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

theguardian.com

31–40 of 222 posts

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

#31

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…

If you can be beguiled by random images from an unknown solicitor to make rash financial decisions, the root of the problem is probably sitting in front of the screen. "A fool and his money are soon parted" is not a new thing, it's just easier to accomplish than ever before thanks to the dopamine conditioned internet and AI content generation. These victims don't need new legal layers of trust, they need a social med…

Sigh. People will adjust. My point, and a subtle one at that, was that it does not bode well for the society of low trust ahead.

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

#32

Ughhh... really, "poverty porn"? So it's a problem when aid agencies competing for resources towards a mostly sensible goal do it – but when everyone else fakes images, it's not, because... we didn't expect decent behavior anyway? Fantastic.

Nobody is saying it’s broadly ok to fake images otherwise.

It’s pretty fucked up to, say, inject tragedy into narratives by showing victims as emancipated when they’re not. Or altering racial profiles to fit a narrative.

It may not pop out as particularly noteworthy in a new age of fake imagery though.

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

#33

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…

> We do have a concept of fraud We only do have such a concept when it's about an individual lying to a company for profit. When companies lie to individuals it's just business as usual, or worst-case scenario a "mistake" that the company pinky-promises will not happen again.

[flagged]

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

#34
It’s really showing the real picture of all the aid agencies. They aim for your money. That’s the single purpose. Because they can’t provide photo documentation of they work on the site where apparently the aid happened. So sad. And many people fall for this scam.

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

#35

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…

If you can be beguiled by random images from an unknown solicitor to make rash financial decisions, the root of the problem is probably sitting in front of the screen. "A fool and his money are soon parted" is not a new thing, it's just easier to accomplish than ever before thanks to the dopamine conditioned internet and AI content generation. These victims don't need new legal layers of trust, they need a social med…

To those downvoting this: two things can be true.

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

#36

The reasonable solution to this is to legally require every single image and video (or at least those used in commercial / charitable / public sector / journalistic settings) to be marked with a flag indicating the level of amendment. If it’s untouched apart from cropping / colour grading etc no mark needed. If it’s had some touch-up work require that to be flagged at minimum in the image metadata. And if large chunk…

This is already the law in France. It was mostly originally intended to combat unrealistic e.g. beauty standards in ads, to make it clear that this is not what a human looks naturally, but it was edited. However the law predates widespread use of AI images everywhere, and I'm not sure that it applies the way it is written.

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

#37

“They are so racialised. They should never even let those be published because it’s like the worst stereotypes about Africa, or India, or you name it,” said Alenichev. This is a problem and always has been with AI, people have been saying this for at least a decade at this point. Type in "photorealistic picture of child in refugee camp" in any AI that lets you.

Isn't it just probabilistic? That's who's most likely in poor and/or in refugee camps.

50,000 ft priors on probability don’t extend to good perspectives on specific settings

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

#38

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…

TBF, I just assume everyone is lying (either first hand or second) and its on them to prove to me they're not. Hasn't failed me yet.

Good approach, and was valuable and necessary prior to AI.

I learned this lesson in my early 20s. Nearly every entity that you interact with is trying to transact with you, in a way that benefits themselves. Whether that's a legitimate transaction (money exchanged for a product/service exactly as advertised), a misrepresented transaction (the product/service is not as advertised), taking your money for nothing, or simply taking away your time and attention (advertising).

Even before AI, if you were unable to get a good sense of legitimate transactions, you'd lose all your money on misrepresented transactions to scammy used car salesmen, door-to-door salesmen, and whole life insurance salesmen. These parasites and their ilk prey on people who are trusting by nature, and people who will say "yes" to avoid disappointing a stranger. It's unfortunate that the world has come to this, but you need to be untrusting of others' motivations by nature to not be taken advantage of financially.

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

#39
post #25

I have suspected that I have seen some of these for Palestine in recent months. Not saying this has any implication on the broader reporting of it but… shit we’re really kind of screwed if media starts portraying everything via fictitious dramatization imagery. Especially on social media.

That picture of the skeletal kid that went around shows they can spread some pretty wrogn ideas with real photos too. Context is everything.

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

#40

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…

TBF, I just assume everyone is lying (either first hand or second) and its on them to prove to me they're not. Hasn't failed me yet.

It has failed you in ways you can't see, because you've driven away the most reliable people by showing them upfront that you don't trust them.

I assume everyone is telling the truth until they've given me a reason not to assume that, and I'd say that hasn't failed me yet.

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