Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.
I just watched a video clip of Sir Ken Robinson promoting a product to reduce your blood sugar. I’ve already shared ‘An AI Advertisement’ with a fictitious expert, and broke down the flaws with the ad. But now we have an actual (now deceased) celebrity figure doing the promotional plug. It looks and sounds like him, but he never said anything he says in this video advertisement. I know this, but how many people will recognize him and pay a little more attention to this advertising scam because it is delivered by someone famous?
This is just the beginning. We are moving into a ‘post truth era’, where nothing is inherently believable. A decade from now we’ll have multiple alternate identities to choose from… Was the real Al Gore the one warning us about global warming, or was the real one promoting fracking, or alternative medicine, or socialist communism over capitalism? Every video will seem equally real, every source seemingly legitimate. One real, all the others alternative histories indistinguishable from reality.
Will it only be famous people that will fall victim to these alternate identities or are we all going to be replicated? When I’m in my late 80’s will I be watching a video of 50 year old me oblivious to whether this recording actually happened or if it was invented with a perfect imitation of myself?
The implications for scams are immeasurable. Live video of a seemingly real son or daughter extracting banking data from a senior parent. A meticulously created alternative you moving all assets over to someone else. The scams are limited only by imagination, not by technology or capability.
Alternate identities indistinguishable from reality, all playing out as if real. Sir Ken Robinson plugging health suppliments is only just the beginning… We are in for some reality warping performances from AI alternatives to us, and the people we think we trust… This is only just the beginning!
Never mind the ridiculous videos of Mr. Rogers chatting with Tupac Shakur or Bigfoot vlogging, these AI videos seem real enough while fully intending us to know they are AI. What we are seeing now is an indistinguishable bending of real and fake with videos that are completely altering our ability to know what is real and what isn’t.
Voice mimicking was already almost perfect. I saw a video post today from a man whose dad called him to ask what their shared bank account password was. One problem: His dad died last year, he just hadn’t taken his name off of the account yet. He said it sounded so real that had his father been alive, he probably would have shared the password, thinking his dad forgot.
Now AI videos are just as good as AI audio and the combination of the two truly are steering us into a post truth era. People are sharing AI videos completely unaware that they are fake. Even news stations are getting it wrong.
Soon web sites will become bastions of truth. Want to know what someone actually said? Go to ‘their name’ .com or .org and see the actual video shared there. Anything else will be questionable. And wherever else the video is shared must be watched with skepticism. Subtle or overt, very important changes in a message will occur as a result of someone, ultimately anyone taking the original video and making an AI version that gives their message instead of the intended message.
Following specific domains, and maybe a handful of legitimate news channels, are the only suggestions I have. Legislation won’t keep up, and the fakes are just getting better. Essentially, find reliable sites and distrust everything else. Intuition and common sense won’t be enough.
The term ‘ground truthing’ was shared with me last night by a friend, Neil. I had never heard the term before so did a quick MS365 Copilot request to learn more.
Ground truthing is the process of collecting data on-site (in the real world) to validate and calibrate information obtained from remote sensing technologies, models, or other indirect methods… It’s essentially a reality check to ensure that what the data suggests matches what’s actually happening on the ground.
While it is primarily used in Geography & Remote Sensing, Environmental Science, Agriculture, and Machine Learning & AI, I think it’s a term (or at least a practice) we are going to see a lot more use of in the future. More and more, when I receive information I’m immediately questioning if it’s real. Anything remotely controversial, or surprising, easily falls into a category of doubt… ‘I wonder if this is real or AI?’ But more recently, almost every video and article I see seems to sit in an uncanny valley of almost true or almost real. Before I accept new information, I have to ask myself, ‘Where can I verify this?’ In other words, ‘How can I ground truth this?’
Here is a simple example, in that the information is obviously false, but the deep fake is impressively realistic.
I also saw a video of Physicist Brian Cox saying that comet ATLAS 3i was definitely a spaceship. I didn’t bother fact checking it, I new it was fake, but enough of his followers questioned these kinds of videos that Brain came out on social media to say this:
“I keep seeing AI shite of me popping up on YouTube. The general rule is that if I appear to say something that you agree with and you are a UFO nobber, flat earth bell end or think comet ATLAS 3i is a spaceship, it’s fake.”
Where it gets more complicated is where actual facts are taken and then exaggerated. On the same theme of science and space, I recently saw a video that was talking about the theory that our entire universe might be in a massive black hole. From Copilot:
Some physicists propose that our universe might exist inside a black hole. This idea stems from the observation that black holes warp space and time so intensely that they could create a new, self-contained universe within. The consistent spin direction of many galaxies could be a result of the angular momentum inherited from the parent black hole, influencing the structure and motion of matter in our universe.
This is indeed a theory that is being considered by some scientists and I find it very interesting. So when a video comes up on my social media stream about it, I watch it. But when 20 seconds in I hear the narrator say that this is now considered true, I can’t even get myself to watch to the end of the video. These kind of videos really piss me off. I am angered that someone would create a video based on factual, interesting and novel ideas, but exaggerate the information and outright lie about it for the sake of views, clicks, and likes.
All 3 of these examples are actually easy, because my BS detector goes off. Where I’m concerned now is where that detector does not go off. What happens when the lies are more subtle, when the information is more nuanced? For example, do I really understand the issues happening in one of the many global conflicts right now? What’s the bias of the news or broadcasting station sharing the information? Where do I get more authentic information? How do I go about ground truthing what I’ve heard? Can I even get access to information ‘from the ground’?
It’s getting to the point where I have to question almost everything I hear. Is it real, what is the source, and where can I verify this? I hadn’t heard the term ground truthing before last night, but I realize that I’ve already started doing it, and I’m going to be doing a whole lot more of it in the future.
There are some very articulate people who sound coherent and convincing, but what they are saying lacks honesty and ultimately truth. Fluency and a good delivery don’t necessarily produce valid points, and don’t necessarily deliver worthwhile ideas.
Now, in the first sentence above, replace the word ‘people’ with ‘Artificial Intelligence’.
Let’s not confuse good delivery of information with accuracy.
I read an interesting article by Sune Selsbæk-Reitz, on a word he sort of invented for asking and believing what AI shares, Promptism. The article, The Earth Is Flat, defines this new word: “Promptism is the quiet belief that if I just ask my question clearly enough, I’ll get something true in return. Maybe even something wise.”
And the article describes how promptism is killing curiosity, and providing ‘truths’ that may not be truthful, and yet are being taken as so at face value without questioning.
From the article:
“The ritual is the same every time:
Ask the machine. Get the word.
Move on.
We don’t think of it as belief, because there’s no incense, no robes, no temple. But there’s authority. And there’s trust. And there’s something deeply seductive about being given something that feels final. Even when it isn’t. Even when the certainty is a performance.
Because the thing is: the more fluent the answer, the more invisible the framing becomes. And if we don’t pause to notice that… we’ll mistake fluency for truth, and coherence for proof.”
The article continues:
“But with ChatGPT or Gemini, the answer arrives fully dressed.
Paragraphs. Polished tone. No seams. No links. Just a voice that sounds sure of itself.
That’s not just convenience. It’s a design choice. And it’s flattening how we think. Because friction – the pause, the doubt, the need to look something up – isn’t a flaw in the process of knowing. It is the process. That little jolt of uncertainty that sends you looking deeper?
That’s what makes knowledge stick.
That’s how you learn.”
…“And the more we do this, the more we forget that knowledge was never meant to arrive fully formed.”
I’ve noticed how this has affected me. I don’t go two or three pages into Google anymore. I don’t find tangent, related, and interesting ideas and connections. I ask an LLM, I get an answer, or I refine my question and ask again. I seek an immediate answer, and I accept that answer.
No more new tabs, no clicking links, just a single conversation, and a sort of final answer. The internet is getting flatter. The depth of search shallower. Promptism is the new search… and I wonder what the consequences are, what the price is, in finding convenient ‘truths’ that we just accept, and don’t bother researching or questioning?
I was listening to Chris Williamson on a podcast and he said this quote.
“People think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
~ First attributed to William Fitzjames Oldham
This reminds me of another often quoted phrase, regarding there being three sides to every argument, the one side, the other side, and somewhere in the middle is the Truth.
I had a phone discussion with a friend recently and we were discussing politics. We saw the topic from two totally different perspectives. I then had face-to-face discussion with another friend about a global issues and again we came from completely different perspectives. In both cases neither of us changed each other’s minds.
In one case I want to be wrong, in the other case I wish that I was wrong, and that my bias, ultimately my prejudice, could be changed. In both cases I recognize that getting new information really didn’t change my view… even though I might be happier and see things more positively if the other person was right.
Am I just a symptom of the times? Am I a victim of misinformation, who is choosing to believe perspectives that are intentionally biased? Am I not able to see the truth somewhere in the middle because I lack perspective, or am I blind to my own prejudice?
It’s getting harder and harder to find narratives that are clearly true. Arguments tend not to be about seeking truth but rather earning airtime, and garnering clicks & shares. The math is such that a false accusation will get millions of social media likes and reshares, but the correction barely gets seen. A fake video gets major attention. A blatant exaggeration or even a lie is simply accepted as close enough to true and accepted.
It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t lead us to the Truth, ‘somewhere in the middle’. No, instead we are left rearranging our prejudices and biases, and sticking to our points of view without ever really thinking.
One of the ironies of scienceis that when you hold a theory to be true, you can base your factual understanding around that theory.
The Theory of Relativity is just a theory, but we can prove at least part of it because time moves slower for faster moving objects, and if we didn’t scientifically account for this, GPS wouldn’t work because we need to make adjustments for this on satellites. Not all aspects of all theories are that easy to prove, and scientists spend entire careers trying to produce evidence for theories.
Some are true scientists and if they come up with evidence that does not support their theory and understanding of the world, they seek another theory. They abandon the theory that is no longer supported be evidence.
Other pseudoscientists will have every possible reason and justification why the new evidence is wrong. They will defend a broken/falsified theory. They will ignore the concrete evidence and double down on the theory they support.
I can rewrite this entire message starting with,
“One of the ironies of politics is that when you hold a political party’s stance to be true, you can base your factual understanding around that stance.”
…And no matter which party is supported, the bias will lead to pseudo-beliefs. Supporters will ignore the concrete evidence and double down on the stance they support. Except it’s worse, because the theories/stances they support are based on inherent biases rather than facts.
The problem here is that we are in an era where political stance is more influential than scientific theories and facts. Identity matters more than evidence, more than decades of theoretical research, more than facts. And so we have debates that make comparisons of unequal dichotomies.
We have debates between scientists and morons: scientists and flat earthers; scientists and climate change deniers; scientists and religious zealots. And the fact that we have these debates, the fact that we allow these debates to influence our policies, actions, and ultimately our thinking, all make us a little dumber, and a lot more open to influences that we should not waste our time on.
We’d all be better off letting go of identity politics and thinking about the validity of individual arguments. You can be left wing and agree that a country should have safe borders where thoughtful decisions are made about who comes into the country. You can be right wing and agree that women should have rights over their own bodies. You can be moderate and not be ‘othered’ by people on both political wings because of specific stances you hold that are not necessarily moderate.
Identify politics has no place influencing theories and facts. We need to think of politics the way good scientists think about theories: Seek out factual information and be prepared to change our minds if the evidence warrants us to change.
Carl Sagan wrote, ‘The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark’ in 1996, almost 30 years ago. When I read this quote from the book it really resonated with me. Carl Sagan saw what was coming.
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”
The line, “unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true”, seems to me the most chilling insight. It’s like gut instinct, a failing intuition, and biased sources of information all get weighed heavier than fact… and truth is a construct people create in their minds. The capital ‘T’ Truth seems to be constantly up for debate, and somehow a well researched theory loses validity when it is contrasted by conspiratorial ‘facts’ shared on social media with a little background, spooky mood music. As if these two sources of information deserve equal consideration.
Here’s a news flash… they don’t. And the fact that so many people are unable to distinguish the difference is both alarming and scary.
I love the Bill Nye analogy about the climate debate. He says that if the debate were authentic, rather than having two talking heads debating, it would be hundreds of scientists on one side versus one climate denier on the other.
I saw a social media clip yesterday where a microbiologist was debunking a self declared holistic practitioner on the consumption of unpasteurized milk. The microbiologist wrote his master’s thesis on bacterial infections in cow’s mammary glands.
The self-declared expert espousing unscientific and incorrect information on social media is not an equal voice to an expert. Do they have a right to share their views? Sure. Do they deserve an audience? No.
I wish that I knew how to make the situation better but I don’t have answers. I’m extremely pro ‘free speech’. I think people are entitled to share their views. However, when I see misinformation and disinformation being shared by people with large audiences, I shudder. I worry about how their messages are consumed, by how many people they lead down a bad path.
In 2024 no one, and I mean NO ONE, should believe the earth is flat and yet the group of flat earth believers is getting larger. Imagine being able to own a telescope and see images from the James Webb telescope and still believing something that societies 5,000+ years ago already knew was wrong.
Not all voices are equal, and some voices deserve a larger voice than others. Who decides? Who polices? I don’t know, but I do know that we are entering (have entered) an era where false information gets shared significantly faster than correct information. Corrected information and updated facts don’t get the same play time on social media. So we are essentially living in an era of disinformation.
This doesn’t feel like progress, and as AI models continue to learn from the inputs we are providing, this scares me. I saw a stat that as much as 80% of the internet could be AI generated by the end of 2026. How much of that generated information will be based on incorrect assumptions and conclusions? How much of it will be intentionally misguided? Who is deciding which voices the AI models listen to?
We can’t continue to let ill-informed people have equal voices to those that have more informed perspectives… But I’m not informed enough to know how to change this.
In “Manufacturing Consent,” Noam Chomsky argues that the mass media in the US serves as a propaganda tool for powerful elites, shaping public perception to maintain the status quo. I think that era has ended and one of the key points of our time is that social media now ‘manufactures dissent’. It permits lies to spread faster than truth, and is driven by the power of outlandish claims to draw attention and clicks, views and advertising dollars.
The irony of what I’m about to share would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
I clicked and read the article on the UK’s Independent (independent.co.uk), a media site that I’m unaware of so I was careful to watch for accuracy versus misinformation.
For example, even when the article quoted a tweet by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a person elected to Congress whom I think acts like telling the truth could cause an anaphylactic response, I still followed the link to fact check it…Even though her ridiculous claim was easily within the scope of believability.
The article states,
“Yet despite the clear and evident risk of real harm, people like Greene are making hackneyed comic book villain claims about secret weather machines – and the internet has been rife with misinformation about the upcoming disaster. Accounts on Twitter/X have claimed that state and federal officials are preventing people from accessing hard-hit areas, that the government is basing its provision of aid on political affiliation, and that the entire thing is an elaborate land-grab scheme.
Many such posts have received millions of views, and few if any are being taken down. Why would they, when the site’s owner is in the mix – yes, even Elon Musk has been getting in on the fun, tweeting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has diverted critical funds from hurricane relief to illegal immigrants.”
Later it continues,
“Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “spreading misinformation about a natural disaster that has the potential to kill hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people is reprehensible, and in a sane world would be a criminal offence”, but you would in fact be mistaken. You see, we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a world where being that reckless with other people’s lives isn’t just acceptable – it’s actually a core part of the Republican political strategy.”
But shortly after reading that quote I passed an ad in the article that proves that ‘We live in a world where being reckless with other people’s lives IS acceptable’ and not just by people on the right. The ad, which I refused to click on stated, “Jagmeet Singh Suffers Fatal Accident On Live Television”.
An article that is simultaneously debunking misinformation of a right wing political party, with the author asking, “The thing that really baffles me about all of this, though, is what exactly there is to be gained here.” …Which also shares an ad that blatantly lies about the death of a left wing Canadian political party leader, is painfully ironic.
I then checked The Independent on the Media Bias / Fact Check website which stated that “Overall we rate The Independent Left-Center Biased due to story selection that moderately favors the left. We also rate them Mixed in factual reporting due to several failed fact checks.”
This demonstrates a clear case of the kettle calling the pot black. Bash the right for spreading misinformation on a left leaning site, while advertising using blatant misinformation. I want to call this unacceptable, but it’s the norm.
Propagating lies, evoking anger, selling out for attention, baiting clicks with misinformation, and manufacturing dissent. We can no longer trust social media, and we must question mainstream media too. The truth is unnecessarily elusive, it’s lost in a sea of lies and inaccuracies. The above news article isn’t inaccurate in its conclusions, rather it’s simply encapsulated in the same misinformation propagating media machine it professes to be struggling to understand.
