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Comment by deckard1 | Hacker News Reader

The effectiveness of CA is a red herring.

All one has to do is watch Channel 4's Cambridge Analytica videos to see that the CEO is on video promising things which are both unethical and illegal, and a subversion of democracy. Sales pitch or not, the content itself is damning.

If I promise you I can provide you illegal drugs, weapons, child porn, etc. but don't actually have those things, does that make me a better person than if I actually did have those things? At the very best, I'm still a lying snake oil salesman. Except, I'm not promising a medical remedy. I'm promising you illegal and unethical things. This isn't a car that just happens to be a lemon.

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I hate-hate-hate-hate to be putting any doubt on this particular case, but we have to start prepping for the world when it's trivial enough to create complete faked videos. The tech is here already. So, at least in the future, it will be possible that even such videos as those are merely inserting completely faked words and gestures etc.

How will we evaluate truth in the future? It won't be by trusting videos. It will somehow go back to he-said she-said and figuring out who we can trust. But if different people trust totally different sources, then agreement about truths seems it will end up being limited to easily testable facts and predictions.

What is going to happen in a world where your comment could apply to anyone because such a video of unethical promises could be generated of anyone??

Well, then you're gonna love love love love this. Faked videos are certainly bad, but lets travel in our mental time machines back to February 18th 1990, the day before Photoshop was released.

"We are rapidly nearing a world when its trivial enough to create complete faked pictures", they cried. "How will we evaluate truth in the future?"

"Hah," you exclaim. "You can just look at the pixels. There is always a way to tell if you look close enough."

But alas, they can't hear you, because this is my time machine, and I said so.

Just because we haven't had to adapt our lives to the new reality yet, doesn't mean we wont with the same relative ease we always have once that reality smacks us in the face.

> "Hah," you exclaim. "You can just look at the pixels. There is always a way to tell if you look close enough."

No I do not. And that claim is simply wrong. There's often a way to tell, not always. Nobody today thinks photographs are absolutely convincing proof anymore. Experts who detect altered photographs do NOT say nonsense like "always a way to tell".

Yeah, we'll adapt, but the adaptation is going to be rough. A simple point is: my comment above is part of the adaptation process.

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