AI and fakes

[Zelena]

Hello,

do you think people won’t trust anymore pictures and videos as if it is so easy to fake them or there are still people who will still trust what they want to believe?

I have the impression that aliens could land on Earth and no one would believe it.

[Kirby101]

They don't trust them now.

[Iron Maiden]

I saw some pictures on YouTube last week that showed Trump getting arrested where he was fighting off the cops...total fakes. They were probably created by MAGA morons going by Trump's posts saying he was going to be indicted that week. Of course that is all taking place today.

[shooshoomanjoe]

I saw some pictures on YouTube last week that showed Trump getting arrested where he was fighting off the cops...total fakes. They were probably created by MAGA morons going by Trump's posts saying he was going to be indicted that week. Of course that is all taking place today.

They were done by some by aDutch guy who purposeful added errors to the pics so people would know they are fake.

"“The Trump arrest image was really just casually showing both how good and bad Midjourney was at rendering real scenes, like the first image has Trump with three legs and a police belt,” Higgins said in an email to The Associated Press. “I had assumed that people would realise Donald Trump has two legs, not three, but that appears not to have stopped some people passing them off as genuine, which highlights that lack of critical thinking skills in our educational system.”"

[Phoenixx9]

But....the aliens did already land on the Earth!

[Scott Taylor]

Was the moon landing fake? Is a photo of someone you see being hand-picked to give a certain impression? There have always been ample reasons to be a critical thinker where the news is concerned. I think the better question is - when did people start to trust photos and videos, and why?

[Zelena]

I think the better question is - when did people start to trust photos and videos, and why?

I think that with pictures and videos there’s an emotional charge that doesn’t exist with other medias. We react before we think and if it consolidates what we already hold to be true, it is added quickly to our beliefs.

It’s more than ever the era of conspiracy seekers. Those who don’t doubt and feel strongly are prone to act. I hope that younger people are more cautious…

[Zelena]

I saw some pictures on YouTube last week that showed Trump getting arrested where he was fighting off the cops...total fakes. They were probably created by MAGA morons going by Trump's posts saying he was going to be indicted that week. Of course that is all taking place today.

And the Pope in down jacket…

[Zauriel]

they say photos don't lie. But a photoshopped photo can lie.

I don't trust any photos and videos that were used as propaganda or to influence people's beliefs.

I remember a time reading comic book when Mayor Jonah J. Jameson exposed Peter Parker's photoshopped picture that would clear his name from association with the new Vulture. He told the public that a certain photo portrait of a preceding mayor and his family with their smiling faces was in the photo of him fighting the Vulture in the mayor's office. He hated that photo portrait so he had it taken off the wall in his mayoral office.

[Totoro Man]

I agree with Zelena. people aren't really using their entire brain... so to speak, when they look at photographs. it's frequently just a quick, visceral reaction.

I've been wary of photographs for a while now... but, part of that might be on account of what I do for fun.black sABBAth.jpg

LOL... I mean, this is prety bad... but even a pretty crudely done photo edit can still convince a lot of people who might not know better. I mean who wouldn't want to hear "Waterloo War Pigs", "Iron Man Fernando", or "Dancing Queen Sabotage"?

people have been altering and editing photographs for as long as photography has existed... so, it's a good idea to not always take photographs at face value.

some legendary fake photographs took over 50 years to get thoroughly debunked. like the famous Wesley David Archer/Gladys Maud Cockburne-Lange photographs purportedly showing aerial combat in WWI. these were included as part of a fictional memoir. the fake photos were given an air of authenticity because they were forged by a former WW1 pilot and special effects expert in the 1930s to help him and his wife get some money during the Great Depression. the book was a fraud... and the photos inside were all faked using model airplanes. but a LOT of people quite literally "bought it".

these infamous forgeries weren't definitively debunked until the mid-1980s after Peter Grosz and Karl S. Schneide got ahold of Archer's donations a museum.

https://slate.com/human-interest/201...ng-models.html
https://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/a...p/t-46428.html

in that particular case, unless you were an expert in WW1 aviation, lighting, and camera techniques... you would be unlikely to know that those were forgeries.

but that's just one side of the coin: the other really common blunder I've seen lately is journalists and editors picking the wrong damned photos!

I saw an online article that was discussing a recent aircraft collision. the aircraft discussed in the article was an F-35 but the editor decided to use a stock photo of the AV-8C. this is a completely different aircraft! another article was talking about a killer using a shotgun but they decided to use a stock photo that featured ammunition for an AR-15! in both of those cases the photographs are completely legit... but they're being used in a completely inaccurate manner.

I dunno... maybe they didn't have access to stock photos for the correct type of aircraft or gun. but, in some situations it's better to run the story with no photograph at all than a blatantly misleading one. they didn't even bother to properly caption the photographs.

sometimes a basic mistake happens because you don't actually read the entire document carefully. one letter being different can lead to a chain reaction whereas many as four different people all make the exact same mistake... and something goes on a three-hundred-mile journey to the wrong destination... because every person who looked at the documents are all equally distracted or in a hurry.

sometimes you're just eager to get something done because you're hungry. I think some people were so obviously "hungry" for news like this that they didn't bother to think about what they were looking at.

I see these words over and over... "we need more critical thinking skills" because of "our failed education system"... but, that's the easiest thing in the world to say! a lot of people who make these mistakes ARE educated.

no amount of training in critical thinking skills can compensate for journalists and editors who are ignorant of the subject matter. having that skill doesn't help if they decide that they don't -need- to use it for a particular situation.

while I'm at it... I'll advertise for Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow" and Daniel Schacter's "The Seven Sins of Memory" ;-)

[Totoro Man]

they say photos don't lie. But a photoshopped photo can lie.

I don't trust any photos and videos that were used as propaganda or to influence people's beliefs.

this would include a lot of completely legitimate and unaltered photographs. just look at the "The Baby in the Shanghai Railroad Station" photograph. arguably one of the most infamous war journalism photographs ever taken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody...y_(photograph)

so, by your line of argument, does that mean we're supposed to agree with the Japanese nationalists that that photograph was "staged"?

not even the revisionist Japanese historians deny the fact that the Shanghai station had been repeatedly attacked by Japanese bombers. they don't deny that numerous people had been injured and killed. personally, I don't believe the photograph was staged. even if it WAS, it was still entirely plausible.

I admire your wish to NOT be deceived... I really do.

but that doesn't really protect you, me, or anybody else from being deceived.

[Phoenixx9]

And the Pope in down jacket…

Leave Pope Francis alone.

[Scott Taylor]

Or the photo of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. There have been persistent stories about that photo, that it had been staged, etc. Mainly because there actually was a staged photo of the first flag raising, taken way before the photo everyone knows about. The photo everyone knows about is the second flag raising. The book Flags of our Fathers goes into what actually happened that day, its pretty interesting.

Pretty sure that, if push came to shove, even the best fake photos could be sussed out as fake by the proper expert.

[thwhtGuardian]

Leave Pope Francis alone.

It's not as if he created that image, it's been kicking around for a fair bit now.

[achilles]

But....the aliens did already land on the Earth!

You've seen Willow? Rings of Power? She-Hulk? If you're among the tens of people who've seen any of those, you'll know the answer.