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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

#91

Post by jameshart »

stinos wrote: post #55
SkyeCA wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

> 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 misbehaving and those incentives do help reduce the likelihood that you will be a victim of an accident. They’re not great! Bad drivers get away with a lot, and cyclists are not adequately considered in many mechanisms, but they are better than nothing.

Yet ‘nothing’ is what we have with respect to online fraud, where the situation is more akin to one where driving laws don’t exist or aren’t enforced, nobody drives cars with license plates, you can’t get insurance, and if you are run off the road the police’s reaction is to tell you that roads are inherently dangerous places. Bad drivers will never be caught, and if they drive over you they get to steal your bike and sell it. Entire businesses are set up around forcing cyclists into streets where they can be mowed down with steamrollers, and the police claim to be powerless to stop them.

There are numerous mechanisms that exist that make it possible for us to share roads without inherent trust. And even those are inadequate. Fraudulent behavior online has none of the societal mechanisms that we have created to constrain driving.

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

#92

Post by Hnrobert42 »

gampleman wrote: post #49

I don't know how to feel about this entirely. Like I get the whole AI generated images bad angle, but on the other hand as someone running a charity I can see the benefit of not wasting donation money on sending a professional photographer to an actual slum and paying probably tens of thousands of dollars to get good quality photos and instead getting usable pictures for free-ish. When running a charity you need to s…

Not to mention that the real impoverished child or rape victim may not want to be the poster child for a cause.

It is a tricky question and for me there is no clear answer.

Perhaps if the image came with a disclaimer that explained the rationale for using AI.

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

#93

Post by Aurornis »

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…

> her colleague was a little too nonchalant about it ( 'it is on her to do her due diligence' ).

I’m always fascinated by victim blaming culture, which has been pervasive long before generative AI.

You see it most frequently in cases where the victim is thought to be a safe target: Someone wealthier, an office rival, a corporation. On HN it appears in every thread about someone being scammed, but it was most obvious in the recent threads where JPMorgan was defrauded by a startup they acquired. Seemingly 1/3 of the comments were from people commenting that JPMorgan was actually at fault for allowing themselves to be scammed. Some even declaring that the fraudster shouldn’t be prosecuted because JPMorgan was entirely to blame for allowing themselves to be scammed.

I don’t know what drives it. The victim blaming people always seem to believe they would not fall prey to similar scams. They also seem to see the world as full of faceless scams everywhere and that allowing yourself to fall victim to them is a moral failing. Many of them just like to be contrarian, snide, and judgmental, so heaping scorn on the victim they know checks more of those boxes than going along with the obvious consensus that the party who committed the crime is the one to blame.

This happens with every new generation of scams. The victim blamers read the news and think it would never happen to them because they’re too smart, therefore any victims deserve blame.

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

#94

Post by codeforafrica »

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #29
DiabloD3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I honestly hate that idea. I am slowly adjusting, but I got used to the idea that you can at least trust the other party not to outright lie ( although I was already expected omission, and other 'normal selling tactics' ). I posit that what we need is heavily enforced truth in advertising laws.

It depends on the level of risk. I generally accept what people say as truth, but if you start asking me for money I require evidence. And the more money you ask for, the more evidence is needed.

This is not easy. I help pay the school fees for a few students in East Africa. But, I have been to these students homes. I know their situation first hand. Now I am in a different country, and I can no longer verify if they still need help. All I can do is trust that their situation hasn't changed. And even if they are lying and they can actually afford the school fees, I know they are poor enough that helping them will still make a difference.

But anyone helping me to do this needs to take my word for it. Unless they travel here and get their own first hand impression.

I heard from one organization that was helping an orphanage, and then they found out that half the kids weren't even orphans. It was effectively a boarding school for some of the children. The people were at the location and saw the children in person, but they were fooled about the status of the children, or they didn't pay attention. Maybe it was a translation error, or some misunderstanding.

It doesn't actually matter. The important part is that these children needed help either way. So the money was not misused, just the true reality of these children was misrepresented.

The problem of course on the side of the givers is that you can't tell the difference between a genuine mistake and an intentional deception. You have to assess the risk, and, you have to decide for yourself how much you'll be hurt if it turn out to be a deception.

I don't give money to people I meet on the street, because I know enough people who also need help that I can't help everyone, so I limit my help to people I know well enough to trust them.

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

#95

Post by cindyllm »

gaul_bladder wrote: post #45
DiabloD3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but god it’s fucking miserable.

[dead]

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

#96

Post by bradley13 »

I'm sure that some (few) of these NGOs do good work. However, sooner or later, they all seem to succumb to two problems: (1) excessive staff costs, and (2) a failure of incentives.

The second one is more insidious: If they solved the problem they address, they would no longer need to exist. They have no incentive to succeed. So they go around addressing individual problems, taking sad pictures, and avoid addressing systemic problems.

And if the systemic problems are insoluble? Then there is again an argument that the NGO should not exist. If the problem is truly insoluble, then likely the money could be better spent elsewhere.

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

#97

Post by anonymars »

Aurornis wrote: post #93
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…

> her colleague was a little too nonchalant about it ( 'it is on her to do her due diligence' ). I’m always fascinated by victim blaming culture, which has been pervasive long before generative AI. You see it most frequently in cases where the victim is thought to be a safe target: Someone wealthier, an office rival, a corporation. On HN it appears in every thread about someone being scammed, but it was most obvious…

> I don’t know what drives it

"If the victim somehow did something to deserve it, then it won't happen to me" (just world fallacy)

Seemed to come up a lot on this one recently too (fake job interview trying to get you to install malware): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45591707

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

#98

Post by tredre3 »

Aurornis wrote: post #93
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…

> her colleague was a little too nonchalant about it ( 'it is on her to do her due diligence' ). I’m always fascinated by victim blaming culture, which has been pervasive long before generative AI. You see it most frequently in cases where the victim is thought to be a safe target: Someone wealthier, an office rival, a corporation. On HN it appears in every thread about someone being scammed, but it was most obvious…

> You see it most frequently in cases where the victim is thought to be a safe target: Someone wealthier, an office rival, a corporation.

That must be a representation of your own social circle because I can assure you that poor people are commonly blamed for all the bad things that happen to them.

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

#99

Post by dahart »

lnsru wrote: post #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.

Collecting money to use for providing aid is their stated purpose. When they provide aid, they are aiming for your money and it’s not a “scam”, both things can be true.

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

#100

Post by pancakemouse »

mothballed wrote: post #82
jnovek wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t describe it as the correct response, more like “the best one we can think of right now.” Living this way is that it’s really exhausting, saps quite a lot of joy out of life and makes people more lonely. It’s far from optimal and a more sustainable option would be to work our way back to the community trust we used to enjoy just ~30 years ago.

You can gain a little bit of it back by living in a low population density area. I live in a small enough town that if I screw somebody, my name will be hosed until the day of my funeral. End result is I've left $10s of K of easily pawnable construction materials out for years (sorry any thieves reading, it is gone now) and no one touched it. There are several houses around me that have been abandoned for years, no o…

Not at all snarky because I have no idea what the real answer is here, but although this sounds pretty good, it strikes me how in conflict this would be with most peoples' ideals if we tried any sort of system to scale this to larger populations (like a city).

Perhaps we want privacy-but-not-anonymity. Or perhaps society doesn't scale easily.

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