Comment by kevincox
13 hours ago
I actually think this was a good thing. Manipulating images incredibly convincingly was already possible but the cost was high (many hours of highly skilled work). So many people assumed that most images they were seeing were "authentic" without much consideration. By making these fake images ubiquitous we are forcing people to quickly learn that they can't believe what they see on the internet and tracking down sources and deciding who you trust is critically important. People have always said that you can't believe what you see on the internet, but unfortunately many people have managed without major issue ignoring this advice. This wave will force them to take that advice to heart by default.
I remember telling my parents at a young age that I couldn't be sure Ronald Reagan was real, because I'd only ever seen him on TV and never in real life, and I knew things on TV could be fake.
That was the beginning of my journey into understanding what proper verification/vetting of a source is. It's been going on for a long time and there are always new things to learn. This should be taught to every child, starting early on.
I used to also have this optimistic take, but over time I think the reality is that most people will instead just distrust unknown online sources and fall into the mental shortcuts of confirmation bias and social proof. Net effect will be even more polarization and groupthink.
> By making these fake images ubiquitous we are forcing people to quickly learn
That's quite the high opinion on the self-improvement ability of your Average Joe. This kind of behavior only comes with an awareness, previously learned, and an alertness of mind. You need the population at large to be able to do this. How if not, say, teaching this at schools and waiting for the next generation to reach adulthood, would you expect this to happen?
I agree that improvement for the Average Joe will be very hard. I also think that taking more attention to teach the younger generation is vitally important. But mostly I don't see an alternative. I don't think we can protect people from fake information without giving up our freedom, and that isn't a viable alternative in my mind. So what is left but trying our hardest to teach people to think critically?
> By making these fake images ubiquitous we are forcing people to quickly learn that they can't believe what they see on the internet and tracking down sources and deciding who you trust is critically important.
Has this thought process ever worked in real life? I know plenty of seniors who still believe everything that comes out of Facebook, be AI or not, and before that it was the TV, radio, newspapers, etc.
Most people choose to believe, which is why they have a hard time confronting facts.
> I know plenty of seniors
And not just seniors. I see people of all ages who are perfectly happy to accept artificially generated images and video so long as it plays to their existing biases. My impression is that the majority of humanity is not very skeptical by default, and unwilling to learn.
When it comes to graphic content on the internet I usually consume it's for entertainment purposes. I didn't care where it came from before and don't care today either. Low quality content exists in both categories, a bit easier to spot in AI generated, so it's actually a bonus.
I feel like there is one or two generations of people who are tech savy and not 100% gullible when it comes to online things. Older and younger generations are both completely lost imho, in a blind test you wouldn't discern a monkey from a human scrolling tiktok &co
How so? This "tech savvy and not 100% gullible" generation, gave birth to a political landscape dominated by online ragebait.
Boomers used to tell us to never trust anything online and now they send their life savings to "Brad Pitt"
New generations gets unlimited brain rot delivered through infinite scroll, don't know what a folder is, think everything is "an app" and keep falling for the "technology will free us from work and cure cancer"
There was a sweet spot during which you could grow alongside the internet at a pace that was still manageable and when companies and scammers weren't trying so hard to robbyou from your time money and attention
In reality: millions of boomers are scrolling FB this very minute reacting to the most obviously fake rage/surprise/love bait AI slop you've ever seen.
They were scrolling through fake bait long before generative AI