We are about to have a whole generation of children educated by fake videos that are completely plausible to naive audiences yet biologically (or physically or culturally, etc) incorrect. : becomeme

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Read: kids will grow up trusting video the way you and I trust text.

I'm not thrilled that the pearl-clutching about this technology has advanced to 'think of the children.'

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I mean I sorta get where you’re coming from, but I would separate that a bit because text is easy to lie about, people have been Leon’s in text forever. Pictures were a little harder, but someone good with photoshop could for instance. Now we’re at the point where nothing is easy to verify. And not just ‘for the children’ this is going not effect everyone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Behind the Bastards: AI Is Coming for Your Children

Robert sits down with Ben Bowlin to talk about the flood of AI-generated children's books con-artists are putting on Kindle. Not only are they off-putting and bad, they might represent a serious threat to literacy itself.

[+] [email protected] -12 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I dunno man, you're giving far too little credit to kid's intelligence. Its more scary to adults since we've figured out how the world works (atleast for us personally). I have hope the newer generation will figure out AI videos pretty quickly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Are you aware of declining literacy rates and the increasing problems schools are having with college students having no idea how to use a computer, or as other have mentioned, the embarrassing inability for most young/old people to identify accurate, reputable sources with reliable information?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Really? We all grew up with the internet and look how many of us fall for the massive problem of never discussing anything with nuance, so that all conversations turn into screaming matches that never have any middle ground or even a shared reality.

This world is far too friendly to making new technologies work for companies, that we let capitalism completely corrupt any possible benefit and instead fall for all of the ways they figure out how to misuse the tech. Things are only getting worse and worse. Because, in the end, you don’t need to fool every single person to have a negative impact. You just have to fool the gullible ones. And no matter the age group and culture, there are always gullible people.

[+] [email protected] -13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

As if poor CGI hasn't already been a thing on the dollar-store documentaries that aired on TV a decade ago?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It’s not about the quality of the animation. It’s about the accessibility. Things are shared wider and faster than ever. So all it reasonably would take is one person sharing the wrong thing at the right time. And it’ll happen constantly.

Look how stupid the concept behind qanon is. But, at the right time, one person who was probably LARPing altered the entire course of human history. Imagine that, but it doesn’t even take that amount of effort. Type a few phrases into a video generator and, boom. The entire concept of photographic/video evidence is suddenly completely up for debate.

It doesn’t take something special for destabilization. It literally just takes the question, the possibility that something we have photographic proof of isn’t actually happening for everyone to split into two camps. If the internet has taught us anything, it’s that people love having their biases reinforced. You don’t even have to convince everyone. The majority of people can know with full certainty that something was made by AI. But there will always be a large group of people that take it as proof that their beliefs were just verified. And they’ll never let go of it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

This has been a problem for over a decade. Disinformation, misinformation and planted information has been the tools of governments and random internet users since before* the inception of Photoshop.

We are long past this. AI is not going to make more than a dent. People are as stupid as you say they are, but people who won't be helped can't be helped. You've never argued with a person from the group you're referring to if you think they need any shred of evidence, fake or not, to believe what they believe.

I assume your approach here is to ban it? I'd love to hear how you think that's going to work in practice. This shit is out there, you're not putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

But the sad thing is, while you’re right that most people of that ilk don’t need much prodding, there has been a worrying trend of indoctrination. The new far right is scary in their ability to bring people into the fold. This makes that ability all the more powerful.

And I think you’re being too flippant about the loss of confidence in evidence. I get it, photoshop was a powerful tool to alter reality, but to wholly create a new one with absolutely zero know-how is a very different beast.

AI porn is a great example. Yeah, photoshop has allowed people to make “fakes” of whomever they wanted to see naked, but now everyone’s likeness is able to put into any situation with no photoshop skills required.

Or look at it this way. Bombs have existed for a long time. But if a website hypothetically made your phone or laptop capable of just printing a bomb with any household printer, it changes the nature of the problem. Sure, anyone could’ve downloaded instructions and taken the time to build one with stuff under their sink, but the ubiquity and unfettered access to ready-made bombs is a factor that needs to be taken into consideration. Putting something that was out of reach for so many without technical know-how, with the capacity to cause great harm, into the hands of anyone who wants it, is a problem.

And if it’s not a problem, it will become one. It’s just a matter of time.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

Yeah it's a problem but it's not the society-collapsing event you folk are making it out to be. People are increasingly radicalized because the world sucks and world leaders are asleep at the helm, not because of perceived evidence of whatever distraction the far right is talking about this week. The fake evidence only entrenches those already too far in the hole, it didn't put them in the hole. It's a many-faceted issue of which AI is not even top 10. AI being made up to be this grand societal problem is at best a symptom of the problem, that at a societal level we don't value our collective future anymore.

I know how the far right operates, I was in that hole 8 years ago. Nobody from the left isle pulled me out of it, I just started reading the sources they were citing and realized it didn't add up. That's what you have to encourage, if you want to help anybody. Don't preach doom and gloom, just tell people to read the cited source. If they start talking about (((them))) then they're too far gone anyway and you're only entrenching them in their beliefs by being the boogeyman they were promised would come. AI isn't a factor, anybody can lie. Cryptography has existed for ages, secure and verifiable communications are already a reality and could completely mitigate the issue, it's just a matter of getting the people in charge to steer the damn ship.

3D printed guns didn't turn out to be the problem it was hyped up to be, either.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This will make it orders of magnitude more prevalent and accessible, as well as automatable, plus it will look much more realistic than poor cgi.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The really shit part is that if I find myself accidentally clicking on one of these videos, my whole feed becomes shit videos with seemingly no way out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I highly recommend using a private browser or app to view random videos, or even videos you might like that would overwhelm your preferred feed. If you're already dealing with this, go into your viewing history and delete the responsible videos.

BecomeMe