![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo It has always been possible to fake photographic images- including moving images- but as new technologies come in the fakery gets easier and easier- and discernment gets harder and harder.
I just watched footage of Dianne Feinstein being driven up to the Capitol in a hearse. It's a joke- and no-one who knows the circumstances is going to be fooled by it, but my point here is that it's indistinguishable from the real thing. I assume the joker used AI to superimpose a hearse on the limo in which Feinstein was actually travelling- and that it was very easy to do. I couldn't do it, but for the person who knows the tech all it would take is a click or two and- voila- a perfect fake.
Also, yesterday, I was looking at a collection of "old" photos in which aliens and giants and monsters and weird, otherworldly artefacts have been introduced into what I take to be authentic period images. As with the Feinstein footage it's often impossible to see the joins. To complicate matters some of the pictures (especially those featuring very tall people) are genuine. Rubes will be taken in. The historical record is being muddied....
You're shown images of something outlandish- or something that backs up a political point. Can you believe in it? Not necessarily. How do you work out if it can be trusted? Only by using your noggin.
And your noggin may let you down....
I just watched footage of Dianne Feinstein being driven up to the Capitol in a hearse. It's a joke- and no-one who knows the circumstances is going to be fooled by it, but my point here is that it's indistinguishable from the real thing. I assume the joker used AI to superimpose a hearse on the limo in which Feinstein was actually travelling- and that it was very easy to do. I couldn't do it, but for the person who knows the tech all it would take is a click or two and- voila- a perfect fake.
Also, yesterday, I was looking at a collection of "old" photos in which aliens and giants and monsters and weird, otherworldly artefacts have been introduced into what I take to be authentic period images. As with the Feinstein footage it's often impossible to see the joins. To complicate matters some of the pictures (especially those featuring very tall people) are genuine. Rubes will be taken in. The historical record is being muddied....
You're shown images of something outlandish- or something that backs up a political point. Can you believe in it? Not necessarily. How do you work out if it can be trusted? Only by using your noggin.
And your noggin may let you down....
