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Comment by orangesite | Hacker News Reader

Historically, tech folk have always pursued the commercialization of technological innovation with net-zero analysis of any negative consequences, mea maxima culpa.

That we have now run into a technology which makes many of _us_ uncomfortable should give you pause for thought and reflection.

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We do pause, we do reflect. And our conclusion is that it's "us" who have changed, not the impact of technology.

So you can make pictures and 3d models from text descriptions. So you can get a voice to say something. But if you were determined to do bad things, you already could. It would be easy enough to hire an actor who sounds like Obama and make him say something outrageous. It would be easy enough to use Photoshop to make disgusting images.

Are you sure it's the capabilities you fear, and not the people who now for the first time will get access to them?

Are you sure "we", the wealthy, the technologically and educationally resourceful, the powerful, are so much better custodians?

If something is dangerous, that does not justify making it worse.

It's not about class-based custodianship but rather the simple fact that the number of attempts like these will multiply like wildfire. You won't need to be determined, you'll just need five minutes with the software before heading to work.

I have no string opinion on this very complex topic, but want to add that this is an area where the quote "sometimes quantity had a quality in its own" applies. Brennan's flooding the zone with shit propaganda methodology to me is One of the biggest challenges to democracy functioning. We might be able to debunk a handful of fake videos on the public discourse. What would happen if they're are suddenly thousands? Maybe we'd fight better ways to establish truth and a shared reality. Maybe democracy would utterly collapse.

Ultimately, I don't think we'll able to keep the cat in the bag though. If nothing else, nation actors like Russia or China will get their hands on it and crank the propaganda machine with it. We might be better prepared if we just shorten the learning process and give everyone access. That might open some hope that we'll be able to adapt. It's a really scary dice roll though.

I think people will adapt by finally doing the thing they should have been doing all along: don't trust anything they see on the internet.

Maybe a flood of AI-generated propaganda is what it will finally take to get the average person to realize that the internet is (and always has been) overflowing with manipulative garbage made by people with bad intentions. So maybe the next time they see a video of <political opponent> kicking a puppy in the face, their first thought will be "maybe this video is fake?" rather than instant outrage.

I think most people aren't gullible/naive, but for some reason that part of their brain that protects them from being exploited/manipulated/ripped off/tricked/etc completely shuts down whenever the internet is involved. Maybe increased exposure can change that?

People seem willing to believe anything as long as it fits with their preconceived notions about how the world works. I’m not confident this will ever change.

> I think people will adapt by finally doing the thing they should have been doing all along: don't trust anything they see on the internet.

This is an impressively optimistic take.

Why do you think this will happen?

Gelman amnesia has been happening for at least centuries, with no sign of reduction that I'm aware of.

Because society/people are good at adaptation. Currently, the misinformation problem is big, but it’s not so big that it’s obvious to even the dumbest people… or at the very least it’s too recent a phenomenon for most people to have fully grasped it yet.

It’s like advertisements. Banner ads used to be very effective, but they were so pervasive that now people are blind to them. Doesn’t matter how big and flashy it is, most people will literally not see it because their brain is blocking it out somehow.

Personally, whenever I see something outrageous on social media, my immediate reaction is always “this is probably fake, and someone is trying to make me angry”. Not because I’m actively trying to remain skeptical, but because I’ve been on the internet long enough to have experienced being misled by similar stuff.

If you burn your hand touching a hot stove, you learn to be careful around stoves for the rest of your life. Sure, you can learn that lesson without having to burn your hand, but if you need a guarantee that the lesson is learned, getting burned will do that.

>Because society/people are good at adaptation.

Right up until the follow a fascist leader and then hundreds of millions of people die in a war. Ignoring black swan events is a great way to become extinct in paradigm shifts.

Here is an even bleaker concern: Looking at North Korea, I've been wondering if with modern technology totalitarian regimes are a one-way street. With the amount of surveillance in place in NK, I am unable to see how any form of resistance could be mounted. NK is behind in tech. How much harder to topple can a system like NK be with the latest tech. China seems to be moving in that direction. Surveillance coupled with modern propaganda methods for full indoctrination.

I also perceive a larger weakness for liberal democracies towards propaganda and in particular the flooding the zone with shit approach. These two things together have me very, very worried. If there is a force moving you towards a state that's very hard if not impossible to leave, it stands to expect that eventually everything will end up in that state. In this case that would be authoritarianism or totalitarianism.

"I think people will adapt by finally doing the thing they should have been doing all along: don't trust anything they see on the internet."

I'm pessimistic on this. There is the question around people's ability to adapt well to this, but maybe more fundamental, trust the internet is all-permeating now. What's not "the internet" these days? All media that distribute news are on the internet. May this be the New York Times or Twitter. Even more traditional publications get news from Twitter. On the other hand, are your friends on Facebook the internet? How about when you call them?

Not sure what the solution here is. Going back to a few networks that show news at 8pm?

I've recently been thinking about the possibility of a social platform that rewards things like providing additional sources for or against things others posted.

I think all of this is gonna be a defining struggle of our time.

Ugh... No, this does not work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

>I think most people aren't gullible/naive,

I think you're telling yourself this as a self protection mechanism in order to avoid asking some harsh truths about reality. The first one should be that your exposure to things in real life is very limited. You cannot make judgements on most things you see on the Internet/TV/News because you have no experience with complicated environments they exist in. And yet almost everything you see is trying to bring you to a call to action on said topics.

For example, if you live in a nice wealthy white suburbanite neighborhood the idea a cop would just pull up and shoot you is tantamount to a spaceship appearing. And yet with the ever increasing amount of body cam footage this seems to be an occurrence in cities far more than we'd like. Now, if a video shows up online of a cop just executing someone what opinion are you supposed to form? Apparently cops do things like this, but at the same time there are motivations for people to fake this too.

This and the parent are two of the most inciteful comments in a really good thread. (Two others - one calling bullshit on the power of AI and the other calling this a (free) speech problem)

And yes. If auto-generated text / video / images can flood us (produced in response to our interactions and stored data, either to sell jumpers or politicians) then it is a problem.

What kind is fascinating

I think it is a speech problem - and maybe the question is does an AI generated speech have same rights as a human generated speech?

And perhaps the only way to know is to require a citizens passport to be able to publish. I am not entirely advocating it - but some sort of HSM built into passports, drivers licences or phones, and then used to sign each of your publications and posts. If you are an AI you don't get to publish.

The advantages of non-anonymous publishing are large. I wonder if it is worthwhile

Only effbot need worry about rate limits.

Bannon. Steve Bannon. But the practice predates him. Vladislav Surkov importantly brought it into play very effectively immediately prior.

They aren't uncomfortable. They just aren't sure how to maintain control over the technology and monopolize it. Which is why they are so cagey about releasing anything.

>* That we have now run into a technology which makes many of _us_ uncomfortable should give you pause for thought and reflection.*

You mean like the online advertising industry? That shit has been making many of us uncomfortable since the early 2000s.

Now that the technology is sufficiently decentralized the morality police comes along.

It feels like we're going to "safety" ourselves into an even more extreme oligarchy and congratulate ourselves for being so wise to do so.

Yeah, I’m actually a little impressed to see my industry that traditionally has run roughshod over humanity, damn the consequences style, is showing a tiny bit of restraint. Nothing like what we see in medicine or law or anything, but something. I figured we’d get reigned in like banks were before doing any self policing at all (after nearly destroying society of course).

IMO is aligns with a more professional industry approach in general. Law, medicine, engineering (in the capital E sense) all have ethical requirements and bodies that govern individuals. I think it’s natural for an industry like CS that has typically been like the Wild West to push back against regulation, but in the end, it’s probably for the better (at least with safety critical applications).

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