A world where the truth is told, the whole truth and only the truth would be very different from our world. If you are not convinced, take your time and (re) watch the movie “The Invention of Lying”. For much of the film, in this imaginary world, there is not even the concept of lying. People say exactly what they feel, what they think and how they think. The main character of the film - a screenwriter - discovers, by mistake, that altering the truth can change his life for the better. Using only words to distort the truth, he can get money, a better social position or sex. Except for him, everyone tells only the truth and believes everything that is put into words. For example, when the hero of the film is attracted to a beautiful woman, on a busy street, the dialogue goes like this:
[HE] - The world is going to end unless we have sex right now. [1]
[SHE] - Do we have time to go to a motel or do we have to do it right here?
“What's worrying is that, in the middle of technological expansion, people can lie more, faster, cheaper and more convincingly.”
Unfortunately, the world we live in is not just a world of truth. We all know so well that omission, imaginary description, or denial of the truth are often used to get us out of trouble or to help us get what we want. What is worrying is that, in the middle of technological expansion, people can lie more, faster, cheaper and more convincingly. Technology facilitates lying not only because, being developed by humans, technology itself carries within it all our prejudices, stereotypes, excesses, frustrations or preferences. Technology also facilitates lying because it amplifies, automates and distributes not only what is good in us but also what is bad. So it is that if we lie and disappoint in our everyday life, technology can help us lie more convincingly and disappoint more, ourselves or others.
Take, for example, our digital representation on Facebook, our dear avatar. Its carefully constructed virtual life is documented with beautiful images, suggesting positive emotions, an enviable life that, over time, has less and less to do with our real life. And why would anyone judge us for not posting pictures of our failures, moments of depression or unpleasant experiences. The virtual world we have built is the world we would like to live in. Our avatar, our image in virtual space, is most likely a representation of the person we would like to be, a pleasant, attractive, successful person with an enviable life.
As in good sci-fi stories, alternative digital representation is built of real elements: names, personal data, friends, preferences, inclinations and prejudices, where we live and where we go on vacation, what we feel, what we think, what we aspire to. In order to use the social network, we transfer ownership of this information to those who built it. They recover their investment by selling this data / “profiles”, as they are or anonymized, to those interested in selling us a product, service or influencing our political options, preferences, attitudes. "When you have enough data you don't need to send soldiers, in order to control a country." [2]
"Facebook algorithms extract daily 'what happened', Netlix algorithms extract 'what else to watch', Amazon and Alibaba algorithms extract 'what else is bought', and Google algorithms extract digital truth. ‘'
Yes, it is true, the KGB, Stasi or “Securitatea’’ also had access to data like this, but the data was on paper and could only be processed by people. Multiply the value of data we give away with the immense computing power available to understand the real power of those who hold both, the real danger of a digital dictatorship that constantly monitors us all. See the surprising election results in several countries and Brexit. Whole countries risk becoming digital colonies. Facebook algorithms extract daily "what happened", Netlix algorithms extract "what else to watch", Amazon and Alibaba algorithms extract "what else is bought", and Google algorithms extract digital truth.
Yes, things are different when I search for something on Google. We must not lie here because we must not impress anyone, not even ourselves. On Google we are "anonymous". The white box in which we have to write what we were looking for does not inhibit us, we can even delete the search history. We are searching for exactly what interests us: sex, politics, cars, friends, anything.
What are searching for on Google really describes who we are, it’s the digital truth. If someone analyzed our searches (we can be sure that someone always analyzes) they could easily deduce our secret passions, frustrations, affections, political sympathies, musical preferences or sexual orientation. The data set collected by Google (Big Data) [3] is probably the most important data set about the human psyche. And we learn [4] from these (this) data that there are more people looking for pornography than the weather, that parents ask questions about intelligence more about boys than girls, and quite the opposite when asking about weight. And many other things that we probably never thought we would share on Facebook.
The evolution of technology comes with expectations of an exponential evolution of the business environment, economy, society, people and obviously, with people, and lying. We are already used to images processed in Photoshop and computer-generated animations. But probably no one expected the development to be so fast that the digital lie, the technology-facilitated lie, would be so well constructed that we could no longer distinguish with the naked eye and the rested mind, the truth from the lie. These are "deepfakes", manipulated multimedia files, so fake, created by people using artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to make it appear that certain people said or did something that was not actually done. It happened. “Deep”, ie deep / deep, describes the high complexity of the artificial intelligence algorithms used, and “fake”, ie false, describes the result.
"Using just five seconds of audio recording, with the help of artificial intelligence algorithms we can clone anyone's voice."
Technology has evolved so much that our gestures, the movement of our lips, our mouth, our head and the way we move our head can be faithfully translated into a simple photograph. In other words, we can transfer video made with one person to a target photo of another person. Voice synthesis is just as advanced. Using only five seconds of audio recording, with the help of artificial intelligence algorithms we can clone anyone's voice. Used together, these technological performances made possible this new type of lie called “deepfake".
Most "deepfake" products are currently found on social networks such as YouTube or Facebook and can be considered innocent entertainment or products with artistic ambitions, such as this Nike ad | You Can't Stop Us:
But there is also a dark side to using these fakes. We live today in a period that some have called the "post-truth" era, which is characterized by digital misinformation and information warfare led by state and non-state actors who conduct intense false information campaigns to manipulate public opinion. Among the victories of these campaigns are the elections in several states or Brexit.
What should perhaps give us food for thought is not the technical sophistication itself, but the fact that people do not waste too much time judging whether something is real. People see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. The way we process information is specifically human, and unfortunately we are all tempted to believe things that confirm what we know, what we are, what we want, and it takes a rational and deliberate effort to discern the truth from deception.
Imagine the impact of deep falsehoods in aggressive discrediting actions5 or the effect of spreading false military statements at the scale of a nation or alliance6. Deep fakes distributed almost instantly to millions of users can have a disastrous impact, posing a direct threat to national security. On the other hand, imagine how many of the crooked or criminal businessmen or politicians would pull out the “fake news” card to deny the validity of genuine audio or video material.
So how do we deal with this constant flow of misinformation, called "Infocalypse"? The problem is particularly complex and unfortunately it still does not have clear solutions and in their absence lurks apathy and resignation. Because we can no longer distinguish the truth from the lie, we will choose to no longer trust anything digital.
Maybe we should educate our children and ourselves how to distinguish real facts from deep falsehoods, the real "fake news". With a few simple rules we can at least limit the amount of lies we are served: checking the source of the news, studying the context, correlating the news with other data, images, history, credibility and reputation of the author / source, source history. The education system must also contribute by developing critical thinking, responsibility and at least a course on "digital hygiene". Just as we pay attention to we eat and what air we breathe we must be mindful of the digital content we consume and / or redistribute.7
At the same time, legislators should come up with legislation to combat digital counterfeiting, organizations and companies should develop policies and establish protocols / trainings to fight counterfeiting.
We also expect help from technology in fake detection or computer authentication. Social platforms (like Facebook and YouTube) have a duty not only to state anti-misinformation strategies but also to implement filters and mechanisms that effectively fight counterfeiting. The strategy of providing more information about news sources does not make people believe less about fake news.
But let's start with us, by giving less information from home to the narcissism factory called Facebook, by redistributing only verified information, by periodically doing a digital detox cure by locking the digital avatar in a drawer and spending more time out in nature, with real friends.
Author's notes:
Avatar is used here in the sense of representing the man, as an individual, in the digital universe.
Infocalypse is a compound word to suggest the risk of catastrophic destruction caused by false information.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhRnmyBjOLs
2. When you have enough data, you no longer have to send soldiers to control a country. - Yuval Harari at Davos 2020
3. Extremely large sets of data and information about people and their behavior, which can be analyzed to extract lessons, ie a kind of digital grandmother.
4. https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Lies-Internet-About-Really-ebook/dp/B01AFXZ2F4#ace-g1821396653
5.https: //www.wired.co.uk/article/how-to-spot-deepfake-video
6.https: //www-wired-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.wired.com/story/hackers-broke-into-real-news-sites-to-plant-fake-stories- anti-nato / amp
7.https: //libguides.lmu.edu/c.php? G = 595 781 = 4121899 & P.
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