Will A Storm Of AI-Generated Misinfo Flood The 2024 Election? A Few Dems Seek To Get Ahead Of It

[zenicetus]

@1gg

People have been predicting the end of the world since they became consciece of the concept, but genrally it is only religious nutcases.

It gets a little more interesting when we actually achieve the technical ability to end the world (or at least the human part). That threshold has already been reached with the development of nuclear weapons.

AI is potentially worse, because it’s not going to be under the control of governments. It’s going to be far more widely distributed. And Congress is so far behind what’s happening that there’s no hope of legislative guardrails. Even if the hopelessly out of touch Congress critters understood it, the competition with China for AI military dominance would prevent any meaningful guardrails.

I don’t think we’re necessarily doomed, but this is the first technology after the atom bomb that has equivalent potential.

[zenicetus]

@rascal_crone

I’m all in favor of regulating the hell out of AI. But it seems the problems this article addresses aren’t AI but CGI. That is, some computer didn’t randomly decide to create an image of the Pentagon blowing up and then get its friend Meta (humans know it as facebook) to distribute it across all digital platform. A selfish cheating Republican is testing the Deep Fake waters. He won’t be the last

Where the AI comes into this, is making the means to produce deep fakes accessible to everyone and not just professionals.

I know how to fake a photo because I’ve used Photoshop forever and used to work in computer graphics as part of a photo career. This kind of thing used to be hard. Thanks to generative AI, you don’t need to know Photoshop now. You can create an image just by entering a friggin’ text prompt with no graphic skills at all!

You can even create a full video that way. Although currently it’s so pixellated and rough that it’s obviously AI-generated and you need some video skills to clean it up. That will get better, very soon.

[tao]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. We learn a lot from each other here.

[gr]

@rascal_crone

giant cat pet

I just got back from some minor surgery. I think I persuaded the nurse who tended me to get a shelter cat.

[gr]

@epicurus

trust me, the Angry Children’s Brigade will not go along with this. They want to tear it all down and watch the world burn

Some of us have been screaming nihilism since TFG was elected.
Destroy agencies, norms. Corrupt courts, law enforcement. higher education, public schools. The State Dept alone was so gutted such as to erase our diplomatic footprint around the world

[timorwig]

Their goal is chaos.

[commanderogg]

I will still take the red pill.

Red pill and blue pill

[fiftygigs]

mandating that AI-generated content be identified in political ads.

That’s an excellent idea.

I suggest the identification be clearer than “Built by AI” or “Powered by AI”. (Built by intelligence? Not even close to true, artificial or otherwise.)

A better disclosure is “Warning: The following images are not real” or “Imagery is a cartoon”.

[gr]

Not AI generated:

[susanintheoc]

OT. Today is my dog’s 15th birthday. Early this year we thought we were going to lose him when he became quite sick. Happily, several courses of antibiotics did the trick. Good check up at vet’s and good results for blood tests.

[becca656]

One of Dear Hubby’s friends had to put down their 18 year old cat yesterday. Value every day you have with the furry ones. It is never long enough.

[susanintheoc]

Don Jr. claims that the truck driven into the White House grounds was a false flag. You don’t need AI to fool the people. Everything will be a false flag operation the next year and a half.

[susanintheoc]

I am sorry to hear that. Our pets are so important to us and they love us unconditionally. Can’t say the same for relatives.

[timorwig]

Happy for you and your dog.

[Brysstaurus]

If Dems are relying on legislation and campaigns of fact-checking and truth-telling (“telling” being the operative word) to protect them… they’re crisped toast.

Imagery is too powerful, speaking biologically: neurologically, cognitively, psychologically, unconsciously. The science is in – and has been for quite some time. Corporations know it, marketers know it, dictators knows it, right wing think tanks know it… while Democratic politicos are in complete pitiful ignorance or denial about it.

Even when subjects behold imagery they know is not real – like boarded up financial centers – it affects them (us), it changes perceptions, it changes behaviors, it spreads. AI manipulation, rogue social media, right wing corporate “news” – think “Morning in America” on a fusion battery. Biden and Democrats will be vaporized by this, and fully from content sources that legislation can’t touch.

Democrats know how to talk. They know how to impart, to canvas – to “educate”. They don’t know how to communicate!

This bears repeating: Democrats do not know how to communicate.

That’s why Dems have been interminably on the razor’s edge (up until now – the ultimate historical trend towards loss will be crystal clear in hindsight).

As gross as it is to contemplate, fighting this firestorm with fire (and getting ahead of it) is the only way. If there is any way at all. When it comes to the way minds work, Democrats better dispense with the myth – soundly refuted over and over again by decades of rigorous research – of Rational Enlightenment, and start to believe in science. Learn how to communicate, to take control of language, to understand cultural story-making. (Democrats, not republicans, are the partisan deniers of science.) Democrats poo-poo the truth of human cognition gleefully on the path to their inevitable functional extinction.

This. Stuff. Is Real.

[susanintheoc]

Thank you.

[outis]

Is science magically not subject to Human cognition? Too often, it just seems as if science has become a new kind of religion, with different meanings depending on who you ask when it comes to specific issues. (Science also has little or no role to play in a host of issues, like basic morality. At best, it might be able to feed some data that is ultimately still subject to interpretation.)

[fiftygigs]

@Brysstaurus

They don’t know how to communicate!

Welcome to the community.

I agree with much of your post. Impression is what the media game is all about, and impressions and perceptions can be affected subtly.

To your point, I think a more accurate word is propagandizing. On Tuesdays and Thursdays here, the beef is that Democrats are fixated on policy details “people” aren’t interested in. I’d argue the fault there is with voters.

Personally, I’m glad the Democratic Party isn’t just the Republican Party with a different spin.

[outis]

AI has the almost immediate ability to create a bank of Bots dedicated to directly influencing individual voters, in a way that would never be practical with a bank of people attempting to do so. That outcome is far more likely than the idea that AI will cure cancer. That alone should give us pause, but I predict that it won’t.

[grants]

Yes, misinformation on steroids, far worse than 2016, is likely. Trump will tell republicans to punt that bill down the road, and they just might.