expense of quality journalism was seen as frivolous in the 80's, got nixed, and by the mid-90's newspapers relied on their established captive audience to churn out reliable profits with little appetite for innovation. Who was going to compete with them, anyway?

Internet changed the landscape, and social media has been instrumental in hammering nails in the coffin. But the decline of journalism and destruction of quality newsrooms has been going on since before there was public internet.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#167

Post by mirimir »

yrxuthst wrote: post #138
lazysheepherd wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did not know about it, so just checked +20 different versions/translations[1] of the said verse in the bible, and scripture could not have been sharper and clearer on several points; - men who had sex with another men - should be killed - they deserve it Would you point me to a source/insight maybe? Else I will believe, that this is too, as I have witnessed countless times personally, nothing but an apologetic approa…

As a professing Christian, I would say your reading is correct, but this verse (like the rest of the ceremonial and judicial laws) is a command given specifically to Israel, not to all readers. Capital punishment is very common in this code of law, as it was in other civilizations from this time period. There are many laws that have to do with keeping sin and impurity/health risks out of the camp, and this is, by bib…

So why is it still there?

I'm sure that at least some Abrahamic writings didn't get included in the Christian Bible. Or even in the Tanakh.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#168

Post by Gibbon1 »

scarejunba wrote: post #32

The most fascinating thing to watch is the democratization of propaganda. Now you no longer need the printing press. You can speak with a million voices without being a Getty or Rockefeller. The NYT no longer has a monopoly on convincing lies. These are interesting times. I think we're close to the emergence of trustworthy celebrity journalists.

Scuttlebutt is Randolph Hearst bragged about getting the US into the Spanish American War.

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#169

Post by smadurange »

throwawaybbb wrote: post #69
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,…

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.

That's an excellent point!

Re: Facebook Discovers Fake AI-Generated Profiles

#170

Post by smadurange »

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,…

Well, it's not like the professional journalists don't lie at all for profit and self-preservation. Lol.

Facebook does a lot of disageeable things but making everyone a journalist isn't one of them. This just decentralised journalism and actually empowered freespeech. There are issues with it, but that's a better problem we can work on to mitigate than giving a few channels a monopoly over truth.

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