A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it • Hacker News Board

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#121

Post by jsnell » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 4:53 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #74

Related: Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old [0] is a great counterpoint to the general idea put forth here. If you've not seen it, do yourself and ANZAC Day treat and watch it this evening. It's from just before all this AI stuff went off. Jackson (of LoTR fame) is a huge WWI buff and was approached by the Imperial War Museum and the BBC for this film. He takes old archival footage and then uses a lot of compute…

My biggest complaint was actually that the portion with the original footage went on too long.

One thing that surprised me was that they did the transition from original to enhanced footage so abruptly; I'd expected a smooth transition over a couple of minutes where you don't even realize it happened until after the fact. The abrupt transition didn't get a crowd reaction when I saw it, but maybe that collective gasp was the goal and it just didn't work out in this showing.

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#122

Post by chpatrick » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

ChatGTP wrote: post #19

chpatrick wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at that point we'll be well and truly screwed.

But what I'm confused about is that we're supposed to be using AI to do, cancer research, solve all diseases and the mysteries of the universe, but some how cryptographically signed photos are out out the question?

I mean if we're at the point where an AI has cryptographic knowledge unknown to humanity and is using it maliciously, verified images will be the least of our problems.

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#123

Post by jwfergus » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

Maybe a crypto person would know more, but couldn't some DAO be incentivized to verify the authenticity of current known historical documents/images and create a block chain of agreed upon authentic historical imagery? The longer it takes for us to do that, maybe the more likely falsifications can slip in, but I have a feeling that the real world nature of many history books and libraries means we can have a pretty strong head start.

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#124

Post by Animats » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

confoundcofound wrote: post #118

mym1990 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as everyone's photographic style becomes easily replicated, that means all of photography will become an unimportant hobby?

Maybe it does mean that. I'm really looking forward to the great humbling that AI will bring artists who for some reason feel their craft is sacred and thereby should be gatekept and protected. Don't get me wrong, I love art and think it's important. But so is medicine and plumbing.

That happened to musicians years ago. "Laptop bands" were once a joke, and now they're normal. Celebrity DJs now get more attention than most musicians, and most of what DJs now do is semi-automated.

This annoys lower-tier boomer musicians, for whom Being In A Band was a big deal. That died when there were several million bands listed on Myspace.

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#125

Post by unethical_ban » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:02 PM UTC

ChatGTP wrote: post #19

chpatrick wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at that point we'll be well and truly screwed.

But what I'm confused about is that we're supposed to be using AI to do, cancer research, solve all diseases and the mysteries of the universe, but some how cryptographically signed photos are out out the question?

What do you mean?

I don't argue that it will be impossible in the long term. Right now, though, AI doesn't seem to be able to solve fundamental new problems - only to see patterns that humans can't yet see. I don't know if it is yet expected for AI to do fundamental new research on algorithms.

I also don't think the person above you suggested it's not possible - but their point stands, AI is going to really fuck society up if there is literally no way to communicate further than seeing/hearing distance between humans without knowing if the message is genuine. We'll have solved cancer and reverted to the 1700s.

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#126

Post by notahacker » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:02 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #70

Meh - I don't know. At least in the UK, "History" classes at school were less about memorising the facts, and more about questioning the who, what, why of some source of information. One thing that stands out in my memory is multiple different teachers always drilling into us: "never trust photos" (you don't always know who took them, for what reason, and if they were real or staged or whatever) If 12 year old kids a…

That was how history was taught before Michael Gove came along and decided history was really about chronology, at least..

Agree that we've had plenty of ability to fake photos and documents before. I mean, some of the most famous historical photos of the Soviet Union are famous because of who was removed from them!

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#127

Post by throwuwu » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:03 PM UTC

masswerk wrote: post #65

Zetobal wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are photographers and not historians.

Mind that this is about the public image. (They expressly state that it is not the historians, those with expertise in fine detail and congruence with out-of-frame context, who they are worried about. It just happens so that they have devoted their lives to capturing and archiving and communicating such images.)

Hmmm, experts protecting the poor befuddled masses sure looks an awful lot like hurried moat building.

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#128

Post by unethical_ban » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:05 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #21

unethical_ban wrote: post #8

Let me get my broken record out to say that "trust" in certain institutions, as well as cryptographic signing, will become even more indispensable over time. Webs of trust where items and documents are signed by trusted organizations to be authentic/unaltered, since we won't be able to trust our eyes or ears.

HDCP lasted... I think it might have been three years, the second time? Or maybe four years, I can't recall. Why would any kind of camera photo signing algorithm fare better?

You assumed a specific instance of signing when I was talking generally.

Reporters attesting to their newsroom the authenticity of a photo, libraries and museums having stronger chain of custody and documentation of the state of their collections, etc.

As far as hardware signing, perhaps PKI and per-camera keys could be issued. HDCP was encryption with global symmetric keys, no? This would be a different case.

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#129

Post by n1b0m » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #70

Meh - I don't know. At least in the UK, "History" classes at school were less about memorising the facts, and more about questioning the who, what, why of some source of information. One thing that stands out in my memory is multiple different teachers always drilling into us: "never trust photos" (you don't always know who took them, for what reason, and if they were real or staged or whatever) If 12 year old kids a…

You must have had the privilege to attend a very good school, possibly private.

Re: A.I. imagery may destroy history as we know it

#130

Post by Wowfunhappy » Tue, Apr 25, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

tivert wrote: post #106

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HDCP lasted... I think it might have been three years, the second time? Or maybe four years, I can't recall. Why would any kind of camera photo signing algorithm fare better?

> Why would any kind of camera photo signing algorithm fare better? You probably wouldn't even have to bother. If you want to fake history, just launder your images: setup rig where an SLR camera can telecine the images off a high resolution screen. With some optics you could probably also adjust the other camera parameters (like focus, f-stop) to make it more convincing.

You could imagine a timestamp being built into the signature, and maybe even gps coordinates, although I agree it wouldn't be a complete solution.