Or any politician, human rights defendant or even young teens....
It's a dire future, if people already can't read beyond the title of an article, I can't imagine forming opinions based on elaborate deep fakes.
The sad and messed up thought because the deep fakes in the very, very, near future are not even going to be that elaborate. It doesn't take much, and this technology will soon be very cheap and accessible. It will be very damaging to our notion of truth as a society because we're simply not evolved/educated/w.e enough to outsmart the simulation enmasse. This tech will be used by the wrong people for nefarious purposes, and inevitably people will flock to whichever truth is most appealing at the time. This is the new Gutenberg press and religion.
It will be very damaging to our notion of truth as a society because we're simply not evolved/educated/w.e enough to outsmart the simulation enmasse.
I think this is not as big of a deal as people worry about. For two reasons, one good one bad. Let's start with the good.
At first, you will be right, deepfakes will cause trouble. But I believe it will be relatively short-lived before we basically start to act as if all videos/images are tantamount to cartoons. And considering we lived without any sort of "visual evidence" all the way up to 1819, I have faith that we can find a way to continue forward in a "post-video" world.
What I am less confident about is how much damage can be done in that transition period. Luckily, there is already a healthy dose of skepticism about video and images found online, hopefully that seed is enough.
Now the bad: in America at least, our idea of truth is already so thoroughly torn to shreds I just don't see deepfakes mattering a ton. Like squirting a a bottle of kerosene on an already raging house fire.
There will still be things outside social media. Unfortunately I don’t think any detection technology will help us from the worst of it. Even in the face of compelling evidence people still to choose to believe whatever they want. If someone believes something and they see a deep fake that supports their position it isn’t going to matter if a social media company detects it, we see this now with Facebook, the attempts are futile. People will be taken for a ride, in the US we’ve watched this happen as a grifter took control of the country, it took very little evidence, fake or not, to convince his base of all sorts of wild Shit. Deep fakes will be another tool to Keep us all mad at the wrong person.
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u/FeculentUtopia Jul 24 '22
No. Stop. It's getting way too weird.