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Post-truth society is near

mindprison.cc

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Re: Post-truth society is near

#11

Post by 13years »

RIMR wrote: post #5

Post truth society is already here. Disinformation has been on the rise the past couple of decades, and the results are clearly visible: conspiracy theories, election misinformation, and divisive politics where people's worldviews vary across their perception of reality. Photoshopping and lying your way to a narrative is now the norm in the age of social media. No doubt that AI will accelerate this, but to act like A…

Yes, the problem already exists, but we are approaching something uniquely different in magnitude that is significantly different than prior.

I would add the caveat Post-truth is not the moment disinformation exists, but rather the point where the threshold is crossed where truth is no longer discoverable for the majority of content.

Re: Post-truth society is near

#12

Post by ironmagma »

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #7

There is so much baseless hysteria about this subject. If society actually cared about this issue (spoiler, it doesn't), we already have all the required cryptographic tools (PKI, trusted timestamping, remote attestation) to create/record verifiably sourced content. Nobody really cares though. But people sure do like to whine about it.

There may be other reasons besides "they don't care". For instance, it's pretty dubious to say "they don't care" about the results of an election. But we still don't use encryption or really crypto at all for election results for reasons like logistics.

Re: Post-truth society is near

#13

Post by hanniabu »

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #7

There is so much baseless hysteria about this subject. If society actually cared about this issue (spoiler, it doesn't), we already have all the required cryptographic tools (PKI, trusted timestamping, remote attestation) to create/record verifiably sourced content. Nobody really cares though. But people sure do like to whine about it.

> Nobody really cares though

You've come full circle and pointed out the exact problem

Re: Post-truth society is near

#15

Post by hedora »

13years wrote: post #4
trebor wrote: post #2

Uh... Post-truth has been here awhile. They’ve had the capacity to fake/alter live events for decades now.

"Some will make the argument “But isn’t this simply the same problems we already deal with today?”. It is; however, the ability to produce fake content is getting exponentially cheaper while the ability to detect fake content is not improving. As long as fake content was somewhat expensive, difficult to produce, and contained detectable digital artifacts, it at least could be somewhat managed." Yes, indeed. However,…

In the 90’s, the internet was cool, but you went to the library to do research.

For about 20 years, that flipped. I think it is flipping back. For me, the eye opener was trying to diagnose a roof vent issue. The small local library has two relevant books, each with 2-3 pages of information.

Those pages were more informative than a 6 hour internet search.

Re: Post-truth society is near

#16

Post by isoprophlex »

Eh, what?

Anti-vaxxers believing there's microchips in vaccines, 9/11 truthers, flat earthers, NFT peddlers, gamestop investors, moon landing deniers, qanon, believers in a shadowy cabal running the USA because there's an illuminati-looking eye on the 1 dollar bill...

These did pretty well without GPT4 and SD.

People need education, critical reading skills, reasoning skills. And they need at least the lower 2-3 rungs on Maslow's pyramid satisfied. That protects against misinformation, not controlling or detecting where content originates.

Memes will spread if the conditions are right, no matter how much tech or legislation you throw at society.

Re: Post-truth society is near

#18

Post by selimthegrim »

willis936 wrote: post #3
trebor wrote: post #2

Uh... Post-truth has been here awhile. They’ve had the capacity to fake/alter live events for decades now.

And the capability hasn't mattered for nearly as long. Large swaths of society have chosen to reject inconvenient truths and instead believe convenient lies. The battle's already lost. I'm not sure I can be convinced that we aren't 4th century Rome.

What were the convenient lies in 4th century Rome?

Re: Post-truth society is near

#19

Post by 13years »

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #7

There is so much baseless hysteria about this subject. If society actually cared about this issue (spoiler, it doesn't), we already have all the required cryptographic tools (PKI, trusted timestamping, remote attestation) to create/record verifiably sourced content. Nobody really cares though. But people sure do like to whine about it.

> But people sure do like to whine about it.

That is the minority of people who comprehend what is happening stating their observations.

Cryptography has been proposed, but implementation details are problematic. There are still methods of subversion, but they do get harder. The other issue is that having every hardware recording device in existence implement cryptographic capabilities will also result in a regulation battle more likely to result in DRM state controlled devices.

Re: Post-truth society is near

#20

Post by isoprophlex »

13years wrote: post #4
trebor wrote: post #2

Uh... Post-truth has been here awhile. They’ve had the capacity to fake/alter live events for decades now.

"Some will make the argument “But isn’t this simply the same problems we already deal with today?”. It is; however, the ability to produce fake content is getting exponentially cheaper while the ability to detect fake content is not improving. As long as fake content was somewhat expensive, difficult to produce, and contained detectable digital artifacts, it at least could be somewhat managed." Yes, indeed. However,…

You mean it'll fuck up SEO? The web is unsearchable already, anyway.

And people have their attention already saturated, this is the bottleneck. Not the amount of bullshit society can produce.

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