"The cat has come out of the bag," he said, "and we're all dealing with cats everywhere." (NPR)

[highplainsdem]

Oh, how I wish this were only about cats... But it's about deepfakes.

From NPR yesterday:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1165146797/it-takes-a-few-dollars-and-8-minutes-to-create-a-deepfake-and-thats-only-the-sta

It takes a few dollars and 8 minutes to create a deepfake. And that's only the start

-snip-

Mollick posted his experiment online as a demonstration, and a warning, that the risks from this kind of AI are not in the distant future — they're already here.

"I think people aren't worried enough about this," he said. "I'm somebody who's actually pretty pro this technology in a lot of ways. But I also think that we're not ready for the social implications of being able to spoof people at scale. ... The idea that you could do this for anyone is sort of a new phenomenon."

-snip-

Jack Posobiec, a right-wing activist known for promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, recently created a fake video of President Biden announcing a draft to send American soldiers to Ukraine.

-snip-

"A bad actor can take one of these tools ... and use this to make unimaginable amounts of really plausible, almost terrifying misinformation that the average person is not going to recognize as misinformation," Marcus said.

-snip-

Worth reading in its entirety...and you should see the deepfakes to have some idea what we'll be dealing with.

The article also mentions the "firehose of falsehood" propaganda strategy - what Steve Bannon called "flooding the zone with s***." Gary Marcus points out that if you want to flood the zone with shit, there's no better tool than AI.

[Nevilledog]

1. K & R

[highplainsdem]

7. Thank you!

[MontanaMama]

2. Kick.

[highplainsdem]

8. Thanks!

[AllaN01Bear]

3. please stop with this deep fake . a fake is a fake ok!!!!

[highplainsdem]

5. It's what it's called.

[Celerity]

15. deep fake tech is already so advanced now that it would very likely 100 per cent fool most anyone

AI is only going to turbocharge the threat.

AI (far from limited to just deep fakes) is going to be a force multiplier for untold chaos and shitbaggery from a multiplicity of angles and levels (and also far from limited to just the political sphere).

[Botany]

4. "if wasn't for facebook we wouldn't have won"

Link to tweet

[highplainsdem]

6. And AI will make Facebook much more harmful.

[TheRealNorth]

9. Yup

We are not prepared for the tsunami of bullshit that will flow from Facebook and Twitter in 2024.

[ancianita]

10. Bellingcat's Elliot Higgins (in the Hague) did a deepfake of Trump getting arrested and was shocked

at how viral it went, so he says he's learned how bad this can get. Bellingcat's got a whole investigative team on this now.

[highplainsdem]

21. Saw that.

And I think we're just beginning to find out how bad this can get.

[ancianita]

22. I visit the site regularly. Have you?

It's the real deal.

I used to be on SomethingAwful when he was Brown Moses, an admin.

The Justice & Accountability section reveals how instrumental they must have been in the Hague's issuing an international arrest warrant for Putin.

How deepfakes can draw defamation suits is clear, but whether there are enough cyberlaw experts is a whole huge part of the problem of how bad this can get if there are two few cyberlaw firms to nip it in the bud. International incidents can break out if deepfakes gain net traction (which they probably already have).

[bucolic_frolic]

11. What can we do?? I have a starter idea

Like a lot of people, I'm on many email lists, and many of these lists are owned by responsible people running their own business - information flow, via YouTube videos. I would bet not ONE of them has any idea that some bad actor could choose to make a fake of their videos. If we all began to do this, it would sound the fire alarm. I got very tired of fake or poor quality opinions on Twitter posted by people trying to make a name for themselves, or seeking to disrupt, or harm competitors. Well this is somewhat the same but more believable. This is coming at us quickly. America needs to know.

[Ferrets are Cool]

12. This is so very very scary. Just think what an inscrutable business owner could put out there.

Businesses can be ruined with rumor and innuendo. AI could make that so much easier. Once a business/individual is accused of doing some terrible, it is so very difficult to put that cat back into the bag (to borrow from the OP).
It is terrifying.

[Celerity]

16. Take a short position on a stock, then use AI-powered activities to help drive the price down

[Ferrets are Cool]

19. Or on a more personal and scary level...

just think if you wanted to take down your competition. Set up a video of him being handcuffed by police with the headline "BUSINESS OWNER CAUGHT IN CHILD PORN RING". It would NOT matter that it was found to be a fake, the damage would be done.
Fuck, this shit is so scary.

[Celerity]

20. +1

[llmart]

13. After reading this article I only have one thought...

I'm so glad I am no longer a young person. Social media itself has been a scourge in our society, but this is some extra level of how much more degraded we can become.

[OldBaldy1701E]

14. Well, if it comes from the internet, that means only one thing to me.

Prove it. Until I see some real proof of whatever it is, I don't buy it. I worked in and around Hollywood for a long time, and creating plausible fakes of anything is not that difficult. (And, I am not just talking about for film.) As I used to tell all of the students where I used to work, "Do not believe anything from the internet until you have proof. It is too easy to fake stuff on the internet." Of course, I doubt any of you here need to be reminded of this, so I guess this is a wasted effort. But, It bears repeating I suppose, since I still find people who show decent enough intelligence still buying into some pretty shaky ideas based solely on someone saying they saw something 'official'. On some website. That was not the origin source of the document in question.

[crickets]

17. Thanks for continuing to post about this - K&R

[highplainsdem]

18. You're welcome, crickets, and thank you!