Photos could always be deceiving and be made to tell any story someone wanted to tell.

And does it even matter what a "real" photo shows, nowadays? That silly little Israel vs Gaza war is the best example why it doesn't; most people already have an OPINION that no photo will change.

We are fast heading into an age where nothing, nothing whatsoever, could ever be trusted again. From AI generated images, Deepfakes (fake videos of people saying things they never said), news stories entirely written by biased AI, AI websites generated in seconds to back up the AI generated news story, down to seemingly harmless AI generated vocals on a song to sound like a particular singer.

When-I-were-a-lad, (yawn), we only had two major television news outlets in the UK (BBC and ITN), and about 6 or 7 national newspapers, ranging in their political biases from left to right, and somewhere in-between.

Many of the younger generation would look at that and scoff at the fact we were probably drip-fed government propaganda by the limited government controlled media, and perhaps we were, although it certainly didn't feel like it.

But in many ways, that's not the point. The point was that people only tended to agree or disagree on the actual story itself. We all knew left-wing newspapers would have a left-wing bias, right-wing newspapers would have a right-wing bias, and television news would try its best to remain impartial, but we all expected and accepted that. We were rarely in doubt that we were being fed out-and-out lies. We all agreed that what we were being told was generally true, it was just the opinions and the biases that differed.

This made the world so much simpler and easier to understand, regardless of whether we really were being told the truth or not. As I said, in many ways, it was a lot more important that we were all down the pub debating on the actual news story itself, not questioning whether it was even true or not.

A society that cannot, and does not have any trust or faith in what it's being told, in an age where truth can be so easily manipulated on so many levels, where people so rarely remove themselves from their personal 'information bubble' to seek out alternative sources and viewpoints, is a very, very dangerous society indeed. I have no idea what it will lead to, but it cannot be good.

I have been saying for a long time now that I genuinely believe the technology, namely the internet will be the death of us, unless radical changes are made to how we use it.

Alex wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2023 12:25 pm Photos could always be deceiving and be made to tell any story someone wanted to tell.

And does it even matter what a "real" photo shows, nowadays? That silly little Israel vs Gaza war is the best example why it doesn't; most people already have an OPINION that no photo will change.

Spot on … it’s nothing new really … Capa’s famed photo of a soldier being shot at impact is said to have been staged … and don’t shoot the messenger, I am a huge fan. Trust, but verify.

Ghostwriter wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2023 2:56 pm It depends a lot on what one is inclined to believe in the first place....

We live in an age where people are easily persuaded to believe their fantasies without question. Just look at the numbers of people openly claiming that men can pop out a sprog, yet are unable to genuinely perceive their own place in reality.
Where the deluge of information is relentless, if you hear roughly the same thing often enough, but fail to check if the sources are independent, there’s a good chance of believing a lie, and dismissing facts. If the false data sounds sexy, and the real stuff is boring, where are people going to look?
The go to place for information is the internet. For corroboration, it’s the internet.
For storage, it’s the internet.

The newer generation are more willing to dismiss any right to privacy.

Among this brave new world, I feel we’ve given enough latitude to people to deceive. The potential is that the worst crimes in human history can be repeated, while the evidence potentially is erased or masked before it’s ever critically seen.

That’s anything from genocide to paedophilia.

The possibility of AI taking control a la Terminator might be the least of our worries if we’ve given easy access to tools of mass deception to the worst of us.

Freightdog wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2023 4:44 pm

Ghostwriter wrote: ↑Tue Nov 28, 2023 2:56 pm It depends a lot on what one is inclined to believe in the first place....

We live in an age where people are easily persuaded to believe their fantasies without question. Just look at the numbers of people openly claiming that men can pop out a sprog, yet are unable to genuinely perceive their own place in reality.
Where the deluge of information is relentless, if you hear roughly the same thing often enough, but fail to check if the sources are independent, there’s a good chance of believing a lie, and dismissing facts. If the false data sounds sexy, and the real stuff is boring, where are people going to look?
The go to place for information is the internet. For corroboration, it’s the internet.
For storage, it’s the internet.

The newer generation are more willing to dismiss any right to privacy.

Among this brave new world, I feel we’ve given enough latitude to people to deceive. The potential is that the worst crimes in human history can be repeated, while the evidence potentially is erased or masked before it’s ever critically seen.

That’s anything from genocide to paedophilia.

The possibility of AI taking control a la Terminator might be the least of our worries if we’ve given easy access to tools of mass deception to the worst of us.

The only thing to fear is fear itself … #wisdom