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What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

behavioralscientist.org

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Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#91

> The concern is valid. But there’s a deeper worry, one that involves the enlargement not of our gullibility but of our cynicism. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has voiced worries about the use of AI to influence elections, but he says the threat will go away once “everyone gets used to it.” > Some experts believe the opposite is true: The risks will grow as we acclimate ourselves to the presence of deepfakes. Once we take th…

It's the same idea as "lies spread faster than truth". Lies are often crafted to be especially juicy and salacious. Gossip has always been a problem; GenAI just extends this problem to other media.

“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.” -- Jonathan Swift

Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#92
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a bit (OK quite a lot) of fiddling, you could probably remove the CCD and feed the analog data into the controller, unless that's also got a crypto system in it. Presumably if you were discovered you would then "burn" the device as its local key would be known then to be used by bad actors, but now you need to be checking all photos against a blacklist. Which also means if you buy a second hand device, you might…

Any problem that requires cryptographic attestation or technical control of all endpoints is not a solution we should be pursuing. Think of it as a tainted primitive. Not to be implemented. The problem of Trust is a human problem, and throwing technology at it just makes it worse.

I'm absolutely in agreement with that. The appetite for technical solutions to social problems seems utterly endless.

This particular idea has so many glaring problems that one might almost wonder if the motivation is less about "preventing misinformation" or "protecting democracy" or "thinking of the children" or whatever, and more about making it easier to prove you took the photo as you sue someone for using it without permission. But any technology promoted by Adobe couldn't be about DRM, so that's just crazy talk!

Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#93
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I await cryptographically signed photos coming out of cameras. Actually I’ve said that should be the case for the last 20 years. You should be able to follow a chain of evidence towards an unprocessed raw image potentially.

Unfortunately that doesn't prove too much. It all hinges on the cameras, which are just computers, operating in a verifiable fashion. Which they don't, as no consumer available computer currently does, and I don't see this changing in the near future, both for technological and political reasons. I put a lot of effort into thinking about what could be proper trustable on photos and videos [0], but short of performing…

“I thought about it and couldn’t come up with anything so this is a dead end.”

What a load of nonsense. A little bit of humility and a basic understanding of history should quickly make you realize that.

OPs point is far more interesting and deserves more discussion

Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#94
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I await cryptographically signed photos coming out of cameras. Actually I’ve said that should be the case for the last 20 years. You should be able to follow a chain of evidence towards an unprocessed raw image potentially.

Unfortunately that doesn't prove too much. It all hinges on the cameras, which are just computers, operating in a verifiable fashion. Which they don't, as no consumer available computer currently does, and I don't see this changing in the near future, both for technological and political reasons. I put a lot of effort into thinking about what could be proper trustable on photos and videos [0], but short of performing…

[deleted]

Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately that doesn't prove too much. It all hinges on the cameras, which are just computers, operating in a verifiable fashion. Which they don't, as no consumer available computer currently does, and I don't see this changing in the near future, both for technological and political reasons. I put a lot of effort into thinking about what could be proper trustable on photos and videos [0], but short of performing…

“I thought about it and couldn’t come up with anything so this is a dead end.” What a load of nonsense. A little bit of humility and a basic understanding of history should quickly make you realize that. OPs point is far more interesting and deserves more discussion

I don't understand your hostility. There's nothing in what I wrote or in the way I wrote that would suggest to a good faith reader that my opinion is absolute, that I consider my opinion fact, or that my knowledge is all-encompassing. In your own words I merely "thought about it" - a phrase that means exactly just that, and nothing more. In a way, it's literally a request for further thoughts by others to make up for what I might have not thought of; the exact admission you're looking for, just stated implicitly.

It's immensely frustrating to dress up a natural language sentence with enough precision to try and account for all and every bit of nuance, so you should anticipate and actively consider that I have missed or implied some.

Despite this, you clearly did not, and instead went into attack mode on the assumption(!) that I did miss them intentionally.

I'd recommend you take your own advice on intellectual humility before offering it to others.

Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately that doesn't prove too much. It all hinges on the cameras, which are just computers, operating in a verifiable fashion. Which they don't, as no consumer available computer currently does, and I don't see this changing in the near future, both for technological and political reasons. I put a lot of effort into thinking about what could be proper trustable on photos and videos [0], but short of performing…

“I thought about it and couldn’t come up with anything so this is a dead end.” What a load of nonsense. A little bit of humility and a basic understanding of history should quickly make you realize that. OPs point is far more interesting and deserves more discussion

> OPs point is far more interesting and deserves more discussion

The idea of "cryptographically signed photos coming out of cameras"? It's been discussed to death and is essentially a hope for magic technology to solve our social problems.

Also it won't work, technically: it's like asking for perfect a DRM implementation to be universally implemented everywhere.

Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#97

There was a brief window where photography and videos became widespread so events could be documented and evidenced. Generative AI is drawing that period to an end, and we're returning to "who said / posted this" and having to trust the source rather than the image/message itself. It's a big regression.

It is more that it is becoming available to the masses. Doctoring photos in all manner of ways has been going on for decades. What is happening now will raise awareness of it and of course make it a several magnitudes bigger problem. I am sure there are large efforts ongoing to train AI to spot AI photo, video, written production. A system like printer tracking dots¹ may already be in widespread use. Who would take t…

A mate of mine told me that ChatGPT started injecting zero width spaces into its output. Never fact checked this, but even if it's not done now, I'm sure it's bound to happen. Same for other types of watermarks.

Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#98

Can someone tell me why this idea isn’t workable and wouldn’t solve most deepfake issues? All camera and phone manufacturers embed a code in each photo / video they produce. All social media channels prioritize content that has these codes, and either block or de-prioritize content without them. Result: the internet is filled with a vast amount of AI generated nonsense, but it’s mostly not treated as anything but ent…

I think placing trust in technology is misguided. Bad actors will always figure out a way to abuse the machines.

What we can do is place trust in particular institutions, and use technology to verify authenticity. Not verify that what the institution is saying is true, but verify that they really are standing by this claim.

This is challenging because no institution is going to be 100% trustworthy all of the time in perpetuity. But you can make reasonable assessments about which institutions appear more credible. Then it's a matter of policing your own biases.

Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#99
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately that doesn't prove too much. It all hinges on the cameras, which are just computers, operating in a verifiable fashion. Which they don't, as no consumer available computer currently does, and I don't see this changing in the near future, both for technological and political reasons. I put a lot of effort into thinking about what could be proper trustable on photos and videos [0], but short of performing…

Yeah I'm not even talking about that side of things. I'm talking about after it leaves the camera. When someone shows you something, you should be able to say "I want to see the closest to original image". Humans make a lot of changes to images evidently to change perception. Even a simple crop can change the story being told. A good example: https://imgur.com/iqtFHHg

Yeah, that's a good point. Kind of ties in with the video I linked. Also reminds me a bit to how in modern video containers the film grain is usually a separate thing, and is rendered onto the image during playback. One can imagine turning on a view where the modified parts of the image would become highlighted, assisting with speculations on what might have been altered and how.

I didn't mention this in my previous comment, but after having thought about it even further, I've eventually arrived at the idea that there can be basically an arbitrary amount of meaning embedded onto a photo or a video, and it being "verified" to me as a human really just means "it is what I think I'm looking at" - that's when I realized this task is likely unsolvable in absolute terms, and just how much more difficulty lies beyond the already hopelessly difficult crackpot idea of light source signal modulation that I came up with prior. But yeah, as I suggested, these are just what I could think of, and perfection should indeed not be the enemy of good.

Re: What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling Than the Truth?

#100
post #98

Can someone tell me why this idea isn’t workable and wouldn’t solve most deepfake issues? All camera and phone manufacturers embed a code in each photo / video they produce. All social media channels prioritize content that has these codes, and either block or de-prioritize content without them. Result: the internet is filled with a vast amount of AI generated nonsense, but it’s mostly not treated as anything but ent…

I think placing trust in technology is misguided. Bad actors will always figure out a way to abuse the machines. What we can do is place trust in particular institutions, and use technology to verify authenticity. Not verify that what the institution is saying is true, but verify that they really are standing by this claim. This is challenging because no institution is going to be 100% trustworthy all of the time in…

Sure, but I don't see how that could be implemented in the world in a way other than how I outlined, considering that photos/videos can be created by anyone. There is no central media institution that can control all sharing of content.

It would seem to me that the institution to place your trust in would be the one that implements and verifies the coding system I discussed.

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