Deepfake danger

[BinnZ]

I was aware of this potential already, some Dutch whizzkid announced it in a news show last year, but look at the video at the top of this article, it really shows how easily you can get fooled:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/shortcuts/2019/aug/13/danger-deepfakes-viral-video-bill-hader-tom-cruise

[Art Blade]

yep, that morphing is well done. Crazy.

[BinnZ]

I wonder why no one seems to be interested about this item... it's not just some cleaver AI showoff, this is what is going to *bleep* with people's minds. Not with ours or course, we are too cleaver to fall for it I think, and have a he@lthy dose of paranoia when it comes to media, especially TV media, but damn, the potential of this, they can set up entire fake propaganda about someone, make someone a monster in the eye of the public, the dumb and blind...

[Art Blade]

it was only a subtle change back and forth between three faces but it was really well done. If they can do it for the duration of a whole interview, then we're in for a new era of problems.

[BinnZ]

Just another quick post of an article, this time from The NY Times, about YouTube's role in influencing people and spreading fake news and conspiracy theorist content, all centered around Brazil's rise of right wing politics.

The article suggests that YouTube plays a role in favoring right and conspiracy minded people, which makes this quite a political content... I hope you all can see it through a neutral scope, just to learn about nowadays mechanics and platforms to influence ppl. I find it very disturbing!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-brazil.html

[Art Blade]

From my own experience, YouTube's recommendation system only works well for a few first recommendations. Then, if you keep going like always only clicking one recommended vid from the side list followed by clicking yet another one on the newly created side list, they lead you some place you don't want to continue. Because it has strayed too far from what you originally wanted to see.

For me, the only way it works better is to keep the very first recommendation list open by right-clicking on a recommended vid there, and then close the tab and return to the original list to watch the next. With a bit of luck you might come across a promising new recommendation list but typically after two or three side recommendations, there's only *bleep* left to watch.

Other than what the article described, there's a way to prevent such nonsense, as described above, and man, you've got to be really weak of the mind to keep following blindly and getting sucked in and ending up brainwashed. It's almost silly.

If the minds of millions of Brazilians w0#k that way, then something else must have gone wrong long before YouTube had changed the recommendation algorithms Like that:

"patients increasingly defied her advice, including on procedures crucial to their child's survival.

"They say, 'No, I've researched it on Google, I've seen it on YouTube," she said."

So, I wonder, is The New York Times itself misleading their audience a bit? Suggesting that devilish YouTube recommendations and demoniac Google search engine results lead not only a few people but whole populations of huge countries to change their believes and forget their common sense?

[Art Blade]

I just had an epiphany regarding how "well" those social media manipulations w0#k.

We read a whole lot about how influential fake news are, how there are companies working in the dark creating false content read or viewed by such a vast amount of people that even elections can be manipulated.

So I wonder, what about illegal drugs?

The war on drugs cost the USA and all the countries they dragged with them into the war on drugs trillions of dollars for decades without actually gaining the upper hand. We know the drug cartels have more money than some countries have to their disposal. That they continue to buy politicians, even presidents, the whole police, everything you can possibly conceive. They don't make money because it's illegal, they'd make more money if they didn't have to bribe everyone, if they didn't have to pay small armies to protect them, it would be more comfortable if they didn't have to hide all the time, if they didn't get arrested every once in a while and all the rest of the story we all know well. It would be easier. Perhaps less money, but a lot easier, and still more than enough.

Now, if the influence of social media is that big, how come those drug lords haven't realised its potential? How come they haven't manipulated whole nations and governments in a way that drugs become legal, a business, a trade, like any other thing? They could distribute world-wide and compete just like other big industries, like the oil industry?

With their money, it should be child's play by comparison, given how successful other social media manipulations worked that were not backed by the full financial power of drug cartels. But funny enough, I've not come across any reports that showed they did anything like that.

Maybe because it doesn't w0#k.

[BinnZ]

Interesting thought. But I think it doesn't w0#k like that because these drug lords and their 'personnel' are usually bound by blood, they can't escape the violent nature of the drugs trade. They both 'don't know any different' and can't escape the violent nature of their organization.

There is, however, a very powerful drug cartel who does use all new technology and fake info manipulation they can get, and that is the pharmaceutical industry. They sell the same product and do exactly as you described, the 'legal' way.

What you mentioned about the NY times using fake news themselves to talk bad about the big companies like google etc. also sprung to my mind. I'm not totally confident that their info is genuine, but I do think there is a core of truth in the story.

I am actually not so disturbed about the fact that people believe what youtubers say and distrust professionals and doctors in favour of some shady youtuber who claims whatever those professionals say is untrue. Especially in a land like Brazil, where a huge part of the population does not have access to the type of quality education we are used to.  They don't have a he@lthy media landscape either, these poor countries media are formed and developed by big money companies.
For example, take the enormous amount of people, young people, who had been influenced by role models on the TV thinking that the only good lips are large ones, that the only good hips hare those boney ones at the catwalk, and whole communities blindly following the newest hype in clothing etc. People want to belong to something and they feel attracted to the biggest groups of commons they see. 
politics in South American countries is also a whole different ballgame. Most countries are corrupted to the bone and people learned to distrust politicians long before we in the West started acknowledging the sick power of lobby and such. They trust much more on their family, people living close to them, because that's how their culture works. Big families, strong ties, and if they all watch youtube and no one told them it 'might not all be true' well, the info they find then, and discuss with their relatives, is far more influential than what a supposedly corrupt state officer might tell them.

[Art Blade]

what you mentioned, "a land like Brazil, where a huge part of the population does not have access to the type of quality education," is also on the verge of, "they don't have internet" in a quantity sense, in a way that the whole country couldn't be influenced significantly because there aren't enough people who can afford the tech needed.

and lol @ pharmaceutical industry = drug cartel

[Dweller_Benthos]

Interesting train of thought (Binn beat me to it lol), about social media and the drug cartels. One thing I know is happening in the USA much more is that marijuana is becoming more accepted and even legal many places. Heck, even my Dad is using CDB-based ointment for his back arthritis. I know that's not nearly the same as smoking a joint, but it's something to think about. Even though it's not legal in my state, a lot of individual counties are not prosecuting small possession "crimes" for marijuana. At most they confiscate, give you a warning and let you go. There are so many people in jail on low level drug possession charges because of the war on drugs that the jails are full. It was a huge failure, and essentially had the same effect as prohibition did in this country; it drove the use and possession of the substance in question underground and increased the power and influence of illicit organizations that could then provide that substance. In the case of prohibition and alcohol, it was the mafia and in the case of most drugs it's cartels from other countries.

Now the thought that social media could sway opinion enough to allow most of these substances to become legal is intriguing. Maybe the increase in acceptance of marijuana in the US is just a start of some long term plan to do just that? Or is it just the fact that people of a younger generation who grew up with marijuana use are now old enough to have a voting block large enough to count and are in positions now to effect a change in that policy?

Who knows.

[Art Blade]

whatever the reason, in the long run it will save any country who legalises drugs a lot of money. Sounds too little, I mean billions, if not trillions of dollars.

For one, you will never stop the use of substances. Then it's better to be open and visible, you can control it, guarantee quality and origin (see Canada, they've got monumentally big plantations but, funny enough, ran dry within days after legalisation and even had to import tons of marijuana by the planes from the Netherlands, haha) and may even tax it and generate an additional income not to mention a lot of jobs.

Secondly, the costs of persecution are astronomical. Legalising it, you wouldn't need (that amount of) law enforcements, people who w0#k for the DEA and police and other agencies specialised in "the war on drugs," you wouldn't have to house and feed all those people who are now jailed. On the contrary, they'd be working and producing tax income as well as spending money on regular consumer markets, good for the economy. In short, you'd gain.

And I don't give a damn about why it comes to legalisation, as long as it does. Anyone who thinks otherwise would instantly have to go back to the times of prohibition and we all know how that panned out

[Art Blade]

just came across these: on top the final result (an impressionist, his voice, but faked faces), below how it was done (kinda) and I recommend checking out Sham00K's channel (lower vid) for some really crazy deep fake art.

[PZ]

One needs to fact check just about everything these days. The alarming part is that there are so many people that take things like this at face value.