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Musings Report 2023-43 10-21-23 Our AI-Powered Post-Truth, Post-Trust Unraveling
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Our AI-Powered Post-Truth, Post-Trust Unraveling
Self-proclaimed techno-optimists giddily assure us that AI (artificial intelligence) is the salvation of humanity because AI "solves problems." As long-time readers know, I've been following AI for 40 years and large-language model (LLM) AI doesn't seem all that "intelligent;" as I outlined in Musings 23 (Will AI Deliver the Worst of Both Worlds? ),
LLMs have replaced previous computer-human interfaces with natural language facility. This makes it very easy to over-estimate the actual "intelligence" behind the interface.
More robust AI may deliver protein-folding solutions, but it can't explain how it arrived at the solution; it's a "black box." If AI is unable to explain what it's doing, is this actually intelligence?
What the techno-optimists fail to mention is that AI doesn't just "solve problems," it creates problems, too. The techno-optimists have a ready solution to any AI generated problems: more AI. Which then generates a new set of problems, which we then attempt to remedy with more AI, until the AI "solution" consumes itself.
You've probably seen the phrase Post-Truth, generally defined as "objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."
As an independent on the fringes of public media (oftwominds is bit of rock out in the Oort Cloud), I would say Post-Truth also means "the suppression of evidence that is counter to the approved narrative."
Those who are not in public media--bloggers, video-bloggers, podcasters, etc.--are generally unaware of how many independent voices have been banned or shadow-banned for even hinting that the approved narrative isn't the sum total of what's true.
For example, a podcaster recently told me that he was banned by a major social media platform for speaking with an academic scientist about vaccine approval protocols. A financial blogger's wife who grew up in fascist Portugal as a child, told me he was also shadow-banned for something a guest said. Needless to say, she reported that it reminded her of her childhood. She said they couldn't risk having me on the program again as a guest, so sorry.
My own experience of being shadow-banned started back in 2016, winning me a coveted spot on the infamously false PropOrNot black list published by the Washington Post. The tentacles of this black list are long; I've had readers report all manner of evidence of shadow-banning. Once you're on a black list, there's no procedure for getting off it.
I recently started reading Franz Kafka's last novel, The Castle. It's broadened my understanding of Kafkaesque. The entire phenomenon of being banned / shadow-banned is very reminiscent of Kafka's work, as your "crime" is not specified, you do not get a trial to contest your conviction, and there is no process to remedy a wrongful conviction (an appeal).
Kafka's The Castle adds layers of nuance to Kafkaesque. What people know is obscure, how much authority they wield is obscure, the procedure to gain access to the Castle is obscure, what they have accepted as true is obscure.
Thanks to AI tools that make it easy to create "deepfake" videos and audios, Post-Truth is now becoming Post-Trust: since everything can be faked, nothing can be trusted.
You've probably heard of the deepfake kidnapping scam: you get a frantic call from a loved one saying they've been kidnapped, and you have to pay a ransom immediately to free them. It's their voice, there's no doubt, and so you follow the orders of the kidnappers.
But it was all fake. Your loved one wasn't kidnapped, their voice was deepfaked and the phone number was spoofed to look like their number.
The advised response is to say, "I'll call you back" because the scammer does not actually have your loved one's phone.
Virtually any voice or audio clip of an individual can be used to generate a fictitious deepfake that can then be used for blackmail purposes (here's a video of you doing bad things) or distributed to poison your credibility.
A common technique is to take a real video and mislabel it to lead viewers to believe XYZ are the perpetrators of the outrage. AI makes it easy to modify these images to look "conclusive."
As noted above, the techno-optimists claim that AI tools will catch all the deepfakes, but this claim has already been revealed as fantasy. There are a multitude of techniques to get around whatever is put in place to identify and delete deepfakes.
Inevitably, real videos and audio recordings will be incorrectly tagged as deepfakes, and indeed, this opens a new way to eliminate dissenting views or evidence that runs counter to the accepted narrative: your audio / video was tagged as a deepfake.
Where does this go? People have already lost trust in government and the media. Those who still cling to a naive faith in corporate truth-telling will soon lose their naivete.
Shrinkflation (reducing the quantity of the product while keeping the package size the same) and planned obsolescence (reducing the quality of components so the device fails and must be replaced) will apply not just to cereal and appliances but to Truth and Trust, and reading the fine print won't reveal all the ingredients.
People will tire of sorting through the endless deepfakes, frantic claims of veracity and fine print. They will give up even trying to sort the mess. Marketing will no longer work because nobody's paying attention any more. They will stop believing anything other than what they can see for themselves, but this will be challenging because the marketing will claim your own eyes are deceiving you.
Truth and Trust will expire the moment you "buy" them.
Where will this unraveling of the foundations of the social order end? It seems we're going to find out by living the unraveling.
The potential upside is the relocalization not just of the economy / production of essentials but of truth and trust.
Highlights of the Blog
Lowering Risk as We Enter Forced Frugality 10/20/23
Our Mutually Reinforcing Crises: Not All Polycrises Are Equal 10/18.23
We Need a Change: Taylor Swift for President 10/16/23
Leafbox Interview: Charles Hugh Smith (73 minutes, full transcript)
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
One result of growing some of your own food is that a successful crop means you're eating a lot of whatever is producing bountifully, and giving away what you can't consume. We've had good luck with Japanese eggplant recently, so we've been eating a lot of eggplant and given away dozens. The tomato plants have also been producing lots of tomatoes, so I keep making pasta sauce from scratch, baking 5+ pounds of cleaned and sliced tomatoes for an hour, then blending the concentrated tomatoes with pan-reduced onions and garlic and the usual favorings--fresh basil and mexican oregano from the yard.
At the start of this cycle of abundance, it's thrilling to have healthy, delicious stuff to eat. Then the bulk of the crop comes in and it's a chore to use it / give it away before it rots. By the end, you're relieved the bounty has ended, as you are now sick of eating whatever was in abundance.
I'm not complaining, of course. It's amazing to have so much food to enjoy and share, and then it dwindles, hopefully replaced by some other abundance.
From Left Field
NOTE TO NEW READERS: This list is not comprised of articles I agree with or that I judge to be correct or of the highest quality. It is representative of the content I find interesting as reflections of the current zeitgeist. The list is intended to be perused with an open, critical, occasionally amused mind.
Many links are behind paywalls. Most paywalled sites allow a few free articles per month if you register. It's the New Normal.
US Teens Spend 4.8 Hours Every Day On Social Media -- how fortunate it's not addictive....
(THEY CALL IT) STORMY MONDAY (1966) John Mayall's Bluesbreakers live w/Eric Clapton (4:44 min)
Eric Gales - live Little Wing 2017 (11 min)
To Stay Sharp as You Age, Learn New Skills--learning new stuff restores the mental capacity that was lost to age.
‘I am not that much in pursuit of happiness’: Werner Herzog on beer, yoga and what he would ask God
First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21 year-old computer science student
Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (book)
What if We Could All Control A.I.?
A Major Defeat For Technofeudalism
Capitalism is killing the planet – it’s time to stop buying into our own destruction
Billionaire space race: can Bezos’s Project Kuiper catch up to Musk’s Starlink? As the world’s wealthiest men chest-thump in low-Earth orbit, others wonder how their mess will eventually be cleaned up.
I Live in My Car: Dozens of parking lots have opened across the country for working people who can afford a car but not rent.
"When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life." Andrei Tarkovsky
Thanks for reading--
charles |
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