Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 108 posts

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#91

Post by nawgszy »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #34
nawgszy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me it's the mere fact that humanity's rise was borne on the back of its ruthless drive and selfish greed, and the same things that made us the best hunters also influence society in myriad ways. In my eyes, greed, hierarchy, and limited compassion / an inability to share are the filter, and all society's diseases are the symptoms.

I'm really disappointed when I hear this kind of thing. It's a sentiment that so many people believe, and want to believe, and choose to believe even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It's almost like a pernicious, psychological cancer, except it can also spread virulently to other susceptible hosts. Humanity's rise is due to lots of factors, especially the countless individuals who have worked to…

I'm certainly not saying that we have no redeeming factors. As you say, that would be an absurd mindset in this world we live in.

However, I don't know how you can deny that we are greedy and have limited ability for compassion. Do you deny Dunbar's number? If not the specific selection, the concept?

Do you deny that some men have 10 figures of wealth while others have nothing to their name?

Do you deny that we have, as a society, enacted a plague upon the planet, and are causing extinction of other species at a rate only witnessed within other extinction events?

Just because one has virtue does not mean one doesn't have vice, and certainly the same applies to the "one" that is human society. While we certainly have accomplished great feats and have seen great individuals, as a collective, we do not know how to relinquish the individual pleasures in order to facilitate comfort and health for all.

As the article I saw here recently that said something along the lines of "people are not stupid; life is just hard", your energies are limited, and there are those who take advantage of the splintered and uncoordinated thoughts of society to gain great wealth and power, and those who use their great wealth and power to splinter and confuse the thoughts of society.

That is the cancer, not my thought that these people exist; do not ignore that their existence is all but guaranteed by the very nature of the creature we must have been to find ourselves the dominant force of this planet.

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#92

Post by SubiculumCode »

Cyphase wrote: post #68
SubiculumCode wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it may be the true use case for crypto.

Crypto(graphy) already has plenty of use cases. I think you're probably referring to cryptocurrencies/blockchains.

Yes I was using that as shorthand, thanks for clarification.

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#93

Post by CM30 »

Honestly, I have to wonder; is this just really returning back to the way things used to be?

Think about it, we haven't had video or photo evidence for all that long relatively speaking, and it's only over time that our ability to 'prove' things became more absolute. First it was just speech and choosing who to believe, then writing came into the picture (along with paintings and drawn art), then over time voice/sound/radio recordings, photography, videos, etc. For most of human history, we haven't had great evidence, and in many ways were in the exact same situation we may end up in after these fake videos hit the mainstream.

History is a long line of people attempting to 'prove' things, and fakers gradually getting better at lying in a near endless arms race. We survived with no evidence or entirely questionable evidence before, and we'll survive in that situation again in future.

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#94

Post by politician »

yifanl wrote: post #78
politician wrote: post #59

My personal belief is that we should be generating vast amounts of deep fake videos and audio clips now that the technology is available. We should intentionally and hastily move to pollute the information streams around us as rapidly as possible in order to force an evolution in how we process information. To attempt to slow down this arms race, or to ignore its implications just puts us at a further disadvantage to…

So a form of targeted accelerationism? That's an interesting thought, but assuming it works as intended, wouldn't the end result of this be a total destruction of trust? A whole society where all non-physical interaction is treated with total suspicion can't be a pleasant one to live in. Maybe that's the end result either way though.

The idea is to step back from the idea that we can trust media sources without verification. Trust _but verify_.

Small groups and towns, places where people live and have a regular continuous presence, are more likely to be places of higher trust.

Your typical broadcast media sources or your typical corporate social media sources, places where anyone with any agenda can buy their way onto your screen are not places that deserve high trust without verification.

Given what we know now, screens of all kinds should be (and IMO, will become) known as low trust environments. Hastening that is paramount because in the intervening time you have a population that's susceptible to all sorts of manipulation.

I'm suggesting nothing new. Be nice to people, and don't believe everything you read.

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#95

Post by ethbro »

YaxelPerez wrote: post #65
ethbro wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Vox article is also making a nuanced point -- that memory is constructed subconsciously. So the insidious thing? Creating 100 videos with only slight political position adjustments, and thereby (even if the videos are later revealed as fakes!) shifting a voter's "gut" impression of a candidate. I'd be amazed if we don't start seeing audio & video cryptographic authentication in the next 10 years. The subject of a…

I don't think cryptographic authentication will help very much. It's probably safe to assume that most people susceptible to fake news are computer-illiterate. Or at least, not as technical as the HN crowd. Why would normal people suddenly start listening to some nerd mumbo-jumbo they don't understand?

Technical knowledge doesn't seem requisite. Only independent verifiability.

In the same way that signing keys are used by infrastructure & many who don't understand the nuances.

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#96

Post by ethbro »

billylindeman wrote: post #31
ethbro wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Vox article is also making a nuanced point -- that memory is constructed subconsciously. So the insidious thing? Creating 100 videos with only slight political position adjustments, and thereby (even if the videos are later revealed as fakes!) shifting a voter's "gut" impression of a candidate. I'd be amazed if we don't start seeing audio & video cryptographic authentication in the next 10 years. The subject of a…

I think audio/video authentication is gonna be huge also. One thought would be merkle proof of hashes of the keyframes and then a signature of the merkle root. drop that bad boy into an eos / eth contract.

The trickier thing (as with most applied crypto) is going to be who attests and what to.

For press briefing, chaining to something like a White House press root is feasible.

But what about "married congressperson caught in local hotel with fling"? Or in one-party consent states, secret recordings? Self-sign? Sign with news organization (those that still exist) after sharing additional documentation?

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#97

Post by olefoo »

e40 wrote: post #12
olefoo wrote: post #4

I suspect it will be quite confusing for a while; but once people have been cheated a few times because of faked video it will become something else. We will all start picking up on peoples kinematics and timing. There is an opportunity for some type of chain of custody app that guarantees the integrity of footage from camera to screen...

We will all start picking up on peoples kinematics and timing. A small percentage will, but just like text-based fake news, most people will fall for it, every single time. Remember, fake video news that reinforces your world view will be so much easier to believe, just like with text-based news, than the truth.

I'm not sure that most people fall for it every time; I think the problem is that many people prefer the fake version. They may know it's fake, but the lie that serves their prejudices is preferable to a truth that disadvantages them.

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#98

Post by olefoo »

Analemma_ wrote: post #13
olefoo wrote: post #4

I suspect it will be quite confusing for a while; but once people have been cheated a few times because of faked video it will become something else. We will all start picking up on peoples kinematics and timing. There is an opportunity for some type of chain of custody app that guarantees the integrity of footage from camera to screen...

> I suspect it will be quite confusing for a while; but once people have been cheated a few times because of faked video it will become something else. You're only half-right here. People will quickly wise up to fake video, but that will just make everything worse: every video that confirms their worldview will be seen as totally legit, every video contradicting it will be "fake", just like what has already happened…

> every video that confirms their worldview will be seen as totally legit, every video contradicting it will be "fake"

Yes, this has been true for quite some time already since even innocuous footage can be made to lie with creative editing.

The chain of custody thing is already a problem and has been since courts started admitting photographic evidence.

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#99

Post by steego »

CM30 wrote: post #93

Honestly, I have to wonder; is this just really returning back to the way things used to be? Think about it, we haven't had video or photo evidence for all that long relatively speaking, and it's only over time that our ability to 'prove' things became more absolute. First it was just speech and choosing who to believe, then writing came into the picture (along with paintings and drawn art), then over time voice/soun…

> We survived with no evidence or entirely questionable evidence before, and we'll survive in that situation again in future.

Surviving isn't the issue, quality of life is. You made the point that "fakers [have] gradually [gotten] better at lying in a near endless arms race."

While I understand that things have a tendency to stay the same, history has also shown trends that have lasted thousands of years can also be punctuated in relatively short periods. Sure, people have lied and faked for thousands of years, but fake videos just might be the critical inflection point that in our timeline that creates a huge asymmetry of power and influence.

What sets this apart isn't the technical quality of the lie, it's the agents that are performing the lie: Machines.

Not only are machines capable of fabricating evidence, they are incredibly effective at measuring the efficacy. Lies can be cheaply produced, tailored for very specific micro-demographics, and directly sent to their intended recipients.

The early 20th century showed us how broadcast radio could be exploited for propaganda warfare. The early 21st century could show us how history rhymes when well financed organizations or nation states can finance disinformation campaigns that leverage machine learning.

Re: We’re underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video

#100

Post by pnloyd »

ethbro wrote: post #95
YaxelPerez wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think cryptographic authentication will help very much. It's probably safe to assume that most people susceptible to fake news are computer-illiterate. Or at least, not as technical as the HN crowd. Why would normal people suddenly start listening to some nerd mumbo-jumbo they don't understand?

Technical knowledge doesn't seem requisite. Only independent verifiability. In the same way that signing keys are used by infrastructure & many who don't understand the nuances.

Ya you could get an end result where your video player included in the videos infos "officially verified by persons x y & z"
Post reply on HN