"Some will make the argument “But isn’t this simply the same problems we already deal with today?”. It is; however, the ability to produce fake content is getting exponentially cheaper while the ability to detect fake content is not improving. As long as fake content was somewhat expensive, difficult to produce, and contained detectable digital artifacts, it at least could be somewhat managed."
Yes, indeed. However, to the degree it is getting worse is substantial, rapid and significantly different than prior.
In the 90’s, the internet was cool, but you went to the library to do research.
For about 20 years, that flipped. I think it is flipping back. For me, the eye opener was trying to diagnose a roof vent issue. The small local library has two relevant books, each with 2-3 pages of information.
Those pages were more informative than a 6 hour internet search.
I guess my question is if that actually makes things worse. The people who were likely to believe falsehoods unquestioningly probably already do. How much does the ease of making new convincing falsehoods ensnare new people vs. causing the wary to just get paranoid and unlikely to believe things without overwhelming evidence?
At some point, getting people to believe things, let alone care about them, is already something that is generally known to hit diminishing returns, mostly in terms of reach. The percentage of the population that even is following wherever you're posting your fake content isn't 100%, even if you're so convincing that it gets onto major news sources.
Post-truth always feels like it's brought up as "And then anarchy follows", but it's unclear to me that it's that different than what things were like in pre-internet society where "fake news" was just someone in your town telling you something they'd heard from someone the town over about something happening hundreds of miles away. It can be a regression, but it's unclear to me that it's necessarily worse for people, since it's not clear to me that the fact that I know about some natural disaster in Laos is good or important.
This argument around cost of fake content would be more convincing if it weren't already used countless times throughout history. Socrates saying that writing will atrophy people's memories. The priest's fear that books will replace them when it comes to preaching. Gessner and his belief that the unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press will ruin society.
The social dilemma, and all those that were convinced social media would spell the end of modern society.
Instead each of these technologies improves access to information and makes it easier for most to determine the truth via multiple sources. I'd imagine in the future there will be many AI agents that can help to summarize the many viewpoints. Just like anything, don't trust any one of them in isolation, consider many sources, and we'll be fine.
It sounds like you're making an argument about people's relationship to truth that pivots entirely around the unknowns presented by AI, and not around historical truths about how disinformation already works.
And the capability hasn't mattered for nearly as long. Large swaths of society have chosen to reject inconvenient truths and instead believe convenient lies. The battle's already lost. I'm not sure I can be convinced that we aren't 4th century Rome.
13years|2 years ago
Yes, indeed. However, to the degree it is getting worse is substantial, rapid and significantly different than prior.
hedora|2 years ago
For about 20 years, that flipped. I think it is flipping back. For me, the eye opener was trying to diagnose a roof vent issue. The small local library has two relevant books, each with 2-3 pages of information.
Those pages were more informative than a 6 hour internet search.
noirbot|2 years ago
At some point, getting people to believe things, let alone care about them, is already something that is generally known to hit diminishing returns, mostly in terms of reach. The percentage of the population that even is following wherever you're posting your fake content isn't 100%, even if you're so convincing that it gets onto major news sources.
Post-truth always feels like it's brought up as "And then anarchy follows", but it's unclear to me that it's that different than what things were like in pre-internet society where "fake news" was just someone in your town telling you something they'd heard from someone the town over about something happening hundreds of miles away. It can be a regression, but it's unclear to me that it's necessarily worse for people, since it's not clear to me that the fact that I know about some natural disaster in Laos is good or important.
aeternum|2 years ago
The social dilemma, and all those that were convinced social media would spell the end of modern society.
Instead each of these technologies improves access to information and makes it easier for most to determine the truth via multiple sources. I'd imagine in the future there will be many AI agents that can help to summarize the many viewpoints. Just like anything, don't trust any one of them in isolation, consider many sources, and we'll be fine.
isoprophlex|2 years ago
And people have their attention already saturated, this is the bottleneck. Not the amount of bullshit society can produce.
RIMR|2 years ago
willis936|2 years ago
selimthegrim|2 years ago