this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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63
Is "AI" the end of truth? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 day ago by DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
37 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

When a generated photo or video becomes indistinguishiable from reality, does reality just collapse? How do we know what's real anymore, and if society deems an image/video as false, how do we know it isn't just a government cover-up?

Just a few words into a Gen-AI program and there will be a video on the news of you commiting a terrorist bombing of a pre-school, even tho you were never anywhere near there. They can send the secret police to murder people, then post a video of the people they've killed as "resisting arrest" or "trying to shoot the officers on scene", even tho they were unarmed and cooperative.

Like... do governments just get to shape the world as they see fit?

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[–] Acamon@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago

Some kids make fake 'fairy' photos in 1917 and lots of people believed them. As others have mentioned, the USSR removed people from photographs. A forged will in the middle ages let the papacy claim authority over Europe, and shaped the western world as we know it today.

There have always been lies and fakes, and there's always people who've ignored real evidence claiming it's been fake. AI certainly makes things worse, and will be used to discredit legitimate evidence as much as it is used to fake shit. But humanity has lived most of its existence without a "pics or it didn't happen" attitude, and will continue to figure stuff out (and make mistakes) through investigation, interpersonal trust and community.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 30 points 1 day ago

No, it isn't.

I'm so mad about people buying into the fake hype.

The death of truth was social media. Or squishy human brains on social media, I suppose. We just came from a massive argument about whether vaccines work, whether masks are useful in the middle of a respiratory virus pandemic and a bunch of Americans believed there was a pizzeria pedophilia vampire ring so much they elected a fascist turd president. Twice.

What the hell is marginally better photo doctoring going to do in that context? Who gives an actual crap?

The only real concern you should have is you now shouldn't trust phone calls that sound vaguely like someone you know from a phone number you don't recognize. And maybe if you get a video call from a celebrity standing suspiciously still don't wire them all your money.

Otherwise we're just as boned as we were five years ago.

[–] zxqwas@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

Photos have been staged and lies have been printed as soon as those technologies were invented.

AI generated stuff will cause video evidence to be weaker in court. Other than that we will quickly adapt as a society to become as resistant to fake videos as we are to fake photos or text.

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

End of trust, not truth.

Back in my day, we assumed that if it was on TV, it was a lie or likely not the whole truth. When the Internet began to rise up, we extended that mistrust to the Web.

Lately, people have become too trusting of the Internet and I’m glad that trust is starting to roll back.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Back in my day, we assumed that if it was on TV, it was a lie or likely not the whole truth.

Maybe you as a person, but a lot of society generally trusted broadcast television news. I think that part of the problem with old people going down the MAGA news hole is that they grew up in a time where you didn't need a lot of media literacy to the level you do now.

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 19 hours ago

Maybe I worded that poorly. Yeah, we generally trusted the news, but for the most part the TV was the "idiot box" and was not to be trusted. At some point, the news — I think, largely, FOX News at first, but the others weren't far behind — became "news entertainment" in the same way WWE was "sports entertainment." It was either not real, or at the very least it was heavily biased. Whenever The Newsroom came out — what a lot of people know for a 3 minute YouTube edit about why "America is no longer the greatest country in the world anymore" but was really more of a love letter to the way the news used to be. They told real news in a way that was entertaining, but through a character (portrayed by Jeff Daniels) who was trying to tell the news the old way. Give people the facts and let them make up their own mind. But by that point, I think most news on TV was fake/heavily biased.

[–] SSUPII@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 day ago

Lying wasn't something invented in modern times

[–] Ziggurat@jlai.lu 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Like... do governments just get to shape the world as they see fit?

This is not new, most likely in history class you've heard about Soviet propaganda and saw how Trotsky was removed from photography.

The interesting part is now every stupid ass can forge photograph without complex techniques and a long training. IMO it's great, people will finally understand that a photo/video is most likely fake.

It will help them to use their critical thinking skills and check the context

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

People already aren't using critical thinking skills. Why would they start now?

[–] StrixUralensis@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

with Red Alert accent: Glorious Soviet Union has much much big time advantage over american technology !

collapsed inline media

collapsed inline media

collapsed inline media

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Lol their technology is so superior, I've never heard about this until now xD

(Seriously tho, I have heard of censorship in general, but never heard of a state literally editing photos, I thought they just ommitted publishing some photos)

[–] Sophocles@infosec.pub 8 points 1 day ago

Like others have said, this is an age old question. Plato's Cave is my favorite rendition of the question.

The simple solution would be reason. Unless we live in a dystopia in full effect, like in 1984 or Fahrenheit 451, there will usually be multiple sources and perspectives on an issue or event, AI or not. Get info from all sides, and make a well informed personal decision with the info available. Never believe something initially and only do so if it is confirmed by multiple sources. Use logic, science, reason, ethos, or even faith as tools to seek and verify truth

[–] ushmel@piefed.world 7 points 1 day ago

The major news outlets ran interference on a literal genocide for years now. I don't think AI will change much besides making the rubes rube harder.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 7 points 21 hours ago

Too late. Social media was already the end of truth.

[–] yogurt@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Yes but not because of generated videos. Cop just shoots you and the nearest bystander says "grok what happened" and their camera glasses say "What an intelligent question!!! It looks like someone was just nonviolently apprehended for a serious crime!!! You're so pretty!!!" Then they ask grok if they can cross the street now and get hit by a truck.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago

"Please visit your nearest firing squad for free cake!"

[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

This works both ways: you can also always claim it's a deepfake even if it isn't.

If the government is after you they don't need excuses so I doubt gen-AI changes anything in that regard.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 points 21 hours ago

But they would normally lose popularity, with a highly detailed 4K video (deepfake video, that is), the official narritive would be very convincing when state media put that video out there, and contradicting media censored. Human brains would be more convinced that a highly detailed (deepfake) video is real, rather than some blurry photoshop.

[–] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

An arguement could be made that good governance is the responsibility of citizens/voters.

So it's up to us (in the broad sense) to elect goverments that do not engage in cover-ups and do not shape the world as they see fit.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

But this means once a country becomes authoritarian, or for those already in authoritarian countries, its over. Its would hard for any resistance to be able to trust each other.

Lile you see a video of your fellow revolutionaries apparantly colluding with the government and spying for them. Do you trust the video? What if its fake? And what if its actually real? If gonna make everyone suspicious of each other. Its gonna fracture your rebellion.

[–] cloudless@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

It used to be that only the rich and the powerful had access to fake videos. Many people believed in such videos because of that.

Now that fake videos are common, more people become suspicious of the authencity, which might be a good thing.

During the Tibet unrest in 2008, Chinese media produced videos of the "riot" which were obviously CGI. Nobody doubted because it wasn't comon to have fake videos at the time.

[–] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You need really need genAI for a country to become authoritarian.

My bigger point is that it's counterproductive to think of a government as an external black box. At the end of the day it's a reflection of society (at least to some degree).

What to do about it is another question. But IMO the first step has to be recognition of "how things got to be this way". If you can't do that, the discussion around the impact of genAI are IMO moot.

Take russia as an example. In the 90s they had a relatively open media landscape, chaotic and influenced by oligarchs, but critique was allowed and it was very prominent.

But the russians elected a KGB goon in 2000 and then reelected him in 2004 after he shut down most independent media in his first term.

To this day, the russian opposition continues to look for scapegoats (90s liberals, Yeltsin, etc.) and reject any responsibility of society more broadly (revanchism, supremacist ideas, imperialism).

If you can't even do that, then how are you going to deal with the impact of genAI?

My bigger point is that, IMO, genAI is almost a red herring. There will always be tech that can be used to enable authoritarianism. There is no magical tech solution to what is fundamentally a social issue.

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 3 points 1 day ago

We are just asking old questions here. The printing press, novels, and pamphlets were the end of truth! We struggled, many people died, but life moved on. Then newspapers, more death, radio, world wars. Television, photoshop, the internet - fewer deaths in between but still. And life moved on.

Every new medium brought a phase of uncertainty (and possible carnage). That's where we are right now. Every time we think "this is the worst EVER." Until the next thing comes around. We will figure out the slop tsunami as well. I think fewer people will die than during the reformation.

Some people will successfully bend truth to generated video or whatever. But in the end, most will not succeed. Because we get wiser at spotting the bullshit. Q Anon showed us the learning isn't a linear development; it follows more of a two steps forward, one step back pattern.

[–] cloudless@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago

We don’t need gen-AI to produce realistic looking videos. We already have the technology for decades, but reality hasn’t collapsed yet. With gen-AI it is just cheaper and quicker to make.

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 3 points 1 day ago

Did truth not exist before photography?

[–] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

There was a time when photos didn’t exist, we go back to that standard of proof.

[–] lordnikon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Yes and no yes in the fact that propaganda is meant not to change your mind directly but put out so many lies that it overloads critical thinking of a population. All ai does is make it so easy for anyone to do that. No in the fact for the individual if you vet your sources and stay away from algorithm powered feeds or feeds in general.

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Photoshop.

[–] ruuster13@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 day ago

In the Hunger Games, people learned to communicate by holding up 3 fingers. You could force a news cameraman to cut the feed by strategically saying one name. You don't even need me to recite the name here. Humans created AI; don't let your juiced-up amygdala convince you a tool we made is more powerful than the human spirit.