Therefore Having Gone

Therefore Having Gone

Sunday, March 3, 2024

PEOPLE WHO WORRY ME

For years now there have been two groups of people who make me nervous about our nation's future:

  1. People who don't see their favorite news source (be it Fox News or CNN) as having a bias.
  2. People who are 100% supportive of every individual and every initiative connected to their political party. 

Now I am adding the folks who are oblivious to both the potential of AI as well as its pervasiveness. If they can't spot fakes now while the AI is still learning, heaven help us as it evolves. 

Here's a recent example from Facebook where someone posted "photos" of Star Wars themed cakes. Even by the thumbnails I could see these were AI fakes. And I don't think it takes Sherlock Holmes to deduce the fakery. Look:

Stormtroopers with lightsabers. R2D2 with a stormtrooper head. The land speeder shaped like a speed boat ... with its own lightsaber.




Below we have a stormtrooper wearing Darth Vader's cloak and the words "SARSTER WTARWARS". 

Samuel explained to me tonight why AI struggles with human hands and letters of words, but I didn't understand a word he was saying. 




This one is not even possible in three dimensions:



And finally a Mandalorian themed cake wishing someone named "BE?" a very "HIARPPY BIRTHDAAY"!



To be fair, the comments below these "photos" included quite a few gripes about the obvious AI fakery, but they also included numerous comments along the same lines as these actual quotes:

"These look so good (and they probably taste good too)!"

"Wow, impressive cakes"

"LOVE IT!!!!"

Some even requested the name of the baker in hopes of ordering one for their next birthday.

God help us! 

What's going to happen (likely this election year) when the internet brings us some deep fake of a candidate saying or doing something scandalous and half the population ends up convinced it's real?


On the bright side, somehow I feel a little less alone in navigating the cultural absurdity which is the 2020s based on the simple fact that someone took the time to make the following meme and then add it to the comment stream:


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