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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

#401

Post by jeezfrk »

anigbrowl wrote: post #365
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. And the thing I've personally found quite shocking is how the past 5-10 years or so have shown that even when the truth does come out, there are enough "mirrors" as you put it so that people can question anything and believe whatever they want to believe, facts be damned. A couple weeks ago when the Patriot Front had a white supremacist rally and march in front of the Washington Monument (now of the "red bike g…

It was difficult for me to tell if they actually believed that fairy tale, or of they felt that it didn't really matter because they knew if they shouted "fake news" loud enough they could get enough like minded people to upvote it. It's a tactic to call everything a false flag, even your own ops. It requires virtually zero time, effort, or education to get everyone on your side doing it. Liberals fall for this trick…

haha. they don't get all this delishus Kool aid that is to die for!

I know my good good friend Conservative Fearless Leader will never let me go to jail or die of preventable disease or banish my rites when I want defending.

oops... too late. at least I didn't need to be right.

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

#402

Post by breuleux »

api wrote: post #146
lolinder wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This phase won't last long in the grand scheme of things. We've had about 150 years in which people have been conditioned to trust anything that they see in a photograph, but it's always been possible to fake it and for the last 30 years it's been getting dramatically easier. AI just brings us full circle back to the era of woodcuts—just because you see a photorealistic image or hear an audio recording does not mean…

The era of easy to reproduce but hard to fake media is actually the historical outlier. Before that media was written text and everyone knows anyone can make up anything they want in that domain. Before that most people were illiterate so it didn’t matter much. Media wasn’t even much of a thing. We are headed for the post-media era when any arbitrary piece of media depicting anything can be created for little or no m…

> People just have to learn that media is dead and they can’t trust anything anymore.

That is easy enough. What is difficult is to teach people they cannot just trust the people who tell them what they want to hear.

> Hopefully honest tellers of first hand tales will exist and get the reputation for honesty they deserve.

The odds of that are basically zero. There is no reliable way for people to know whether someone's tales are first hand or not, nor whether they are honest or not. If people stop consuming mainstream media and turn to gonzo journalism, powerful interests will manipulate information channels to direct eyeballs to the journalists they buy. The audience will not notice.

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

#403

Post by sremani »

lagolinguini wrote: post #334
sremani wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold your horses, this is false equivalence. India is no where near China or Russia, Turkey may be closest thing but that is also kind of false. State governments in India are powerful and that complicates many things.

India is very much like Turkey, though perhaps no where as close to China or Russia. State governments in India are not powerful, and they never have been! The constitution of India grants much more power to the Central Government than it does to the State Governments. The BJP government has pushed the boundary of federalism again and again. Here are some concrete examples: 1. Denial of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir…

>> State governments in India are not powerful, and they never have been!

Time to time center was able to disrupt state governments but the states have enormous latitude on taxation, duties and policies. For much of India's existence each state is its own parallel system. The whole GST is trying to harmonize the taxing in India across States and that came what 75 years after Independence.

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

#406

Post by hutzlibu »

skinnymuch wrote: post #352
hutzlibu wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Is there something dystopian about India or Soviet Union that is unlike the Global North?" Actually, I would place the soviet union in the global north (you cannot go much further north, than russia is). And the difference is the extent, what they did to rewrite history. The famous removal of Trotzki out of revolution pictures, after he was not with the main party anymore. Stuff like this, did not happen in the west…

That’s not why the term Global North exists. A historical analysis of modern history shows why Slavs are not included in the Global North. Some one said the west cares about social rights and freedom vs Soviets or Indian people. Both societies were better with many forms of expression including gender and sexuality. This is a good example of history being rewritten for the Global North as the vanguards of social just…

"The reason we have this terminology is because of the colonization, imperialism, elitism, and racism set forth by the Global North"

"historical analysis of modern history shows why Slavs are not included in the Global North."

Then please show me this analysis?

How do you think the russian empire worked before the revolution? (or after)

Or how it became an empire in the first place?

"Ernesto Guevara"

And how exactly was for example the history rewritten for the worse regarding this person?

He is mostly regarded a hero with lots of merchandise to buy everywhere on the west. If his history was rewritten, then by socialists who dreamed of the clean, heroic revolution and closed their eyes to the bloddy, murderous work he did. (Not saying that those who hunted him down were any better)

And Castro did not allow his underlings to leave the country at free will. Among other stuff.

Or how did the indian empire(s) worked before the britains came? (would you enjoy being born in a low caste?) Or china. Or the Zulu. Or the aztecs, etc. etc.

Or read a bit about Haile Selassi.

It seems you are making a artificial line and claiming all or most of the evil came from the north. How is that helpful?

Making the world more simpler by creating us vs them?

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

#407

Post by jonhohle »

quesera wrote: post #362
13of40 wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, here's an example: A couple of months ago they were tossing around the idea of "retaking Crimea". I believe that any effort to do that should be based on a best effort assessment of the will of the people living there, because those are the people who will be getting artillery shells in their livingroom in exchange for it. Based on my own experience with expats from there and Donbas, who still have family in the…

To your edit: There's nothing controversial about saying that it'd be better if the COVID vaccines were better! The COVID vaccines we have are measurably better than not having a COVID vaccine, and people had worse health outcomes if they believed (acted) otherwise. Some narratives allow nuance and some do not. Public health communication is a very problematic place for nuance, and the natural nuance of science was w…

Anything other than “trust the science” was eviscerated during the pandemic, as if “trust” had anything to do with science.

I’m hoping at this point we can agree that the efficacy and function of the available vaccines was overstated and the pressure campaign to take it may have been some of the most intense propaganda inflicted on a western nation in recent memory.

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

#408

Post by joshspankit »

kevincox wrote: post #250
joshspankit wrote: post #114

How will we verify photos and videos without dissolving in to endless speculation? I’m genuinely asking as this is something I’ve been worried about for a while. The only thing I can think of is storing a hash or “phash” with a trusted third party that can then be used to later verify which image is the original. For video, store the hash/phash of the frames with timestamps. But would that even work? How do you back-…

You can't. All photos may be fake or manipulated. You can't trust a photo. You need to decide if you trust those who are vouching for a particular photo.

Imagine for example that you’re a high-ranking politician. You have staff and PR departments and the whole entourage. You take photos regularly and you want those photos to be public to keep building your brand. It’s just a fact that the public won’t fully trust you if there’s a smear campaign, but you have the originals of everything and that’s very powerful if the public can validate them as original.

I’m sure we already have the technology needed to build the tools do that validation, I just don’t know what the winning choices are yet.

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

#409

Post by JieJie »

flagrant_taco wrote: post #267
JieJie wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In my experience, the only person who has a right to tell me what is acceptable to say in public is myself, which is why it's absolutely essential for me to do so with integrity and discretion.

As we start to build trust economies (which really may only be the way forward), we have to start valuing integrity and discretion, or... as you say, all or nothing.

I think this has something to do with Jefferson's "the cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate", and maybe, just maybe why they insisted on educating it. I wish they'd have made it a constitutional right, along with the right to free speech.

(edit: Bing chat says, "It is true that some of the founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, were strong advocates of public education and believed that it was essential for a democratic society. However, they did not explicitly include it in the Constitution, perhaps because they faced opposition from other delegates who favored state sovereignty or feared federal interference. Or maybe they thought that it was implied by the preamble, which states that one of the purposes of the Constitution is to “promote the general welfare” of the people. In any case, the lack of a clear constitutional right to an education has left room for debate and controversy over the years, and has resulted in significant disparities and inequalities in the quality and accessibility of education across the nation."

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

#410

Post by quesera »

jonhohle wrote: post #407
quesera wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your edit: There's nothing controversial about saying that it'd be better if the COVID vaccines were better! The COVID vaccines we have are measurably better than not having a COVID vaccine, and people had worse health outcomes if they believed (acted) otherwise. Some narratives allow nuance and some do not. Public health communication is a very problematic place for nuance, and the natural nuance of science was w…

Anything other than “trust the science” was eviscerated during the pandemic, as if “trust” had anything to do with science. I’m hoping at this point we can agree that the efficacy and function of the available vaccines was overstated and the pressure campaign to take it may have been some of the most intense propaganda inflicted on a western nation in recent memory.

Trust is a social phenomenon. The pandemic was a huge social upheaval.

The best information available was being provided by epidemiologists and doctors and statisticians and researchers. It was messy and contradictory and confusing sometimes, especially in the beginning. Like science.

Other information was being provided by politicians and radio hosts and religious figures and somebody's uncle. It was speculative and invented and delusional and manipulated and dishonest sometimes, according to the whims of famous personalities and media outlets. Like gossip.

Given those options, "trust the science" is a pretty reasonable message.

Not "trust the science to have all the answers immediately and with complete accuracy and no amendments", because that is not science.

More like "trust the science over the gossip".

But I take your point. People don't understand science, so it's very easy for them to feel betrayed when science does its usual messy science things.

And of course there were stochastic parrots on either side.

That said, the "trust the science" parrots had better health outcomes than the "impeach fauci" parrots. This seems unlikely to be a coincidence -- and as a blunt social influence tool, it's reasonable to conclude that "trust the science" was the better choice of intense propaganda, if not as persuasive as we all would have liked.

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