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Stop developing this technology

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Re: Stop developing this technology

#121

Post by ilyt »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

Regardless of what I think about this technology in particular, I want to respond to this line from the second comment: [1] > on the contrary, it must be developed. No, it mustn’t. There’s not a gun to your head, forcing you to do this. You want to develop this technology. That’s why it’s happening. Technology isn’t inevitable. It’s a choice we make. And we can go in circles about whether it’s good or bad, but at lea…

For technology not to be developed, everyone with means to develop would need to choose not to. It's not too far from "inevitable"

Re: Stop developing this technology

#122

Post by ilyt »

The_Colonel wrote: post #114
kstenerud wrote: post #88

This kind of technology is far too useful to repressive regimes and those who wish to do nasty things with it. This means that the incentive to develop this technology is already there, and so it WILL be developed no matter how much people wish it wouldn't. The only difference at this point is whether some of the implementations are developed in public view or not. If none are public, then all of them will be done in…

> it WILL be developed no matter how much people wish it wouldn't. Sure, but there's a value in delaying that development. Delaying harm is a valid tactic.

The entities with interest in it have bigger pockets than some random open source project.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#123

Post by rbanffy »

yipbub wrote: post #11

I'm convinced that this idea that technology is completely neutral is wrong. It is not neutral in the face of human psychology. The human species is a different animal that the human individual, and it is powerful, but does not make truly conscious decisions. Once you let the genie out of the bottle, a wish will be made. A technology might not be inherently bad, but neither are knives, and we don't leave those lying…

> It is not neutral in the face of human psychology.

It's worth noting that nuclear weapons seem to have prevented more deaths than they caused. The MAD doctrine has prevented direct confrontation between the superpowers and limited their military conflicts to proxy wars.

And this is a technology that has almost no application beyond vaporizing cities almost instantaneously.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#124

Post by gizmo »

baal80spam wrote: post #72

Technology isn't inherently good or evil, it's neutral. If Company A / Country A / Person A won't do it, then Company B / Country B / Person B will do it and use it to bankrupt you / attack and possibly kill you / take advantage of you. It's that simple.

No, technology falls into different categories.

Aspirin is unambiguously a technological good. As is the bicycle. There are many technological advances which are exclusively (or almost exclusively) used for the benefit of mankind.

Then there is morally neutral technology. Think of a hammer or a knife. Can be used just as easily for good as for evil. It's up to the person who wields it.

The third category is evil technology. Technology that just makes the world a worse place. Think of landmines, nerve gas, or biologically engineered viruses. If we could uninvent things, these are the things we would uninvent in a heart beat.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#125

Post by blowski »

rbanffy wrote: post #117
jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

Regardless of what I think about this technology in particular, I want to respond to this line from the second comment: [1] > on the contrary, it must be developed. No, it mustn’t. There’s not a gun to your head, forcing you to do this. You want to develop this technology. That’s why it’s happening. Technology isn’t inevitable. It’s a choice we make. And we can go in circles about whether it’s good or bad, but at lea…

> No, it mustn’t. Let's imagine you have a horrific face malformation, or went through a terrible accident that left you disfigured. Why not allow you to pass for an ordinary person, at least in video calls, so you can have a somewhat normal life? It took me two minutes to come up with a legitimate use for this technology. I imagine there are many more only a couple minutes away.

I took the OP's comment as meaning "it's not necessary for this to happen" rather than "it's necessary for this not to happen", a nuance which can be confusing, especially for non-native English speakers. The comment in the article suggests there is no choice but for this technology to be developed, and I think the OP is disagreeing with that assessment and saying "there is a choice".

If I've understood that right, both your comments can agree. There are strong arguments to say we _should_ develop this technology, but there also many good counter-arguments.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#126

Post by trashtester »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #109

The deepfake thechnology is awesome and should be available to everybody. Because this is the only way everybody can be finally taught to think critically about everything thay hear/see. Can you believe a politician saying something on TV? Hell no! You should exercise logic about the whole political play he is a part of. Should you think bad about a person you find on a porn site? Absolutely no, what good could resul…

This rabbit hole goes waaay deep.

Why should people believe anything you say on this topic? How can they know you're not a bot or a psy-ops troll working for Xi or Putin with the mission to undermine the very fabric of Democratic societies?

What truths/facts should people NOT doubt when they're using "common sense" and thinking "critically". Are we not all affected by propaganda that directly targets what we consider "facts" and "common sense"?

So, to complete the paradox, I will claim one "fact": As humans there are VERY FEW "facts" we can know from first principles, and there are even fewer pinciples we can now for a fact to be universal, or even useful.

We DEPEND on at least some authorities, whether those are people, institutions, ideas or beliefs.

When someone says "think critically!", they mean that you should put some higher burden of evidence on SOME of your beliefs. But not all, and definitely not those that this someone take as axiomatical truths.

An my main worry is not to find some celebrity's face on PornHub. My main concern is the day when almost everything we see that claims to be news has been tampered with in such a way. If we have now way to tell a deepfake from a true video, we can be made to believe absolutely anything. This can be used to ruin lives, trigger wars, including civil wars, cause nuclear holocaust. And it's already happening. Twitter is full of lies of every kind and from all parties and countries.

We may need to find a way back to a world where there is one main shared narrative that we can all more or less trust. Where the custodians of the institutions that provide the narrative understand the need to maintain the trust and the risks involved in undermining the trust for personal gain, and where there are checks and balances that removes bad actors from such positions.

Without this, I believe we're f'ed, but HOW to obtain it, I don't know.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#127

Post by jablala »

What utterly horrible minds in that comment thread. The justification that other bad things happen means we can reasonably create more evil is disgusting.

Those posses a complete lack of a moral compass.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#128

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

The_Colonel wrote: post #118
dusted wrote: post #6

I think it's a good thing. Not that it's being used for evil things, but because it should help make it obvious that you can't trust anything you see on a screen. Using fake media to trick people into believing anything used to be a privileged reserved for nation states and the ultra rich. Now that _ANYONE_ and their cat can do it, it should follow that nobody can believe anything that's on a screen anymore (this com…

> but because it should help make it obvious that you can't trust anything you see on a screen. I think this in general (text, audio, video) will produce a societal earthquake, in a way send us into the Middle Ages - you can't really verify things yourself, because everything can be faked, all you can do is anchoring yourself to some trusted authority. Imagine you read on hacker news an (AI generated) article about a…

My thought is: if you think conspiracy culture war shitshows are bad now with whatever people on both sides having talking heads saying whatever feeds red meat to their base, imagine trying to bridge the gap in a world with infinite red meat generators competing with each other for audience eyeballs forever.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#129

Post by x-complexity »

The_Colonel wrote: post #114
kstenerud wrote: post #88

This kind of technology is far too useful to repressive regimes and those who wish to do nasty things with it. This means that the incentive to develop this technology is already there, and so it WILL be developed no matter how much people wish it wouldn't. The only difference at this point is whether some of the implementations are developed in public view or not. If none are public, then all of them will be done in…

> it WILL be developed no matter how much people wish it wouldn't. Sure, but there's a value in delaying that development. Delaying harm is a valid tactic.

> > it WILL be developed no matter how much people wish it wouldn't.

> Sure, but there's a value in delaying that development. Delaying harm is a valid tactic.

It is a horrible tactic when your adversary has ultra-deep pockets & mountains of bodies to throw at the problem.

Whatever's being developed here has 1/10th the capability of the tech being developed in black site facilities at the behest of national militaries.

Re: Stop developing this technology

#130

Post by type0 »

rbanffy wrote: post #117
jakelazaroff wrote: post #3

Regardless of what I think about this technology in particular, I want to respond to this line from the second comment: [1] > on the contrary, it must be developed. No, it mustn’t. There’s not a gun to your head, forcing you to do this. You want to develop this technology. That’s why it’s happening. Technology isn’t inevitable. It’s a choice we make. And we can go in circles about whether it’s good or bad, but at lea…

> No, it mustn’t. Let's imagine you have a horrific face malformation, or went through a terrible accident that left you disfigured. Why not allow you to pass for an ordinary person, at least in video calls, so you can have a somewhat normal life? It took me two minutes to come up with a legitimate use for this technology. I imagine there are many more only a couple minutes away.

It is much more useful for privacy concious people not wanting to give Zoom more data for their face detection database. All in all it's good for humanity when technology can counteract other evil tech that will spy on you.
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