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India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

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Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#261

Post by hnthrowaway8860 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #230
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. The postmodernists (as I understand them) have been talking about "post truth" and "claims of truth are just assertions of power". And I've always thought that their position was insane. Now they look more like prophets. That world is increasingly the world we live in. The question becomes, how can we stay sane in that world? How can we find enough actual truth (truth that is actually true , true in the old sen…

A lot of what enables this is centralized infrastructure. If you have your messages and browsing history and files on your own device, and you make end-to-end encrypted connections to the people you talk to, it's a lot harder to do this kind of thing. Because you have your own personal copy of the thing from when it first happened and if you remember it you can go back and verify it yourself. Then you can point that…

I don't think that Tucker Carlsen style BS machines have anything to do with governments censoring your private messages. You are talking about an entirely different threat model here.

Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#262

Post by flagrant_taco »

tdehnel wrote: post #150
flagrant_taco wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, it could be our fault for creating a world in which that fast growth in knowledge is required. We didn't have to pursue technologies that make the centralization of power and control easier and easier.

Eventually, some thing that we cannot control (e.g. Giant meteor, pandemic, etc) will come to destroy us. If it does, it will be our fault for not progressing fast enough in terms of knowledge. There is no world in which we could, or would want to limit our growth in terms of scientific knowledge. Not to mention the fact that to do so would mean ceding full totalitarian control.

Are you really arguing that we should have no boundries on progress for fear of a rogue asteroid destroying us all? Shouldn't we consider the risks of what we may accidentally break or purposely misuse along the way? Scientific knowledge comes with risks, both in how the tools can be used as well as errogant or misguided belief that we know enough to understand all meaningful implications of wielding said knowledge.

Even the concept of progress as a goal seems misguided and risky. We shouldn't assume something is better simply because it isn't what we had before. "Not worse than what we had before" is a great goal but one that requires effort and focus, it isn't a given law of the universe that all change is good simply because it's change.

Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#263

Post by beedeebeedee »

tdehnel wrote: post #145
collsni wrote: post #13

Just the beginning, what happens when it becomes impossible to parse fact and fiction? I mean rsa 2048 can be currently broken in 104 days, and we'll be at quantum levels sooner than we realize. How we validating anything after that? Biometric?

Most people think information is transmitted from source to receiver. This is actually wrong. What happens is the information is creatively formed in the mind of the receiver, by the receiver, in all cases. In other words, people form an explanation for the observation in their minds and judge it compared to other competing explanations. So instead of the post-truth, doom-and-gloom world that you fear, another possib…

That is an optimistic view, which I appreciate. The only issue I have is that I think we will need to mobilize as a culture to embrace it, in order for it to succeed.

I don't think it is as simple as replacing one explanation with another (like your door-to-door salesman example) because it is such an open-ended problem. I think it is more like completing the Enlightenment as conceived by Kant and others.

I think we could do it (i.e., philosophy classes beginning in elementary school, etc), but it would be tough to convince people to participate. It is hard, mind-bending, solitary work that is inherently alienating, which most people avoid.

Additionally, there is also the inherent contradiction in developing your own independent mind by order of the government or teachers, as well as a host of other paradoxes.

Maybe the best route is to try to make philosophy popular? Use social behavior for people to be attracted to it for the wrong reasons, but hope that a sizeable part of the population end up taking it seriously? And that sizeable chunk is enough to influence the group?

I have no idea, but I like your comment and hope there is a silver-lining that we become deeper and more thoughtful people.

Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#264

Post by throwaway384629 »

shri_krishna wrote: post #185
dagmx wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely hate the way fellow Indians will just try and deflect negative stories about India as western propaganda. You do a disservice to your country by following that tired playbook. Did you ever stop to consider that I am actually well informed and genuinely disappointed with my country. Criticism of the country and party doesn’t mean I’m simply misinformed. I was critical of things when I lived there, I consu…

[flagged]

>> Take the World Happiness Index 2023 which ranked India lower than Pakistan ...

May be World Happiness Index 2023 data is bit flawed. But I don't think that means whole world is sharing propaganda against India.

>> Heck we get 100Mbps-1Gbps unlimited internet connectivity anywhere in India at the lowest rates possible in the entire World.

How is it an achievement of Government while this was done by private companies like Reliance at the cost of public owned BSNL? Government actually let the loss of public tax payers money by giving favourable treatment to private companies.

Modi and his fans always talk about low prices of internet in India, while its a failure of government to control Reliance where Reliance is using money raised from state bank to give dirt cheap internet connection to public and killing the competition. They have already started raising the prices now that several competitors are gone. [1]

Reliance raises money from public banks, Reliance uses that money to get tower network of public owned BSNL, Reliance gets priority over BSNL to launch 4G, Reliance is in profit while BSNL is in loss, Government employee phone connections are transferred from BSNL to private entity Reliance. [2] [3] [4]

>> I don't need some stupid organization in the West to tell me I am more unhappy than these countries.

Why care about other stupid organizations while you have "Whatsapp university" to keep us informed. [5]

[1] https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/your-phone-b...

[2] https://www.livemint.com/industry/telecom/reliance-jio-emerg...

[3] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/state-polic...

[4] https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/forget-5g-bs...

[5] https://www.outlookindia.com/national/the-age-of-whatsapp-un...

Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#265

Post by gray_-_wolf »

deno wrote: post #104
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. The postmodernists (as I understand them) have been talking about "post truth" and "claims of truth are just assertions of power". And I've always thought that their position was insane. Now they look more like prophets. That world is increasingly the world we live in. The question becomes, how can we stay sane in that world? How can we find enough actual truth (truth that is actually true , true in the old sen…

[flagged]

How will this protect (the first "workaround" that popped into my head) against modifying/AI generating an image, printing it on high-quality printer and taking a photo of that image in good (or maybe bad?) lighting?

Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#266

Post by dgellow »

codegeek wrote: post #133
dagmx wrote: post #22

As an NRI, I continue to be disappointed by the country I called home for most of my life. Between the politics and the pollution in Delhi, I fear I can never really return home. The last time I was home, I was struggling every day to breathe because Delhi has crazy air in the winter. While high school friends were telling me about how they don’t believe in equal rights, justifying any means to achieving a Hindu coun…

For non Indians, NRI = Non Resident Indian i.e. an Indian who lives outside India. In case someone wondered. It is easy to shit on the party in office which is BJP right now but show me a country that can have hundreds of languages, all religions and still survive for centuries as one country. Europe couldn't do it. They broke into EU (for better or worse). There are flaws but India is a complex country of various cu…

> It is easy to shit on the party in office which is BJP right now but show me a country that can have hundreds of languages, all religions and still survive for centuries as one country. Europe couldn't do it. They broke into EU (for better or worse).

I have no idea what you’re referring to here. Europe has never been one country, and will likely never be. Having smaller countries isn’t something bad, nobody would consider multiple Europeans countries to be a failure, or the result of a broken Europe. Even proponents of a United States of Europe (I am one) don’t see having multiple European countries as a failure.

Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#267

Post by flagrant_taco »

JieJie wrote: post #251
salawat wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Centralization is technology. There will always be people looking at any advancement and figuring out how to leverage it to expand their personal capability to project power. Nothing is immune to it. Even primitives of decentralization can be leveraged in a way that defacto centralization is the inevitable outcome. You don't research things that can't be centralized. You just don't centralize. The cost there though.…

Watching Mastodon and the Fediverse expand is an experiment we can watch in real time. Newcomers to the technology clamoring for it to be more centralized is a daily occurrence. It seems almost entropic, the push towards centralization. It seems to require constant effort to keep it decentralized.

I've always wondered if the push towards centralization is a reaction to fear of the lack of control.

True decentralization and censorship resistance requires taking the bad with the good. I'm the case of Mastodon, if I can't be censored for sharing my views on technology, politics, or sports then the person wishing to sharing illegal photographs of threats that may be illegal in some jurisdictions can't be censored either.

It raises the very interesting question of whether freedom of speech is an all our nothing concept. Very few people would support the idea of being able to say literally whatever you want, but can you really have freedom of speech at all if someone else gets to draw the bounds with which your speech much stay?

Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#268

Post by throwaway384629 »

lagolinguini wrote: post #31
otikik wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that relevant? People should not get arrested for protesting sexual harassment, even if others are inaugurating a new Taj Mahal.

It is relevant because the PM is touting the new parliament building as ushering Indian into a new age of democracy, calling the building a temple of democracy; while dissenting voices outside are being stifled as the wrestlers are being arrested.

PM Modi was literally giving a speech on "how we are the coolest democracy in the world" few kilo-meters away from where the protesters were arrested.

Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#269

Post by JieJie »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #184
deno wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> You suggest giving up. Not at all. I'm not sure what I said that makes you think that. What I say, though, is that we don't know (either individually or as a society) how to operate in this new environment. It's making it hard to stay sane as an individual, and to stay functioning as a society.

Maybe we don't know how do operate in this environment, because we don't really know how to collectively operate in any environment?

Humanity is, after all, crawling out of at least the last 3000 years of recorded history of rulers telling everyone else how to live, like it or not.

We've only really been doing this democracy thing semi-successfully for a handful of centuries.

In the overall scheme of things, we're still pretty new at not being ordered around by people stronger than us. It's a hard habit to break on both sides.

Re: India ruling party's IT cell used AI to show smile on arrested protesters' faces

#270

Post by hnthrowaway8860 »

deno wrote: post #104
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. The postmodernists (as I understand them) have been talking about "post truth" and "claims of truth are just assertions of power". And I've always thought that their position was insane. Now they look more like prophets. That world is increasingly the world we live in. The question becomes, how can we stay sane in that world? How can we find enough actual truth (truth that is actually true , true in the old sen…

[flagged]

Geez. Techies trying to come up with tech solutions to fundamentally non-tech problems. The photogtapher can just zoom in or get closer to the object to crop the image before it's even taken.

Oh you now want a 360 degree shot to prove this didn't happen? Well then they stand behind a tree or a car or some other object to hide parts of the scene behind. etc. etc. There is no technical solution to this problem.

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