Technology Is Becoming Indistinguishable From Reality

[brian64]

I found this to be an interesting and well written article so I thought I'd share. The subject matter is something that is already having an effect on our shared reality which will only increase in years to come...yet the wide ranging implications are not really being adequately considered, imo.
Below the article link are two entertaining examples of "deep fake" videos made from Bill Hader appearances where he impersonates Cruise, Pacino and Schwarzenegger. The seamless transformation of his face is impressive.
Excerpt:

Technology Is Becoming Indistinguishable From Reality
We’re living in an age of not just mass distractions, but information overload.
It’s been said the way information is being presented in our digital world these days is coming at us in so many disjointed bits, that our brains are having a harder time making a cohesive picture out of it all. More and more people are only skimming the daily headlines and then they go away believing they’ve educated themselves on what’s going on in the world, with almost no historical context to speak of (outside of what’s politically expedient).
When information overload is taken to its logical conclusion, it conditions a state of learned helplessness in most people, who bury their heads further in the ever-widening, endless array of blue-screened distractions to let others do their critical thinking for them.
It’s 2019, and AI can now take a small sample and generate completely authentic text, speech, and videos of people’s faces superimposed on other people otherwise known as “deep fakes”. What’s more, this can be done in real-time. Certain generative AI networks can, after being fed thousands of images of people for example, synthesize completely believable pictures of brand new people — people who appear at a glance to be real, but who actually do not exist and have never existed. Yet another recently publicized AI program from Samsung can take just a single picture and make it talk.
http://truthstreammedia.com/2019/05/31/technology-is-becoming-indistinguishable-from-reality/

Bill Hader channels Tom Cruise [DeepFake]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=174&v=VWrhRBb-1Ig
Spot on impressions of Al Pacino and Arnold Schwarzenegger by Bill Hader [DeepFake]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjI-JaRWG7s

 

[seldom]

There are some serious people who suggest that it is more likely than not that we are, in fact, a simulation. Here is a recent New York Times opinion piece against finding out.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/opinion/sunday/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-lets-not-find-out.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage#commentsContainer

 

[georged]

Our local expert on this sort of thing is The Bard of Barlings. He doesn't just know about the technology involved but could actually DO it.
Where does he think it's going to lead? Meaning as the barriers to entry get ever lower and entire countries begin fielding ops teams to mess with both international and internal affairs?
Nowhere good, that's for sure.
In short, what happens to society when the adage "Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see" becomes, "Believe absolutely nothing that you don't see with your own eyes, in realtime, in your presence."

 

[mso489]

Any sentient being capable of creating us and more importantly our world as a simulation would have been sophisticated enough to do a better job. The ancient concept of an Almighty, or almighties, is more all encompassing and almost presupposes slips and gaps that may be preconceived and are mostly beyond our judgement. However, we may be remaking ourselves as a simulation; I'll buy that to a degree, watching the world of people stare at their screens. We have met the simulation, and it is us. As Hamlet says, "So I have heard and do in part believe."

 

[geopiper]

I started seeing those deepfake videos a few months ago and they creeped me out, mainly due to the implications of counterfeiting videos.

 

[Olkofri]

Election year. Shall we be seeing fake drowned refugee children?

 

[dmcmtk]

My browser settings don't let me see the NYT article. No great loss, the NYT, talk about a false alternate reality...
:D

 

[elbert]

People often abandon fake news in favor of still faker news. Makes it difficult to know where to make one's stand.
But when I read Lucian (on Alexander the Oracle-Monger), Thoreau (A Plea for Captain John Brown), MLK Jr. (Letter from Birmingham Jail), and others whose names are known to all--Twain, Orwell, Edward Abbey--I do not despair altogether.

No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.

- Walden

 

[voorhees]

My FIL and I were talking about this today. Perfectly honest, I think I’ll step away from hi level tech as I age. Thankfully I’m of the age where I shifted from a time of very little computer use (80’s-90’s) to using it everyday in my careers. One foot in current tech laden reality and one grounded in the past. Where I can still rely on old world things. I’d certainly hate to think I had grown up like the current generation so wrapped in technology.

 

[mso489]

Historically media reporting has always been uneven and certain outlets have been prone to be, or were entirely propaganda. During the early days of the U.S., specific newspapers did totally fabricated attacks on various politicians we now honor and glorified ones we don't. Honorable and routinely dependable sources have been snookered into reportage that brought about unnecessary wars. The sinking of the battleship Maine in Cuba and the reported torpedo attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin are examples. If you range around the sources a lot and recognize when your emotions are being played, you will often, but not always, detect good reporting and recognize made-up or influenced reports. Don't depend on single sources, or sources espousing only one point of view. And look for non-media sources against which to assess facts. If you feel totally convinced by any source, suspect something. If you are taking in news to feel emotionally validated, suspect something.

 

[elbert]

Tom with the SLAM-DUNK! :clap:

 

[gerryp]

After seeing what my 12 year old stepdaughter does to her Sims 4 characters, I can't rule out the possibility that this whole thing is being run by a sadistic control freak pre-teen girl in a highly advanced civilization.

 

[brian64]

If you range around the sources a lot and recognize when your emotions are being played, you will often, but not always, detect good reporting and recognize made-up or influenced reports.

Here's an example of a current issue that is steeped in misinformation & propaganda. The politicization of science is one of the biggest problems we face.

While Celebrities Pass Off Fake Pictures Of Burning Amazon, Here's What The Raging Fires Actually Look Like
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-27/while-celebrities-pass-fake-news-pictures-burning-amazon-heres-what-raging-fires

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Zerohedge is a batshit crazy fake news blog run by a couple of Austrian morons who write the entire thing from their mother's basement. Note the names they give their writers... This one was done by Tyler Durden. You may recognize that name as the crazy assed character from Fight Club.
This is what is telling you that the real news is fake news? WTF

 

[brian64]

LOL
Next time try saying what you really think Cosmic...you'll find it quite cathartic.
And my only response is, we can agree to disagree. LOTS of great, credible info on zerohedge all the time.
IMO.
EDIT: PS...and it's perfectly ok with me if you consider me to be batshit crazy...I really don't mind...especially given the state of the world these days. Forming an opinion on anything is going to result in someone viewing you that way.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Sure, agree to disagree, but if you think that this is news, then I'd have to totally disagree to the Nth. Two kid bloggers making a website that looks like news and reports that everything is a conspiracy is the epitome of fake news.

 

[dmcmtk]

ZeroHedge basically reports stories with links to the original sources. It's up to the reader to evaluate the information. An example, here you go...
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-27/creator-global-warmings-infamous-hockey-stick-chart-loses-climate-science-lawsuit

 

[seldom]

brian64 and dmcmtk, I can give you a great deal on a bridge in Manhattan.

 

[brian64]

Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

 

[Olkofri]

ZeroHedge basically reports stories with links to the original sources. It's up to the reader to evaluate the information. An example, here you go...
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-27/creator-global-warmings-infamous-hockey-stick-chart-loses-climate-science-lawsuit

That's AWESOME news!