The idea that AI and deep-fake can cause havok and make news consumers distrust everything, has credence, but there are ways to tame the savage beast.
As a slightly older person I still look to my Saturday Sydney Morning Herald for important news. For the last two weeks I searched my old friend, the Saturday Herald to find the latest on AI taking over the world. Normally I would have thought this was yawn material. I have ideas, however, about how we can navigate around the insurgence of artificial news.
My Saturday Herald told me Ms Sora Tanaka boasted about her achievements in her Sports Illistrated profile in the USA. The profile included her photo.
Readers happily read articles the wonderful Sora Tanaka had written. She is a major star of the world of journalism. All is not as it seems, however. You see the wonderful Sora - queen of the US sports magazines - doesn't exist at all. Yes someone made her up. Who is responsible for such a lovely gesture? You guessed it, your great friends AI and Deepfake!
Well ok, Sports Illistrated told concerned onlookers that a third provider introduced Sports Illistrated readers to this incredibly talented, wonderfully believable girl-next-door, Sora. Well did Sports Ilistrated publish her or did they not? Of course they did! Happy days indeed! I wonder if she will let me be president of her fan club???
The next weekend, my Saturday Herald told me that strict followers of the journalism code-of-ethics questioned the transparency, decency and morality of these robo-reporters.
AI would use its power of manipulation over narratives. Many people find this frightening. AI can work for western governments and their enemies to weed out national security threats. This is all well and good. If this is the world we are about to enter, can I suggest that we let the US and the Russians take us back to the days of the late 1940s and the fifties and sixties, when people were concerned about reds-under-the-beds in a context of tit-for-tat attacks on each other. The only difference is this will be done with AI and Deep-fake journalism, in today's context. Can I suggest they award the amazing Sora Tanaka, with the military Gold Cross for journalism bravery in a war-zone. Can I suggest that they give Sora Tanaka a big war drone to ride around on and report on the war. It's all just so wonnnderrrrfullll and who needs a sedative on Christmas Day to fall asleep when Sora can ride the night skies chanting Hi Ho Silver away!
You see, news is entertainment. In the old days Paramount Pictures and other similar companies owned the newsreels. People viewed them in movie cinemas. Audiences watched the newsreels at or near the same time they watched Laurel and Hardy in the cinema. William Randolph Hearst sindicated the Flash Gordon comic-strip to appear in all his newspapers.
News can still be entertainment today, but we need to stop worrying about all this deep-fake nonsense. But how? In my view the answer is really very simple.
You see, as a species, humans are moulded through the the surroundings and environment from which their upbringing provided. Their immediate families, neighbours and schools made massive inroads on who they became as people. This can sometimes determine which political party they vote for in elections. It will give people very specific ideas about how society should deal with certain political issues. Psychologists often refer to our early lives as being paramount to who and what we become.
If these things hold true, then I have to ask you some questions: Were your earlier years in this life consumed with Sora Tanaka riding the night skies on her war-drone, or did you prefer to ride your bike, scooter or skateboard around the back yard? If you are in your 80s or 90s, did the reds-under-the-beds scare consume you with the never-ending-fear of how the east-west situation would turn out, or did you go about your business and live your passions, without being controlled by the fear of red-peril?
If you answer these questions to say that you did what you wanted, without the media interfferance, then why will you let the Sora Tanikas of this world control you now?
When these things happen. When AI and deepfake threaten your existence as you know it, you can still follow the news and your passions. You can, however, be selective about the news. You can follow the happenings in your local area and even the area in which you grew up.
I believe that AI and deepfake can't infiltrate your life in your current local area and catchments of your past, because these places should be held as deeply cultural and psychological experiences. Deepfake and AI can't infiltrate these things, because:
a. the money makers don't operate from such a deeply wired concept of humanity,
and b. you can't make a robot operate with the complexities that come out of our brilliantly developed psyche.
I constantly suggest a massive resurgence of local news to counter AI. You have to understand that the reason local news in catchments has died, is because AI can't understand the very soul of a locality and therefore can't possiby describe the heart and soul of how the city beats.
Woody Allen's opening monologue in his 1979 movie Manhatten said that "he romantisised New york City out of proportion... To him, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture.
To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.
He thrived on the hustle, bustle of the crowds and the traffic.
How hard it was to exist in a society desensitised by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage…
New York was his town and it always would be."
If you reduce yourself to such thoughts about who you are, Deepfake can never get you ― Joseph Walz
As I don't subscribe to a soft copy Sydney Morning Herald, I can't hyperlink the articles I used today, but they were:
AI doorknocks Newsrooms: Business Section, third page, Sydney Morning Herald Saturday December 2, 2023.
Truth Rises from the deepfake trenches: Sydney Morning Herald, news review, p. 29, Saturday December 9, 2023.