AI-Assisted Propaganda Imaging

This week has been very eventful. I found three news examples that look credible (or should I say incredible):

The last one is particularly interesting -- on the Senate floor, an obviously too-old Dem Senator describes in detail "the last seconds" of Pretti, pointing at a giant enlargement of an AI-generated image. "In his right hand, his phone; with his left he is holding the ground."..."This photo tells the story." No mention of the missing head of the ICE agent.

Both sides are escalating the use of fake imagery to push propaganda.

Posted in: s/US-politics

🚀 stack [anarchist]

Jan 30 · 3 months ago

14 Comments ↓

🐦 JustASillyBird · Jan 30 at 23:17:

I imagine a lot of this AI, perhaps most, isn't actually coming from either side. It's coming from the third side: Profit. There's money to be made in engagement, in advertising and in social media posts going viral. Just look at all the AI-generated videos of exploding trees lately. Much of the AI you see comes from sources that really don't care who wins the political game, so long as they can make a bit of profit off the audience. And an angry audience is an engaged audience, eager to hit that like and share button so all their friends may see whatever image has stired them to outrage.

👻 darkghost [Left leaning independent] · Jan 31 at 00:06:

I definitely mentioned the doctored photo in another thread. She won't ever get convicted of anything because each piece of evidence will raise credibility claims against the government. "How do we know this evidence wasn't faked, your honor? The government clearly has it out for my client and has a history of faking it."

I see this as more serious than a crusty old congressman presenting fake pictures during debate. They've produced false data, false charts, false quotes, and false facts during debate since the founding of the republic. It doesn't make it morally right of course.

But I can come to one conclusion from it all: we are so cooked. Welcome to the post truth, post reality world. Buckle up.

🦔 bsj38381 [Left-Leaning Libertarian] · Jan 31 at 00:25:

I sadly figured that both political sides will us Gen-Ai to make up propaganda, I saw this coming 50 miles away. This is making me more glad I stopped watching tv news, and waning on reading political news online.

🚀 RetroPunk64 · Jan 31 at 02:54:

AI is going to destroy humanity.

💽 Ian_Grey [Catholic Labor/Retired Communoid] · Jan 31 at 05:03:

More exciting hypothesis: AI is already in the process of destroying people's humanity.

🚀 stack [OP, anarchist] · Jan 31 at 18:16:

I am sure people said that the wheel would destroy humanity. Perhaps it did.

👻 darkghost [Left leaning independent] · Jan 31 at 18:55:

In our cold war mindset we tend to view the end of society as a single event (nuclear war.) There are plenty of bad endings that happen so slowly and gradually that we don't notice in the moment.

🚀 stack [OP, anarchist] · Jan 31 at 19:06:

I think we notice.

👻 darkghost [Left leaning independent] · Jan 31 at 19:17:

After it's too late to change. Though frankly none of us as individuals have the sort of power needed to change society, even if we see it coming. Such as giving liars better tools to lie with.

💽 Ian_Grey [Catholic Labor/Retired Communoid] · Feb 01 at 04:19:

@stack Wheels and clocks and books and keyboards all have a richly documented history of altering cognition, but we're talking here about a technology concerning the heavy industries in the control of a highly centralized group of people which acts itself as a kind of ersatz cognition. So qualitatively quite different from pottery or looms.

🚀 stack [OP, anarchist] · Feb 01 at 04:37:

I don't know if I agree that it's qualitatively different from earlier and cruder 'deepfake' hand-made images and video. Like everything, it is automated, greatly improved and more accessible...

👻 darkghost [Left leaning independent] · Feb 01 at 12:26:

The liars with better lying tools permits the wholesale manufacture of a false reality. No longer concocted just on empty words, half truths, and rumor. The bifurcation of objective truth will continue to split. It's a goddamn machine gun of self affirming cognitive dissonance, no longer requiring such tiring mental gymnastics to defend the absurd.

Of course Donald Trump personally waded through the flood waters of NC to deliver aide with Jesus Himself. Of course Elon Musk high-fived a kangaroo on Mars. I saw it with my own lying eyes right there on my iPhone. Steve Jobs (who is alive and well btw) wouldn't lie to me! He forged the iPhone in his golden lair with the angels. Ok that's enough sarcasm, sorry.

🚀 stack [OP, anarchist] · Feb 16 at 18:15:

Article in today's NYT saying the same.

👻 darkghost [Left leaning independent] · Feb 16 at 21:36:

Did you see the developer for matplotlib getting personally attacked in blog posts by an unattended LLM that had its contributions rejected? I fear even open source is not safe.