
Underestimating the mind-warping potential of fake video - anarbadalov
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/4/20/17109764/deepfake-ai-false-memory-psychology
======
uptown
There's a relevant and insightful thread on Twitter posted by David Roberts
here:

[https://twitter.com/drvox/status/988144274720964608](https://twitter.com/drvox/status/988144274720964608)

His thread references the "debate" over climate change, and his point is that
the debate most people participate in isn't truly a debate over facts, but
rather a debate over trust. That matters of complexity are too distant from
any one individual to have direct exposure-to, so in order to form a
comprehensive viewpoint on anything, one much choose whom to trust. And that
it's this part of the process of "understanding" which has been exploited.
That people have been encouraging people to trust untrustworthy sources for
information which doesn't necessarily square with the scientific evidence.

In this light point, when facts are irrelevant -- and if fake videos are used
to compromise the voices of those which deserve our trust then I fear for
those advocating fact-backed positions. It's clear they'll face an uphill
battle.

~~~
gameswithgo
>That matters of complexity are too distant from any one individual to have
direct exposure to

In the case of climate change it is actually possible to self-inform yourself
about some of the key aspects of climate change. Raw data is freely available
(noaa and others), and some simple scripts can answer questions like "are the
claimed warming trends real or artifacts of bias due to adjustments or other
factors".

This was part of my path into figuring out who to trust, and it did take a
while. Not everyone is going to have the time or inclination, and this is only
1 of a few dozen important political issues to understand!

By the way my conclusion was that yes, global warming is absolutely a real
thing, and absolutely caused by human activities.

~~~
uptown
> "Raw data is freely available (noaa and others)"

But still - this is a matter of whether one chooses to trust NOAA and others.
His point isn't really even about climate change. It's about debating the
merits of any position, and what sources of information you trust to reinforce
your position.

~~~
godelski
> this is a matter of whether one chooses to trust NOAA and others

I should mention that this is fairly easy to verify, at least with part of the
data. For land temperatures one of the big sources they use is meteorological
data gathered at airports (METAR). You know, the same data that pilots use to
calculate take off and landing distances, altimeter settings, etc. So a
concerned citizen could compare this these data sets and verify part of the
NOAA data. Faking this data, at the airports, would cause disasters, unless
you had this major conspiracy where you fixed the pilots instruments or every
pilot was aware of this faking and used the real numbers. But both seem really
silly since GA pilots need this information too, and frequently do hand
calculations.

I certainty think the verify part is essential in phrase "trust, but verify".
I just want it to be clear that one can trivially verify one of the large
components of the data set.

[1] SFO airport data: [http://www.wx-
now.com/weather/wxcurrent?icao=KSFO](http://www.wx-
now.com/weather/wxcurrent?icao=KSFO)

~~~
mistermann
Ok, but what are we verifying, the pre-adjusted numbers, or the post-adjusted
numbers? And is there a document a reasonably intelligent layman can refer to
to get the _complete_ story behind how various measurements have been
adjusted?

For fun, sometimes I try to find someone who can explain to me where the "97%
of scientists support the man-made global warming theory" statistic came from,
and I'm pretty sure I found the original source, but the problem is, it
doesn't say 97% of scientists support it, or that 97% of papers support it.
Now, if The Informed would just be up front and admit that "ok, that
particular claim is a bit imprecise to be quite honest, here's the actual
story....." this would be perfectly fine with me. But when instead both
official authors and any advocate I've encountered online instead doubles down
on the misstatement, or refuses to answer perfectly straightforward questions
but instead attacks me and starts calling me names.....well, my spider senses
go off a bit.

And then I read things like: "The US right, for decades now but accelerating
in recent years, rejects mainstream institutions: not just science but
academia, journalism, and government. It has devolved into thoroughly tribal
epistemology: what is good for us is true." ....and the logical side of my
brain says "well yes, that is certainly true for a lot of conservatives, but
certainly not all" and then I start to notice a pattern where very few pro-
AGW-thoery people seem to be able to resist saying things that are not true,
when lying is absolutely not necessary in any way, and I think to myself, this
whole situation seems a bit suspicious.

So, partially because I'm genuinely skeptical, partially because I have quite
a number of issues with the current political climate and state of discourse,
and partially to return just a small portion of the c _ntiness I 've
experienced from online know-it-alls, I'm going to set my launch chair just on
the other side of the "denier" line, because "f_ck me? Well f _ck you too! "

Besides, the economic prospects in the future for my kids doesn't look so
bright and no one seems to give two sh_ts about that, so maybe I'm not overly
motivated to care about your interests either.

~~~
godelski
> Ok, but what are we verifying, the pre-adjusted numbers, or the post-
> adjusted numbers?

You would compare the raw data (pre). You should also look at the models
people use to adjust and ask yourself "does this make sense?" I should mention
that the raw data suggests significantly more warming than is actually
happening (which is why I've never understood the raw data argumet). This is
because most ways we measure are actually artificially warm. There's a good
layman's discussion here [1]. I'll mention that article gives lots of links to
follow and is one of the first things I give technical people that are
interested in learning more about the basics. It will give you a world to
google and terms to search.

> pretty sure I found the original source, but the problem is, it doesn't say
> 97% of scientists support it, or that 97% of papers support it.

This is true, but I think you also misunderstand what it means. IIRC it also
included papers from arxiv and other preprint services, which aren't peer
reviewed. There are other studies that have done surveys on opinion breakdowns
between different types of scientists. You still see an overwhelming trend (I
believe >97%) among climate scientists that support it.

> And then I read things like: "The US right, for decades...

Leave politics out of science. Well at least as much as you can. Stop reading
these things, they aren't relevant or useful. Different parts of academia have
different problems, and they don't apply to all parts.

> So, partially because I'm genuinely skeptical...

 _GOOD. PLEASE BE SKEPTICAL_. As a scientist I will NEVER discourage someone
from being skeptical. But you also need to do more than just say "I'm
skeptical", that is being a conspiracy theorist (in the bad way). A real
skeptic looks into the claims made. That's what being skeptical is. So I
encourage you to look at the data. I encourage you to actually talk to
scientists that directly work on this research (as opposed to me). Most
scientists are extremely happy to talk about their work, unless you're being
mean to them.

If you are really skeptical please at minimum read [1]. Better, go through the
other links as well.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-
thoroug...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-
fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/)

Bonus: Link to different datasets
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12-__RqTqQxuxHNOln3H5...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12-__RqTqQxuxHNOln3H5ciVztsDMJcZ2SVs1BrfqYCc/htmlview?sle=true#)

Nice graph on common claims (with link to data):
[https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-
wo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/)

~~~
mistermann
> You should also look at the models people use to adjust and ask yourself
> "does this make sense?"

I don't remember specific details anymore, but any time I've tried to wade
into details I'm not able to make much sense of anything. Now, if the science
is _unavoidably_ complicated, so be it, but often times it is most definitely
not, and correct or not, I am left with the impression that clarity is
deliberately not the goal. To be clear, I'm not expecting scientific papers to
be written for the layman, but I've yet to come across anything approachable
for a reasonably intelligent and mathematically capable skeptic.

> This is true, but I think you also misunderstand what it means.

I'm pretty sure I understand exactly what it means, my complaint is that
almost none of the self-proclaimed internet experts on the subject don't, and
when you point it out to them, they lie. Worse, the 97% statistic was "double
checked" and "recalculated" using some very fancy footwork (arbitrary
discarding of a portion of authors) such that _coincidentally_ , they landed
precisely on the 97% _even though they used a completely different
calculation_. Perhaps I am misunderstanding (and have pleaded with numerous
experts to correct me), but until then my current belief is that whoever wrote
that was cooking the books.

So then, when POTUS then tweets a link to yet another report containing the
same misrepresentations:
[https://twitter.com/barackobama/status/335089477296988160?la...](https://twitter.com/barackobama/status/335089477296988160?lang=en)

....I'm not sure how to go about explaining to someone how that sows distrust.
To me it seems obvious, I am literally as bewildered about my "opponents"
belief _in this extremely limited scope_.

Of course, this may appear irrelevant to the larger actual question whether or
not AGW is primarily man-made, but it speaks _directly_ to the question of
_trust_ , which it's nice to see some people actually realize is that matters.
Almost no one has actually read any of this science, so any of those folks who
expresses ~"oh my god, it's sooooo obvious, you're such a science denier" is
quite frankly lying out their bum. Once again. And again, how this could sow
distrust in the mind of a skeptic is completely oblivious to those who have
drank the koolaid.

The popular sentiment is that advocates are asking for understanding of the
science, but based on the way they're asking for it, it seems more like
they're asking for _obedience_ , which to me is a feeling I've had a lot
lately on a number of issues.

> Leave politics out of science. Well at least as much as you can. Stop
> reading these things, they aren't relevant or useful.

I don't disagree, but I would extend the same advice to the "leaders" of this
movement, and ask that they find a way to reign in their rabidly enthusiastic
but uninformed supporters, in many cases it alienates those of us still on the
fence. "GOOD. PLEASE BE SKEPTICAL." is a sentiment I rarely hear expressed
_sincerely_. Sure, everyone says it, until you ask a question and don't accept
it being brushed away with a non-answer, and the knives come out shortly
after.

> A real skeptic looks into the claims made. That's what being skeptical is.
> So I encourage you to look at the data.

For sure, I've just never found anything approachable. Which again seems
suspicious to me. Think of the millinions of man-hours and dollars that have
been poured into this initiative, yet is there a well-known and approachable
website I can turn to to educate myself? If the true motive is to inform
people on the facts, such they will willingly support the necessary financial
sacrifices, wouldn't it make sense to have such a resource? Whereas, if the
actual approach taken is incessant news, TV, and internet articles that repeat
the same set of 10 talking points.....once again I get suspicious.

Many thanks for an actually sincere reply, I will read the links you provided.

~~~
sethrin
For me it tends to be easier to take a historical view of a scientific topic,
exploring what was known at a given time, and particularly focusing on
controversies. AGW is widely accepted now, but has been extremely
controversial, and was actually entirely discredited for some fifty years
after the first published paper on the topic. The reasons for this should
probably be extremely popular among skeptics. _The Discovery of Global
Warming_ [0] is a hyperlinked and well-cited ebook which describes the climate
research of the last century or so.

[0]
[https://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm](https://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm)

In the 19th Century the prevailing view of climate was that it was static or
cyclical, with cold years balancing out warm ones. This began to be challenged
by growing evidence for past ice ages, and various theories of climate change
proposed mechanisms by which these might occur. At around the same time,
people began playing around with carbon dioxide, carbonated water, and
carbonic acid, and noticed that many human activities produced large amounts
of CO2. In the mid-1860s Tyndall measured the heat characteristics of various
atmospheric gases (you can probably reproduce his experiments relatively
easily, if you like). A few decades later in 1896 Arrhenius suggested that
halving the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could produce temperatures cold
enough for an Ice Age, but he also provided figures for a doubling of
atmospheric carbon. His value for climate sensitivity is a bit on the high
side of today's range, but still agrees pretty well despite his
unsophisticated climate model.

However, Arrhenius was refuted in 1901 by Knut Ångström, who pointed out that
1) the absorption spectrum of water and CO2 overlap, and the atmosphere is
essentially completely saturated with H2O, so carbon dioxide probably isn't
having any additional effect, 2) the atmosphere is completely opaque to CO2 at
lower concentrations than currently exist, so additional CO2 should have no
effect, and 3) that the oceans are an unimaginably capacious carbon sink, and
can absorb all the carbon that humans could even think about liberating, and
then some. The CO2 theory of climate change was mostly forgotten for about
half a century.

In that time, we began to explore the upper atmosphere, as well as the
circulation of the oceans. Other experiments shed doubt on the cyclical nature
of climate, pointing out that (e.g.) small changes in albedo could reflect
sunlight, leading to cooler temperatures, and so on, in a self-reinforcing
cycle. The idea of a cyclical climate took a long time to die, and one of my
private amusements was reading through a 1950 textbook on atmospheric science.
It described the climatic zones of the world as if the annual rainfalls and
prevailing winds were graven in stone, and explicitly assigned a small role to
CO2. By that time, however, the scientific view was already beginning to
change.

In 1949 Callendar published an article titled _Can Carbon Dioxide Influence
Climate?_ , which laid out a renewed case for the importance of CO2. The
absorption spectra of water vapor and carbon dioxide do not completely
overlap, he argued, and although in theory the oceans can absorb a nearly-
infinite amount of CO2, the rate of mixing of the upper and lower oceans is
very low, and so the oceans provide much less of a buffer in the short term.
He also pointed out that the stratosphere was almost devoid of H2O, and that
small increases in the composition of the outer atmosphere could have a
disproportionately large effect. More generally we can say that increasing the
partial pressure of CO2 increases the extent of the CO2-rich layer, raising
the effective top-of-atmosphere.

There were a number of unknowns at this point. It was not known for sure
whether solar output was constant, or whether the global concentration of
carbon was increasing, or whether the influence of carbon dioxide would be
outstripped by the influence of particulates or other polluting gases. Solar
observations since then suggest that solar output is constant to within .1
percent. The potential cooling effect of particulates and aerosols was the
topic of active debate until the mid-1970s, and I'm told that some periodicals
published lurid extrapolations of this research. Measuring the global
concentration of CO2 was something of a challenge, but it was eventually met
in 1958-61 by one Charles Keeling, who established a global baseline for CO2
concentrations, showed a large seasonal variation in the same, and finally
showed that the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were indeed increasing as
predicted.

Since then we have seen steadily rising atmospheric concentrations and global
temperatures. Better atmospheric modeling and stricter pollution controls
reduced the potential threat of cooling. Another potential avenue of escape
was offered by the complexities of H2O interactions. By itself, CO2 is not all
that much of a concern. The no-feedback forcing per doubling is calculated at
~3.7 W/m^2, which is generally held to be about equivalent to 1 degree of
warming per doubling. And if that were all we could expect, we probably would
be talking about ocean acidification instead of global warming. However, water
vapor is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, and there's quite a bit of
water lying around most everywhere here, and the atmosphere can hold
exponentially more water the warmer it becomes, so a naive calculation would
suggest an unbounded positive feedback loop. Fortunately this is not observed.
The interactions of water in its various states are quite complex, so at this
point we essentially had to leave the laboratory and try to study the Earth as
a system.

That part is hard. Warmer tropical currents could shut down the Gulf Stream,
which would probably result in Europe freezing solid, and ironically provide
the impetus for a new Ice Age. (opinion) The strongest skeptical argument
presented recently would probably be Lindzen's Iris hypothesis, which suggests
that increased cloud coverage could offset rising temperatures. Unfortunately
the balance of evidence suggests otherwise. "Something lurking in the H2O
feedback" is at this point about all that would save us, and any potential
mitigating effect would generally have to be both large in magnitude, to
counteract the H2O feedback, and also presumably small enough not to have been
noticed. Without getting spectacularly hand-wavy with physics, one might also
posit some unknown interaction in the upper atmosphere which would
conveniently transfer large amounts of heat into space. The oceans are pretty
much ruled out, the optical properties of CO2 are beyond dispute, and hoping
for an exception to the laws of thermodynamics is probably a tad optimistic.

The linked ebook should provide adequate citations for all of the above, and
the research papers should all be freely available online. Do please respond
if you have any further questions, or if you would like any assistance in
finding citations. Also, while I have read a fair amount on this subject, I am
a layman, not a climate scientist, and the above being somewhat
extemporaneous, I would also be appreciative of any chance to correct any
mischaracterizations.

------
acjohnson55
I think it's important to note that the truth has never been widely available,
to the point where it might be useless to think of truth as being a real
concept to begin with. One could say that for a blip of time, we lived in a
world where a large percentage of human were pushed largely accurate (if
incomplete) information by mass media, allowing for something resembling
consensual reality and informed democracy. We have always had to delegate
verification of information to third-parties, whether those be text books,
media organizations, or government officials.

I don't think we should be overly sentimental about the passing of this
"golden age". We have never been a society ruled by facts and logic and we
have been regularly misinformed all along. The difference now is perhaps a
decentralization of who is controlling this misinformation and the realization
by elite institutions that they now have to contend with their loss of
monopoly, either by combatting perceived and real falsehood or coopting it.

It is admittedly deeply unsettling, but only to what was probably a false
sense of security. Maybe instead of fretting about how to obtain more
truthiness in the face of these new dynamics, the more fundamental question
remains how can we achieve human welfare in a world where informed democracy
is an illusion?

~~~
CM30
Similarly, it's also worth noting that the means of verifying a story or claim
weren't widely available for a long time either. Seriously, go back to before
photographs became a thing in 1839 or so. How did you verify any claims at
all?

You usually just took people's word for it, or assumed their
writings/paintings/memories were accurate. Unless you had the means to
actively verify a claim yourself and the claim was about something you still
could verify (aka the people involved weren't dead and the organisations and
places there still existed), you never really could be sure.

And the same sort of setup goes for other forms of evidence too. Audio
evidence, video evidence, even things vital to crime solving now like
fingerprinting and DNA testing are all new in the greater scheme of things.
For most of human civilisation, being at least somewhat unsure of what's true
and what isn't has been the norm, and the time periods where forms of evidence
were easy to obtain and hard to fake few and far between.

So yeah, it's definitely like a reset back to the olden days, and the
challenges are certainly more about how to deal with informed democracy
becoming an illusion again.

~~~
Bartweiss
> _go back to before photographs became a thing in 1839 or so_

My favorite taste of this is the Blackadder episode _Money_. Blackadder ends
up blackmailing a bishop with a _portrait_ of the man in a compromising
position, and everyone simply assumes that if there's a portrait of an event,
it must be real.

It's a great bit of comedy just by pushing a plausible event into the past,
and it looks like we're headed to that same scenario in the future. The loss
of faith in photographs isn't going to be some unprecedented collapse of
truth, it's going to be a return to the default position of politics and
society after a mere century of novelty.

------
hsribei
One point that is often lost on the discussions of fake video/"deepfake" is
that this development won't only make it easier to fool people into believing
something that's made up, but it might also make people more distrustful of
things which are actually true.

When it's been spread out enough that anything can be doctored to an
indistinguishable extent, everything becomes deniable by those being caught,
and the skepticism explosion is going to raise the bar for investigative
journalism / actual evidence to standards high enough that few will have the
resources to produce them.

~~~
amarant
The optimist in me wants to say that this in turn might lead to people
actually researching stuff and forming their own opinion instead of just going
along with whatever headline they see first, but the pessimist in me says
that's probably a pipe dream

------
snowwrestler
It seems like fake video can be handled the same way we handle fake text.
We're just not used to doing that yet.

Anyone can write an article and sign it "Barack Obama," and post it online
somewhere. Not many folks will fall for it. Most people understand how easy it
is just write someone else's name down, so they look for provenance to help
decide what is real. An article by "Barack Obama" on the Wall Street Journal
website is going to be believed much more readily than an article by "Barack
Obama" on some random blog.

The same thing will happen with video. Naked video files, found at random
places on the Internet, will generally not be believed until they're
authenticated by some trustworthy source. This already happens with "amazing"
web videos; they attract "this is fake!" comments unless they're vetted and
vouched for by (for example) a news service.

~~~
ajross
> Anyone can write an article and sign it "Barack Obama," and post it online
> somewhere. Not many folks will fall for it.

That's just stunningly naive. Imagine if Pizzagate or some other such nonsense
was accompanied by a video of Podesta mumbling something about sex slaves.
Fake News is a a real thing even without video corroboration.

> Naked video files, found at random places on the Internet,

You honestly think Breitbart of FOX wouldn't have run that in a heartbeat?

~~~
snowwrestler
How many people believe Pizzagate is real? Shall we litigate the exact
numerical definition of "not many?"\--which is what I said, not "none."

~~~
lkbm
> How many people believe Pizzagate is real?

That's a question that made me want an answer. It seems that, as of 2016, it
may have been a lot:

> Among the questions asked by pollsters was whether respondents believed that
> leaked emails stolen from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager and published by
> WikiLeaks prior to the Nov. 8 election “contained code words for pedophilia,
> human trafficking and satanic ritual abuse — what some people refer to as
> ‘Pizzagate.’ “

> ...

> Specifically, 9 percent of registered Republicans who responded to the
> question said the allegations were “definitely true,” coupled with 40
> percent of Republicans casting the claim as “probably true.”[0]

A different December 2016 poll[1] also seems to put "yes"/"definitely" at it
at 14%[1] with a lot of "maybes".

Given the margins in US Presidential elections, it seems like the answer is
"enough to matter". (Not that I think PizzaGate turned anyone from voting for
Clinton or to voting for Trump, but fake news stories probably swayed a lot of
voters overall.)

[0]
[https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/28/pizzagate-t...](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/28/pizzagate-
theory-believed-by-nearly-half-of-republ/)

[1] [https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/...](https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/PPP_Release_National_120916.pdf)

~~~
opportune
We must never forget that half of voters are even dumber than the average
voter

~~~
lightbyte
That's not how averages work. If 9 people have an IQ of 100 and 1 has an IQ of
10, the average is 91. 9/10 people are still above that.

~~~
philwelch
“Average” can mean “median”.

Also, human IQ is distributed in such a way that the mean is approximately
also the median, which, by definition of IQ, is 100.

~~~
danieltillett
IQ is just a measure of intelligence mapped back on to a standard distribution
with a mean of 100 and SD of 15. The mean equals the median of a standard
distribution by definition.

The reality is if you measured absolute intelligence that it would not be a
standard distribution (there are more people at the bottom than expected), but
it would be close. The reason why is that intelligence is the result of tens
of thousands of independent factors (mostly genes).

------
dosycorp
But not fake narratives, fake writing or fake news.

Convenient that new media celebrities and individuals have greatest audience
creation power through video, whereas traditional media still holds sway in
print / news.

So clearly, understand the origins of the narrative that "fake video" is more
dangerous: creator videos are stealing mindshare from traditional media. So of
course trad media wants to believe it's dangerous. Because it is dangerous to
them. But not for the reasons it pretends. At least not more than fakery in
trad media.

Which there is plenty of. Including disguising a defense of their (failing?)
business model, as a moral polemic, a subliminal plea that you need to trust
"authority" outlets like them, more.

But funny how the concentration of "authority" power, which occurs in places
like fact check /snopes, is the very thing those places pretend to be against.

Better in this distributed age to trust a sea of independent creators than a
few authority sites, right? Even if the creators are all russian bots the
concentrated few could all be pushing a single line.

Or maybe people should just trust themselves, and their own experience. And
get more of that, instead of more exposure to media.

~~~
jdietrich
Buzzfeed and Vox are pushing this message, but they are by no means
"traditional media". They're online-only publishers who are heavily oriented
towards short-form video and social media sharing.

It's a much more straightforward issue of media literacy. The Facebook feeds
of most people are littered with "news" from anonymous sources with unknown
funders and unknown agendas. This created a major vulnerability in the media
landscape that has been ruthlessly exploited.

I know Vox, I know their editor, I know most of their leading journalists. I
know their political opinions and their potential biases. I don't necessarily
trust them, but I am forewarned of their agenda and forearmed against any
conscious or unconscious efforts they might make to influence my opinion. I
understand the world view that Fox, CNN, The Guardian, WSJ, HuffPo and Drudge
are trying to sell me. If I learn about something from one of these sources, I
know how to find a contrasting perspective.

I have no idea who is behind "American Journalist", "Political Feed" or any
number of other anonymous "news" publishers operating on Facebook. I'm a
reasonably savvy media consumer and know not to give them credence, but the
lack of an explanatory framework for their biases makes me much more
vulnerable to subconscious manipulation. My psychological immune system hasn't
been inoculated against these pathogens, so to speak.

This is a serious issue with stark ramifications and we shouldn't be so glib
as to dismiss it as just media companies fighting a turf war.

~~~
mkstowegnv
I welcome other suggestions but for now I rely on Media Bias Fact Check [1] to
learn about mysterious news sources (although they don't have entries for the
two you mentioned). I agree with most of their assessments for the sources I
know. They are criticized by both right and left leaning websites. Although I
am sure a larger group could come up with something better, I like their
methodology [2] and the answers in their faq [3]. [1]
[https://mediabiasfactcheck.com](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com) [2]
[https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/)
[3] [https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/frequently-asked-
questions/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/frequently-asked-questions/)

------
threatofrain
People don't underestimate it, they just don't know what to do about it.
That's arguably more of a technological problem than a policy problem, the
technical and philosophical problem of how to detect fakes.

~~~
hanbura
Technological solutions will help, but software to spot fake videos will lead
to an arms race between video creation and video classification.

The more promising angle is imho the society angle. Most people view their
memory as the best source of truth, when in reality it's well established in
psychology that our memory is incredibly unreliable. Previously this was
mostly a problem for the justice system, now we risk entire nations being
gaslighted. What we should be doing is trusting our written word, not our
memory. Basically writing diaries and keeping newsletter articles, and
checking both from time to time to keep wrong memories from manifesting

All of that is very teachable

~~~
eric_h
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but isn't the technology to detect fake video in
fact part of the process of generating it? I was under the impression that
these deep fakes used an adversarial network, thus, the better the detection
of fakes, the better quality of the generated fakes.

~~~
hanbura
Yes, but in order to be useful for training, the fake detection algorithm has
to be reasonably performant. Performance is less of an issue if you just want
to test if one video is fake.

Unless of course the attacker has vastly more computational power than the
person trying to detect the fake

------
creaghpatr
So are they advocating for tougher libel laws? The photo and video used as
examples are pretty obviously fake, but even if it was indistinguishable, what
then?

Fake photoshopped images are so common now that ppl should assume any highly
controversial/compromising photo that isn't corroborated by AP or Reuters is
probably fake. Doesn't stop people from believing in fake photos or fake
stories, but that's how it's always been and fake videos are the next logical
step.

Only solution I can see is to make it easier to prosecute entities that have
demonstrated intent to defraud the public with fake news/images/video. The
press would absolutely hate that, and rightfully so.

~~~
hanbura
>The press would absolutely hate that, and rightfully so.

Not only the press. Whoever is making the decision what's real is the ultimate
censor and can decide which reality the voting public sees.

Of course convincing, largely circulated fakes have a similar effect. But in a
largely unregulated scenario it will at least be possible to notice that
conflicting versions exist

~~~
creaghpatr
Would also need to distinguish between fake and parody too. For organizations
like The Onion, will they create 'deep-fake' parody videos. Will they be
allowed to?

Since they can create parody news and images, I'm inclined to believe yes.

~~~
baq
Law must be adapted to technology. I wouldn't take anything for granted.

------
wufufufu
So what? If I didn't have access to any news outlets for the past 2 years, my
life wouldn't have changed at all.

Let's say there's a percentage of the population X% which is capable of being
tricked by the current level of fake news. Do you think with new technologies,
X will increase drastically? I guess that it will not change at all.

------
SmooL
I'm seeing a lot of comments along the lines of "We have fake images and fake
news, how is this any different?", as well as "It's not like we could trust
everything before, this doesn't really change anything".

While both of those are true, they neglect two important details: 1) Fake
videos are much more realistic than fake images, in the same way that fake
images are much more realistic than fake text, and thus more believable 2) A
large fraction of the population doesn't fact check anything and believes most
anything that is spread around the internet, the logic being "if this many
people viewed it and liked/reacted/shared this, it's probably true"

I want to believe that we, as a society, have learned our lesson about fake
news from the recent US presidential election, as well as Brexit. But I doubt
it.

------
lolc
There will be a plethora of "Deepfake" apps for your pocket computer tomorrow.
People will learn quickly not to trust video. They will have no choice because
they don't want to fall for pranks.

Humanity will stand through this.

~~~
rossdavidh
My thought is that it is much like what to do about any new technological
threat, for example too many calories or too much information or too many
distractions while driving. Bad things happen, and after about a generation
coping mechanisms get developed, and some people adopt them more successfully
than others. One is reminded of how populations adapt to new diseases.

One valid question, though, is whether or not the pace of introducing new
technological threats to society has increased, such that we see something
less like the Old World adaptation to the Black Death or malaria, and
something more like the New World indigenous populations failure to adapt to
getting all the Old World diseases introduced one after the other in quick
succession.

~~~
lolc
We're able to distinguish entertainment "fake" video from "real" video in our
minds. The separation is not clear-cut, and fictional movies affect our
thinking about real events. So I understand the concern.

But faking video is not a new invention. It's happened before and in a way I
welcome the broad availability of faking-tools to inoculate against the fakes
that have been with us since video existed. Now everybody will know that
videos can be faked.

~~~
baq
Now everybody will be able to create convincing fakes. That's not continuous
progress, that's a phase change.

~~~
lolc
I'm sure the same line of argument was made when desktop printers became
abundant.

~~~
baq
there's a reason photoshop won't work with scans of currency.

------
49bc
I really don’t think anyone is underestimating it. We’re just not buying into
the hype. We somehow managed highly-realistic fake images. Why can’t we do the
same with video?

------
banderman
History rhymes
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog)

~~~
empath75
also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_So...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union)

------
bsenftner
I developed an automated actor replacement VFX pipeline back in 2008, and
patented the idea of automated actor replacements. My desire was to create a
Personalized Advertising service where you and your family/friends appear in
the ads on streaming video services. The system worked, I acquired the
patents, globally, but needed VC or other financing to create the advertising
service and agency. I got financing nearly closed with a number of investors,
but every time a clause that the technology could not be used for porn was
cited as their reason for pulling out. That issue was debated and I did not
cave, as I knew an automated "insert anyone into porn" service was nothing I
wanted to be associated. I pointed out the endless other possible
applications, all high revenue, but simply having any limitations placed on
the investors soured their ambition on the idea. Simply getting investors to
understand it was difficult, even after demonstrating live actor replacements
to them, and even then they were skeptical. I ended up pivoting to a game
avatar service, and am now using the technology for facial recognition.

------
kazinator
If fake videos become ubiquitous, people will not believe videos any more.

Only complete idiots will riot over the content of a video. (The little
problem there being that we _have_ complete idiots.)

There is one main problem with videos losing their credibility due to faking:
namely that videos are a good weapon for documenting some nasty shit done by
bad people.

------
lifeisstillgood
Is there not a chain of trust here that can be _enforced_ with fairly simple
technology. And then the trust in the technology is something like a "kite
mark" \- a global standard of handling video content.

Let's take a simple example - I am a journalist who videos Obama talking. My
raw video footage is tagged in each frame with a hash of the pixels in the
frame. then I process the video, making linear cuts etc.

If i publish the whole lot as a package, anyone else can come along and rerun
the processing and check the hashes match up.

This should be decentralisable and scalable. and we just have to get used to
clicking the kitemark to check if anyone has verified the process or even run
it ourselves.

one could imagine a cottage industry of verifiers

~~~
jpfed
I want to believe that something like this would work. Maybe I'm missing
something, but isn't it the case that whatever signing could be performed on
data coming from CCDs could also be performed on data coming from a GAN?

------
Barjak
I've been afraid of this for years.

I guarantee you that there exist (or will exist) highly profitable
consultancies which specialize in faking evidence. Just think about how easy
it would be to launder a million here, a million there, disguised as legal
fees in some of these large cases.

We're approaching the limits of the traditional legal system with human
juries. I don't how to solve this in the long term. I'll speculate that the
solution will involve blockchains and a new, more minimal, totally
decentralized legal system.

~~~
zackmorris
I was thinking blockchain as well, but as a source of truth.

Imagine if all information on the web was spidered and added to a blockchain,
then as new details emerge, those would be appended to the original data. So
when someone fakes a video, the original video could/would get appended to the
fake, along with the source of the fake, its financial connections to
propagandists, etc etc etc. The problem will eventually become sifting signal
from noise, because the "proof" will be everywhere.

I still believe that in the light of full information, most people will come
to see the truth. That depends on a lot of things though, like being educated,
like having the time away from work and family commitments to ponder the
deeper questions of life, like understanding the difference between deductive
reasoning and dogma, etc. These are all things that authoritarians work
tirelessly to take away.

I guess what I'm saying is that the problem will become political, not
technological.

------
wybiral
Weaponized Mandela Effect?

------
SilasX
Don't we get some version of this effect with fictional movies and TV shows?
Your brain parses it as real, so you accept it at some deep level, even when
you know it's fake.

------
api
I think it's safe to say that today any "evidence" without _verifiable
provenance_ can be entirely ignored. Absolutely anything can be forged, and in
many cases using consumer PCs and readily available software.

That means anonymous evidence or evidence with dodgy sources has zero
credibility whatsoever.

------
ygaf
Do we need digital signing on every image/video in the news?

~~~
Gys
I like it. Maybe a system similar to certificates used in https. So trusted
partners signing photos and videos, maybe news agencies. The partners will be
careful because there existence depends on this trust system.

We will still have un-trusted photos and videos, but they can be recognized as
such. Maybe browsers can add a small default 'logo' to an image or video, like
the green lock now next to urls.

~~~
Retra
How does their existence depend on the trust system? All they have to do is
sign videos. They can sign fake videos just as well as real ones.

~~~
wybiral
Yes but then there will be an auditable trail of signatures that would allow
someone to tell who originally approved of the fake content.

------
aklemm
Perhaps there's a need for an archive or registry of original video so that we
can see all known footage of an historical figure. I'd like to have some way
to combat the coming memes of John Wayne advocating for arming teachers and
banning video games.

------
fenwick67
We've been able to make convincing fake video since the 60s (see Kubric). Even
impersonators with good makeup can get pretty close. I don't see how new tech
changes anything.

~~~
jackhack
>>convincing fake video since the 60s (see Kubric)

I assume you mean stanley kubrick. What are you referring to?

~~~
Intermernet
Probably "Dr Strangelove". Everyone knows that we didn't have the adequate
technology to make movies starring one person in three different roles in
1964. Peter Sellers was cloned for the three separate roles in "The Mouse That
Roared" in 1959, and then two of the clones were murdered once the "Dr
Strangelove" was completed. Both movies were filmed on a sound stage
controlled and built by the CIA.

------
Arkaad
What about fake photos?

------
zyxzevn
Reminds me of an old science-fiction where all events on the media were
computer-generated fakes.

There has been no "underestimating" of that potential.

"Mind-warping" has been researched and is being research extensively by the
CIA for some time. Most of that research is still top-secret, but well known
are the extreme psychological manipulations of subjects during the MK-Ultra
experiments.

I will focus on the CIA and it's influence in the past, as this is more
controversial and influential than that of other agencies/countries. The
influence of MI5/6 or Mossad is great, but a lot of it is still hidden. The
influence of the KGB was different, as the citizens did not really believe
much in them to begin with. The Chinese are going a whole different way again.

The CIA also did experiments involving the manipulation of the control of
subjects in social media, like facebook. But it did not stop there.

After the peace-protests during the Vietnam war, the CIA has infiltrated into
the press and media and anti-war movements. They now use that influence to
bend war and destruction into a peace-giving action. So we had "Freedom
fighters" in Afghanistan etc. Which was portrait in the Rambo movie. And the
US supported Saddam fighting Iran with US made chemical weapons. Later the US
fights the parties that it created and armed. Some strange thing that keeps
repeating in the US history.

At the same time the CIA has the Phoenix program and other society destructive
programs. They worked together with the "economic hitmen" and with local
crime-lords to strengthen their destructive programs.

The influence of the CIA in other countries was great, but it also worked into
influencing the US elections. Jesse Ventura found himself talking with the CIA
after he was elected, because they did not expect a "third party" candidate to
win. And they wanted to prevent that in the future.

Whistleblowers also show that they spy on political candidates, and pressure
them (via blackmail?) before they even get into office. That way they can have
direct influence on decisions. One well known example is that they spied on
congress when they where investigating the CIA-torture program. Also they were
able to destroy much evidence before it became public. Whistle blower Kevin
Shipp explains how the CIA is out of control.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQouKi7xDpM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQouKi7xDpM)

But the CIA is not the only US-agency influencing the US elections. Every
company is doing it too. Represent us: Corruption is legal in America:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig)
And just a few companies own all the press and media in the US.

So while we are looking at potential fake videos, we have a fake press and
fake democracy underneath that.

It does not mean that everything is fake, but that it is controlled by
agencies and companies that have their own agenda. And indeed we see videos
and other media repeating agendas of certain political parties or of certain
companies over and over again.

We can actually stop this by putting the agencies and companies back into
democratic control, and back into justice. And both need to be moved out of
the democratic system. For example: Flint can never get fresh water if the
companies and politicians involved can do whatever they like.

It does not mean that other countries all do it better. Most have different
kinds of corrupt systems in place. Small communities like Iceland, seem to be
able to stop corruption. Maybe we can learn from them.

So how can we counter this mind-warping?

Well: How can you spot propaganda?

If the same thing is repeated over and over again. When no evidence is shown.
When a certain party or person is portrayed as "Hitler" or "devil" or as
"heroes". When a problem is shown as black and white. When people are "just
crazy". If you are only limited to 2 bad choices. If investigations are
shallow, and many important questions are unanswered.

Usually you can spot them with logical fallacies. So we need to learn to use
logical fallacies and use critical thinking in all the news. And we need to be
critical of all ideas. This includes your own ideas as our confirmation bias
is also our downfall.

And this brings us back to the story. If our mind is bend, we can learn to
bend it back via critical thinking. And stop watching the news, if the same
thing gets repeated over and over again.

~~~
zyxzevn
Interesting on this same topic is the "fabrication of consent"
[https://www.bitchute.com/video/X4Foosop2wo/](https://www.bitchute.com/video/X4Foosop2wo/)

------
tgamba
Except all video is fake, that is, all videos are artifacts, artificial
things.

"We’re not so far from the collapse of reality" \-- am I the only one who
finds this inane? No video is real.

Critical thinking as applied to the written word applies equally to the image.
It's not rocket science.

~~~
royjacobs
Except everyone has been conditioned over the latest ~100 years to assume that
everything they see in a video is real. That is: unless explicitly
contextualised as fake, like when watching a movie.

Your premise that everyone should just "apply some critical thinking" directly
contradicts the events of the last couple of years, not just in the field of
video but within any form of media.

~~~
Senderman
It sounds like you're agreeing with the original comment, but I think you
might be paraphrasing it to highlight the absurdity.

And it does seem absurd, but it's true: almost everyone has been conditioned
to accept news footage as 'pure' truth, something at the other end of a
reality-scale from, say, movies.

I think it's hard to remember is that the majority of video is tailored with
intent to evoke specific a response: To some degree, your reaction and
emotions are at the mercy of the video producer - just like in a movie. Except
in a movie, you have the safety switch of remembering it's "not real" \- I
think the lack of a corresponding mental failsafe with news causes subtle
hysteria, confusion, and frustration.

Contrary to a lot of conspiracy, I don't think it's malicious (mostly), and I
believe fundamentally journalism has noble goals - but I don't see it as
deniable that "news" as a whole is under pressure to be compelling, and that,
albeit subtly, twists what we're exposed to.

Crying "be more sceptical" isn't very helpful - it certainly wouldn't have
helped me. I think more knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes of
newsmaking might be more along the lines of what would help people, but I
don't really know.

"Fake" almost isn't the right word. "Disconnected from reality" \- subtly -
that's the phenomenon causing trouble, in my view. But anything that's
disconnected from reality, taken as truth, is open to manipulation; scepticism
is appropriate.

