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Post-truth society is near

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Re: Post-truth society is near

#71

Post by somenameforme »

bandrami wrote: post #10
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 cares" is the important part. The most recent X-Files reboot did an episode on this. The age of conspiracies is over; governments don't have to kill people to protect secrets because they can just dump them in public and nobody has any idea what to believe anymore.

Does this mean that the age of conspiracies is over, or just beginning?

In the original X-Files the little group of hackers was framed as an eccentric and motley crew of misfits. And in terms of conspiratorial thought in the past (or at least the perception of it), that wasn't entirely inaccurate. But now? Decades of lies, conspiracies, and misdeeds have created the scenario you're alluding to. Public trust in the government peaked in the JFK era, at 77%. Today? It's at 16% [1] and trending to the single digits.

The overwhelming majority no longer trust by default, but this doesn't mean they have no opinion on what the truth may be.

[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/09/19/public-trust...

Re: Post-truth society is near

#72

Post by 13years »

aeternum wrote: post #66
13years wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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,…

This argument around cost of fake content would be more convincing if it weren't already used countless times throughout history. Socrates saying that writing will atrophy people's memories. The priest's fear that books will replace them when it comes to preaching. Gessner and his belief that the unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press will ruin society. The social dilemma, and all those tha…

> I'd imagine in the future there will be many AI agents that can help to summarize the many viewpoints. Just like anything, don't trust any one of them in isolation, consider many sources, and we'll be fine.

It would be promising if there were any formal theories proposing any such methods of verification. However, I'm presently aware of none.

Instead, we see AI detection methods failing and AI cyber defense failing at present.

“As cybercriminals are turning to AI to create more advanced malicious tools, a separate report by the web security company Immunefi said cybersecurity experts are not having much luck with using AI to fight cybercrime”

https://decrypt.co/150899/wormgpt-fraudgpt-ai-hackers-phishi...

I will have a different opinion when we see some real solutions being proposed or implemented. If you have some references in that regard, let me know.

Re: Post-truth society is near

#73

Post by irjustin »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #53
irjustin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generative AI makes it easier to further weaponize, so I would say mid-2010's was the entry (key issues). Now we're about to see it happen everywhere even in places we "thought was safe" (mass market).

What's the meaning of "further" weaponizing something that has already been weaponized?

THe accessibility is way higher.

Like if everyone all of a sudden had access to bio weapons and missiles... our Gov would be a lot more scared than it is today.

Re: Post-truth society is near

#74

Post by 13years »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #70
shadowgovt wrote: post #29

This essay equates "human-generated" with "truth." That doesn't match to my current experience online; more than half of what humans generate is already false. What if it ultimately doesn't matter if the source is human or machine-generated?

It's interesting to note how short a time it took, after the rise of social-media business as a for-profit enabler and cultivator of on-line resentments and madness, for dire social upheaval to be the new normal .

It has certainly been an extreme accelerant.

Although, I believe it is the structure of social media itself contains inherent problems beyond profit motives and algorithms.

More detail here FYI

https://www.mindprison.cc/p/uniform-thought-machines

Re: Post-truth society is near

#75

Post by throwing_away »

mvdtnz wrote: post #8

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that robots that are so real they are indistinguishable from people will come about in our lifetimes. The amount of breathless speculation since OpenAI released a kind-of-decent text completion program is so far beyond ridiculous at this point.

I would be 0% surprised to find out this comment was written by a bot.

Re: Post-truth society is near

#76

Post by reidjs »

13years wrote: post #31
hedora wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, somewhat a different topic, but so much information now exists in video form versus written due to the ease of video recording. So many videos on YT that could be 2 lines of text are 5-10 min videos of someone talking about something irrelevant until we find the part where the problem is discussed. I suppose AI might actually be solution to this. Allowing efficient video search.

That works both ways. a short video about how to properly chop potatoes is better than a text document. They are different forms of expression

Re: Post-truth society is near

#77

Post by reducesuffering »

codetrotter wrote: post #67
reducesuffering wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naive to think you won’t have a compromised software stack on your replicant.

What I am saying is that because we agreed offline on what we would do at the event, we will be able to recognise when the feeds from our replicants do not match what we expected to see. This way we detect that what we are seeing in the video does not match the real events at the place where our replicants are.

> Software detects control input gesture

> Software adds gesture to altered feeds in proximity

Re: Post-truth society is near

#78

Post by edanm »

opportune wrote: post #55
reducesuffering wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> actually go outside and see for themselves, or ask people who have been there Ya sure, only way forward to know what’s going on between Israel and Gaza is to go there myself and ask around. Same with every other conflict. No problem

At least in urban parts of the US, I can go outside and learn Jews are not evil masterminds all planning in conjunction to take over the world, and that Muslims/Palestinians are not all brutal terrorists. What saddens me is that so many fail to make the logical leap that 99% of people you know just wanting to live their lives in peace also applies to 99% of people on the planet.

Unfortunately, that's not exactly true or even relevant. I wish it were.

It's not relevant because it's often the actions of governments, whether elected or not, that actually dictate so much of what happens in the world. It could be the case that e.g. most Russians just want peace - that won't stop a world war from happening if the Russian government decides to start one.

It's also not true either. It's not true because it really is the case that some people don't just want peace - they want to achieve specific goals, some of which are incompatible with other people's goals, and they want this more than they want peace. The Palestinians want various things - e.g. right of return. Israel doesn't want to grant it to them. It's more complicated, there's lots of nuances, but it's not just an issue of "oh why can't they realize that they just want to leave peacefully"

I wish it were.

Re: Post-truth society is near

#79

Post by mattdesl »

croes wrote: post #23
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.

How do cryptographic tools help against fake imagery?

See “Using ZK Proofs to Fight Disinformation”

https://medium.com/@boneh/using-zk-proofs-to-fight-disinform...

Re: Post-truth society is near

#80

Post by olgeni »

mvdtnz wrote: post #8

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that robots that are so real they are indistinguishable from people will come about in our lifetimes. The amount of breathless speculation since OpenAI released a kind-of-decent text completion program is so far beyond ridiculous at this point.

> There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that robots that are so real they are indistinguishable from people will come about in our lifetimes.

Yet the Prince of Nigeria keeps sending emails to good effect. Makes you think :)

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