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Our basic assumptions about photos capturing reality are about to go up in smoke.
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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Technology
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Photos are never a concrete representation of the reality. Photos are being pre-processed by image processor already and we also got Photoshop. One can even fake a film based photo if he knows what to do. The proliferation of image generation models and impainting models make the access easier but image manipulation tools always exist.
The thing is, faking them went from a State can do it, to a professional can do it, an experienced amateur can do it, to absolutely everyone can
I think this is the crux of the article. In the past most people have considered photographic evidence to be very convincing. Sure, you could be removed from a photo of Stalin, and later people could do photoshop (with varying realism), now it’s a few words to make changes that many people believe without hesitation. Soon it will happen to video too, very soon.
Most people are not ready for it. Even shitty AI photos on social media get huge reactions with barely a handful calling them out.
Absolutely everyone can was about 20 years ago though.
There's the practical distinction between "everyone can do it with some dedicated intent" (so few actually bother) vs "everyone can do it on a whim"
Admittedly a computer in everyone's hand is new. But corel paint, for example, was 12 years old in 2003. People were basically making memes and creating scenes that never existed on a whim and for the lulz back then.
And were much, much, better then these stupid examples!
I remember in the UK show Utopia from 2013, a government frames one of the characters for a school shooting by perfectly doctoring security footage to erase the actual hired shooter and replace them with a specific kid. And they do it all in a matter of hours. I remember thinking that tech was unrealistic, probably impossible. The best Hollywood VFX experts would need a week or more to make it that believable, and even they would need a ton of reference of both the kid and the lightning. Purely fantastical tech.
And now, here we are...
...to "now it's just a background process running on your phone".
Agree. Now I will say when faced with the decision between ethical issues vs profits big tech smashed that profits button without beating an eye, but the tools were always going to be made. It's just too bad they didn't stop for 5 seconds to think about how they could be mitigated.