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Non-Amp (Canonical) URL: https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/4/17/17247334/ai-fake-new... Speedtest comparison: https://www.webpagetest.org/video/compare.php?tests=180417_X...
> It's a time when we need to rely on trusted news sources That's the rub, isn't it? Who's a "trusted" new source? All the major players have shown biases, corruption, and manipulation. Lots of people therefore consider some fly-by-night facebook feed that says what the majors don't to be more "trusted" in response. We shouldn't "rely" on single points of perceived trust, especially in this massive for-profit, for-po…
The problem lies in the motive. News organizations are (not surprisingly) entirely motivated by profit. Breaking even is not enough. Doing well is not enough. Improving profit drastically quarter over quarter is the goal. To do that, you cannot simply "provide news" anymore. You need conflict. You need confirmation bias. You need to create a wild, screaming echo chamber that induces panic and fear. You need conflict,…
> It's a time when we need to rely on trusted news sources That's the rub, isn't it? Who's a "trusted" new source? All the major players have shown biases, corruption, and manipulation. Lots of people therefore consider some fly-by-night facebook feed that says what the majors don't to be more "trusted" in response. We shouldn't "rely" on single points of perceived trust, especially in this massive for-profit, for-po…
> It's a time when we need to rely on trusted news sources That's the rub, isn't it? Who's a "trusted" new source? All the major players have shown biases, corruption, and manipulation. Lots of people therefore consider some fly-by-night facebook feed that says what the majors don't to be more "trusted" in response. We shouldn't "rely" on single points of perceived trust, especially in this massive for-profit, for-po…
The problem lies in the motive. News organizations are (not surprisingly) entirely motivated by profit. Breaking even is not enough. Doing well is not enough. Improving profit drastically quarter over quarter is the goal. To do that, you cannot simply "provide news" anymore. You need conflict. You need confirmation bias. You need to create a wild, screaming echo chamber that induces panic and fear. You need conflict,…
That's an over-simplication.
Sure, Jeff Bezos probably wants to make a profit with his purchase of the Washington Post. But the profits there are probably not his main objective as they are too small to make much of a difference to a person of Bezo's wealth.
Bezo's goal is to have a mouthpiece to push his agendas, such as pushing Amazon and trashing Musk properties. So you say that the purpose in doing that is to make more money. But the problem with that line of thinking is that you could reduce almost any action to "profit". You could reach further back and go a level lower and say that making profit is motivated by reproductive fitness, and thus "News organizations are entirely motivated by sex". But at some point you have to let go of the circuitous route from action to final motivation and focus on the immediate drivers of an action.
Politics, money, sex, job security, prestige, etc all all motivations for news organizations, as well as many other organizations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> All the major players have shown biases, corruption, and manipulation. Bunching those together feels disingenuous. Do the New York Times, Washington Post, WSJ, etc etc all have their own perspectives? Sure. That's bias, to an extent. But when have they been corrupt? When have they manipulated their reporting? To put it simply: if a reputable outlet was caught modifying a video of Trump to put words in his mouth it…
The magnitude of incorrectness/malicousness in reporting is irrelevant to this: No single source will leave you with a broadly-informed understanding, even if by simple way of time/space constraints in their output. Even the simplest of biases affects editorial decisions as to which content to prefer over others. Omissions of viewpoints or of counterpoint example stories means you don't get the big picture, even with…
I'm a little disappointed that it took this long for people to get over the 'OMG celebrity porno' thing about deepfakes to actually start dealing with the real potential consequences. Deepfakes open up an amazingly large list of questions, from the mundane to the truly challenging. That someone will see imagery that fulfills a sexual fantasy is, by far, one of the most trite and harmless possible uses of this technol…
I believe that studios have done with dead actors. Paul Walker and the guy who played Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One being examples that came immediately to mind.
The voice sounds wrong, is the voice AI? I'm sure I've seen better AI voice demos than this --- though the video is impressive.
> It's a time when we need to rely on trusted news sources That's the rub, isn't it? Who's a "trusted" new source? All the major players have shown biases, corruption, and manipulation. Lots of people therefore consider some fly-by-night facebook feed that says what the majors don't to be more "trusted" in response. We shouldn't "rely" on single points of perceived trust, especially in this massive for-profit, for-po…
The problem lies in the motive. News organizations are (not surprisingly) entirely motivated by profit. Breaking even is not enough. Doing well is not enough. Improving profit drastically quarter over quarter is the goal. To do that, you cannot simply "provide news" anymore. You need conflict. You need confirmation bias. You need to create a wild, screaming echo chamber that induces panic and fear. You need conflict,…
I wonder about this. Part of the reason you had to pay attention was that there were far fewer information sources to check against. No one was reporting on Martin Luther King's affairs, and no one was reporting on the FBI's attempts to get MLK to commit suicide over them either.
The voice sounds wrong, is the voice AI? I'm sure I've seen better AI voice demos than this --- though the video is impressive.
The voice is just Jordan Peele (comedian) doing a Barack Obama impression. The 'AI' is in the video, specifically the lip syncing.
Facebook is increasingly populated with a large number of new users from developing nations who are basically one or two generations removed from subsistence farming. The level of naivete and rumor spreading that you can see in Pakistani Facebook is alarming. Now combine nation-state funded agitprop campaigns with naive users and fake video. Read the following article and imagune how much worse it could be if a malicious organization with funding decided to further weaponize content on myanmar-oriented Facebook groups and pages.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/03/revealed-faceb...