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AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

theguardian.com

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Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#161

Post by bonoboTP »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #128
bonoboTP wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that you need repeated interactions and reputation networks. It requires densely networked communities where defection is punished with ostracism and tainted reputation. It works in small communities that have known each other for generations and are expected to rely on each other in the future. The ability to move into new circles every few years incentivizes defection and low trust interactions. However tight k…

>Low trust enables outlier performance. Business moves at the speed of trust. Outlier performance can only exist in a high trust environment. Low trust society is highly correlated with low economic activity.

Big city US and entrepreneurial mobility requires formalized interactions that rely less on trust. The high trust environments put a limit to outlier performance. They are clannish, rumor and reputation driven etc.

High trust environments are usually high trust inwards and low trust outwards toward outsiders who show up. They may show great hospitality but won't trust you with their affairs. Outlier entrepreneurial risk taking behavior only works in places that have medium-trust for everyone, by using contracts and other formal things.

High trust is incompatible with high mobility and "fresh starts". High trust is built when there's a way to retaliate and there is a way for reputation to spread. High trust among strangers only works if you can assume that the strangers are embedded in high trust networks that are in some way connected, even if you don't directly know each other.

If you can pack up and go anytime, trust will be lower. But for economic efficiency, being mobile is positive.

There are tradeoffs here. People didn't just become low trust randomly.

Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#162

Post by nradov »

jameshart wrote: post #91
stinos wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't and the correct response is a total lack of trust by default because that's the easiest way to protect yourself. Rather off-topic, but it's funny how this principle applies in the exact same way when it comes to traffic for instance. It is unfortunate it has to be like that, but not trusting any other traffic and assuming they can at any point do the thing you'd least expect them to do is just safer. Espe…

On the other hand you can at least expect that if someone causes an accident they will suffer consequences. Courts and insurance exist as mechanisms to transfer liability including for medical bills, and the criminal system (in many countries) can and does punish people for reckless driving. Sure, you still need to look after yourself in the moment - but there are incentives in place to discourage drivers from misbeh…

There are plenty of countries where driving laws aren't enforced. Using the Internet anywhere is sort of like driving in a corrupt developing country. This creates a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in people who have spent their whole lives in functional developed countries where obeying the law is the default behavior.

Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#163

Post by sensanaty »

SoftTalker wrote: post #138
sensanaty wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have met multiple cybersecurity experts, and they really were experts and in general very intelligent and knowledgeable people, that have fallen for very obvious scams. One of them was one of those gift card scams which in my eyes is possibly the most obvious one. I myself have almost fallen for a well crafted phishing attack, the only reason I never ended up putting in my card details was that I was technical enou…

What I've observed is that normally cautious people will fall for scams when the scam aligns with something expected. Maybe you've just paid your water bull and you get an email that says there's something wrong with your payment. Could just be random chance but it seems related to something you've just done so your normal instinct of "not giving information if I didn't initiate the process" might not be triggered.

> What I've observed is that normally cautious people will fall for scams when the scam aligns with something expected.

Exactly! In my example for myself, I really was expecting a package, and I was expecting to be paying some extra duties/fees, so the phishing site asking me to enter card details didn't strike me as odd. The website itself looked exactly like how the real one looks, there were no grammatical errors or anything else that would tip you off that you're not looking at a legitimate page. The URL, in hindsight was a bit sketchy, but honestly I've received official legitimate communiques from various large companies from very weird URLs before so even then I didn't question the URL too hard, as it wasn't typosquatting or using the Turkish l instead of the regular l or anything like that, just something like dhl-express.com (I can't remember exactly what the URL was). It even had a proper header navbar that they carefully copied from the real thing.

Literally the only thing that tipped me off that it was a scam was that it prefilled the tracking code for me, but the link I had received had no query param as I mentioned and I've never visited the page before (so the tracking code wouldn't be persisted in localStorage or a cookie). I can very, very easily imagine someone less technical falling for it, and hell depending on circumstances I probably would've fallen for it if I was tired after a long day of work or something like that.

Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#164

Post by eth0up »

>>>How can you possibly make due diligence when everyone around you is incentivized to lie?

Jolly doo wiggly jingle dee. This is actually the blueprint for society that I believe most of us are following to fine details. It's been largely rehearsal hitherto, but I do fear the show has begun and any moment now we'll have the doors to the theater welded shut and quite regardless of Amendments, someone's gonna yell fire, too late. And it'll get warm and fuzzy.

My vigilance is unaffected by my absence of optimism and I hold tightly to my values with clean ears to listen to those of others; but here's a scary consideration:

Those that are optimistic that this imminent hellscape can be managed tend to be either not very, or too intelligent. The intelligent ones forget in the bliss of creativity and grit that they are an extreme minority. They may see solutions everywhere, but if they were brave enough to stop and express this to random strangers, things wouldn't go well for long. In theory it could, but in practice wouldn't, and one would find the middle spectrum has been forged with indifference, hostility and abundantly rewarded for self-imposed ignorance and therefore has no time or patience to even hear. Although some might listen while staring at their phone, actual considerations would be outliers.

This is getting worse, not better. The filter bubble has gone live.

Future mitigation will be by necessity in accordance with public obtuseness. What of this mitigation that can be mustered will not be passive, nor pleasant, if any at all beyond headless self preservation. I foresee an inextricable mess, compounded by the winds of time which inevitably must change to carry back all the problems that for so long we have discarded into it. Environmental, social, fiduciary, tectonic, cosmi-oceanic - you name it - it's a big harsh universe and we've been taunting and shitting at it for too long.

Fraud, my friend, is our new religion. Speak against it too loudly and you'll get one tall wooden leg with a nice perpendicular one to secure you high upon it.

Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#165

Post by nradov »

dgb23 wrote: post #158
whimsicalism wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we live in a globalized world of people competing to get money. hoping everyone begins singing kumbaya is nice but far from a practical solution or diagnosis of the problem.

I‘m not against coping strategies, they are useful. I‘m against scamming and dishonesty. I also don’t think ignoring the actual problems is the way to go, on the contrary.

When a problem has no solution then it's not actually a "problem" but rather a fact to be accepted, like gravity. Regardless of new AI tools, there is no conceivable solution to the problem of having millions of scammers operating from jurisdictions without effective law enforcement. Time to start coping.

Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#166

Post by optimalsolver »

bonoboTP wrote: post #155
jnovek wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The kind of high-trust we need to get back (at least here in the states) is the kind between neighbors on the same block. Of course it’s never been wise to trust someone just because you’re both from Boston, but in the past neighbors generally trusted each other and socialized. It’s particularly striking when I visit my parents’ house. I’m a millennial and I don’t even know my neighbors names and my parents, who are…

You need a long time to establish trust. In European villages, if you moved to a place, and weren't born there you were considered an outsider, newcomer, and what's more, likely even the first generation who was born there was still considered a newcomer. Just because you went there from 100 kilometers, even though you speak the same language and have almost the exact same culture. High trust communities need a lot o…

> who doesn't cook for his husband properly

At least they were forward-looking on social issues.

Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#167

Post by throwaway48476 »

bonoboTP wrote: post #161
throwaway48476 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Low trust enables outlier performance. Business moves at the speed of trust. Outlier performance can only exist in a high trust environment. Low trust society is highly correlated with low economic activity.

Big city US and entrepreneurial mobility requires formalized interactions that rely less on trust. The high trust environments put a limit to outlier performance. They are clannish, rumor and reputation driven etc. High trust environments are usually high trust inwards and low trust outwards toward outsiders who show up. They may show great hospitality but won't trust you with their affairs. Outlier entrepreneurial r…

Usually clanish and highly nepotistic societies are classified as low trust. High trust is related to "I trust my neighbors to do the right thing" not "I trust them because they are of my clan".

Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#168

Post by aleph_minus_one »

Nothing new.

Already in 1986, the band Chumbawamba published their debut album "Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records":

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumbawamba

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictures_of_Starving_Children_...

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt_ztOo9Kak

> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_ljBD_smlWxwYsg...

Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#169

Post by ffsm8 »

SkyeCA wrote: post #28
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #6

I was thinking about it, because wife was telling me story from work, where a woman was scammed with AI generated stuff and her colleague was a little too nonchalant about it ( 'it is on her to do her due diligence' ). And it made me annoyed. How can you possibly make due diligence when everyone around you is incentivized to lie? We do have a concept of fraud, but advertising seems to be able to move around its edges…

> How can you possibly make due diligence when everyone around you is incentivized to lie? You can't and the correct response is a total lack of trust by default because that's the easiest way to protect yourself. They really are out to get you(r money).

My grandpa always liked to say

"They only want your best... Your money"

Re: AI-generated 'poverty porn' fake images being used by aid agencies

#170

Post by [deleted] »

optimalsolver wrote: post #166
bonoboTP wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need a long time to establish trust. In European villages, if you moved to a place, and weren't born there you were considered an outsider, newcomer, and what's more, likely even the first generation who was born there was still considered a newcomer. Just because you went there from 100 kilometers, even though you speak the same language and have almost the exact same culture. High trust communities need a lot o…

> who doesn't cook for his husband properly At least they were forward-looking on social issues.

[deleted]
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