News — At The Edge — 4/21

Together, two sets of articles this week show the needle civilization must thread going forward.

Our informational future — end of trust and recommendation systems — is becoming completely fungible and thus vulnerable.

Our political future — fascism and anti-democrats — can easily devolve.

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Our informational future

Commoditization of AI, digital forgery and the end of trust: how we can fix it —

“[Clearly] technology will enable total manipulation of video and audio content…[so] the meaning of evidence and trust will be critically challenged and…information, justice and democracy will…go through a period of crisis…more dramatic than the current phenomenon of fake news…[with] no clear solution….

[Imagine] CNN receives a video from an anonymous source. Kim Jong-un…with his generals…demanding the launch of a nuclear missile strike…[but] intelligence cannot confirm…authenticity of the video…[yet] president must act…[and] war starts….

[I]n a few years…digital content may be heavily manipulated and [yet]…so accurate to be indistinguishable from reality…[with] real people voices and lip movements in a video…adapted to follow a script….

Machine learning is…most responsible…[with] generative adversarial network, or GAN [images]…fooling an opponent detector model….

Generating high quality fake photos…been possible for a long time with Photoshop…. Why should we be more [concerned]?….Lower editing effort…for playing with deep learning tools as well as…flat learning curve for newcomers….[So] what happens when…[citizens are] challenged with determining authenticity, while scrolling their Facebook feed?….

In a future world where anyone can make the POTUS say anything…[you] won’t be able to trust…any media broadcaster…judgment for discerning real and fake sources of information….

[Clearly] technology for forgery will be in the hands of state-level actors, and the chance of systematic abuse for whatever local or international agenda is real. The end of trust is much more serious than fake news…[which] can be fact checked…[since] you can’t even trust the most reputable…newspaper, website or TV channel…because they are no more likely to recognize a fake video than you are….

Today, anyone can take photos of a…known person, and put his/her face on pornographic content…[as] a powerful instrument for blackmail even if the fact did not happen [because]…cost of fixing reputation and convincing the public that it was a hoax is very high….

[Also] justice and law enforcement will be much challenged by the end of trust…[and] how can the evidence be brought to court if the authorities cannot be sure it is authentic?….This becomes an unending task for the accused when generating fake controversial photos is free… as well as on the judicial personnel examining those cases….

[Soon] able to copycat voices given just a few audio samples of the victim, phone conversations will be routinely hacked. It is hard to imagine an area of society that won’t endangered by the commoditization of tools for identity thefts…[where] criminals may even impersonate law enforcement officials…and disrupt the interventions of the authority at the operational level….

Fake videos could feature public officials taking bribes, uttering racial epithets, or engaging in adultery. Soldiers could be shown murdering innocent civilians…officials ‘announcing’ an impending missile strike or an emergent pandemic…provoking panic….

Without trustworthy sources of information, the institution of democracy is…reduced to an empty shell of formal declarations. Those premises paint a dark future [beyond]…the present with regard to lack of freedom of information, state controlled media and fake news….

As humans, our innate ‘lack of trust’ works as immune system…. Fabricated videos may be easily taken for true if they are aligned with our (maybe wrong) personal views…[so] video evidence will contribute nothing to credibility or deniability of these….The battle against…fake banknotes follows two strategies:

1. make forgery more difficult by introducing elements that are impractical to reproduce
2. build detectors of fakes notes….The problem to address is authentication…..

A message can be encrypted [so]…device that captures the content must implement a signing mechanism in hardware [and]…editing the video will irremediably invalidate [authenticity]….The combined usage of cryptographic hashing and a public ledger for including timestamps to media creation/alteration has been suggested….Machine learning as a solution: building ‘truth’ detectors…to classify any source of digital media that we believe may be altered….

[Still] the attacker’s objective is dual: achieving realism for humans (fooling humans) and not being detected by a machine (fooling the machine)…you see the onset of an arms race….The point is, virtually every computer security problem we face follows the same offence-defense dynamics. A security protocol is implemented and used until somebody breaks it and then a newer, more secure version must be studied and deployed….

[Currently] experts opinions seem to polarize in two categories: undeniable realism will be achieved eventually by generative models vs. detection will always be easier than manipulation….

AI will cause changes in the political security landscape, as the arms race between production and detection of misleading information evolves and states pursue innovative ways of leveraging AI to maintain their rule….It is inevitable. It will profoundly affect human society. It will re-define the meaning of trust in what we see and hear….We need a plan.” https://giorgiop.github.io/posts/2018/03/17/AI-and-digital-forgery/

Who Do You Trust?

Up Next: A Better Recommendation System —

“Recommendation engines…[like] Facebook Groups nudge people toward conspiratorial content, creating…audience for spammers and propagandists…[and] ‘you are never ‘hard core’ enough for YouTube’s recommendation algorithm’….

The recommendation engines we engage with are broken in ways that have grave consequences: amplified conspiracy theories, gamified news, nonsense infiltrating mainstream discourse, misinformed voters….

Ironically, the conversation about recommendation engines, and the curatorial power of social giants, is also highly polarized….[Some] hold an absolutist view on free speech and believe any moderation is censorship, and [others] believe that moderation is necessary to facilitate norms that respect the [community….

Can we make the internet’s recommendation engines more ethical?…. Recommendation engines generally function in two ways.

1. [A] content-based system. The engine asks, is this content similar to other content that this user has previously liked?….
2. [W]hat’s called a collaborative filtering system. That engine asks, what can I determine about this user, and what do similar people like?….

Recommender systems learn; as you reinforce by clicking and liking, they will serve you things based on your clicks, likes, and searches — and those of people similar to [you]….

The systems don’t actually understand the content, they just return what they predict will keep us clicking…[thus] are never neutral….

[I]t’s increasingly obvious that…algorithms need to be tempered with additional oversight, and reweighted to consider what they’re serving up….Simple keyword bans are often overbroad, and lack the nuance to understand if an account…is discussing a volatile topic, or promoting it….

Platforms need to transparently, thoughtfully, and deliberately take ownership of this issue…[perhaps] based on a quality indicator derived from a combination of signals about the content, the way it’s disseminated (are bots involved?), and the authenticity of the channel, group, or voice behind it….

Ultimately, we’re talking about choice architecture, a term for the way that information or products are presented…that takes into account individual or societal welfare while preserving consumer choice.

The presentation of choices has an impact on what people choose, and…recommender systems are a key component of that presentation….This is the idea behind the ‘nudge‘ — do you put the apples or the potato chips front and center on the school lunch line?

The need to rethink the ethics of recommendation engines is only growing more urgent as curatorial systems and AI crop up in increasingly more sensitive places.” https://www.wired.com/story/creating-ethical-recommendation-engines/

Curated Knowledge is THE Future of All Power

Our political futureMadeleine Albright’s guide to fascism, past and present —

“When people are fearful, angry or confused…they are tempted to give away freedoms, or the freedom of others, to leaders promising order.

In uncertain times many no longer want to be asked what they think: ‘We want to be told where to march’…[and] it takes fascist levels of discipline to make so many strut as one….

[But] fascism wears different ideological guises, sometimes calling for a dictatorship of the proletariat or…at others seizing power in the name of a race, a religion or national rebirth….

[A] fascist as someone who claims to speak for a nation or group, is unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use all means, including violence: ‘A fascist will likely be a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a fascist.’ One litmus test involves who is trusted with guns. Many kings or dictators fear the masses, and create corps of bodyguards to shield them….

Fascists seek to have the mob on their side….Mussolini promised to ‘drain the swamp’ by sacking…civil servants. Journalists were pointed out at his rallies so that his fans could yell at them.

Only in periods of relative tranquility are citizens ‘patient’ enough for debate and deliberation…[or] listen to experts….

[Trump’s] America’s first modern ‘anti-democratic president’….[In] a country with fewer safeguards, he ‘would audition for dictator, because that is where his instincts lead.’ In another era…such impulses would be contained by America’s institutions….

[Today it’s] urgent work for citizens and responsible politicians, who may be tempted to close their eyes and wait for the worst to pass….Submission is the first step on an avoidable march.” https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21740389-dismissive-hyperbole-former-secretary-state-still-nervy-about-donald

Doc Says — Our Emotions, Institutions and Technological Capabilities Are Mismatched

Understand Putin by understanding his favorite thinkers —

“[There’s] determined effort by…[Putin] to undermine liberal, law-based democracy….

[His] favorite thinker is Ivan Ilyin, one of the intellectuals the Bolsheviks deported [1922]…[who] admired Italian fascism…[and] thought a monarch, rather than laws or constitutions, should be the supreme authority in Russia…[and] Lev Gumilev, who thought that nations draw their collective drive…from cosmic rays.

In this bizarre understanding of the world, the West’s will to exist is almost exhausted, whereas Russia still has the energy and vocation to form a mighty Slavic-Turkic state, spanning Eurasia….

[It’s] a quasi-mystical belief in the destiny of nations and rulers, which sets aside the need to observe laws or procedures, or grapple with physical realities. The spiritual imperative transcends everything, rendering politics, and the pursuit of truth in the ordinary sense, superfluous or even dangerous….

[So] state-guided media claim that Russia’s enemies are Nazism and a Western decadence epitomized by homosexuality…[and] no response could be too draconian….

[Putin’s] fostering Eurosceptic parties on the extreme right and left, as well as its drive to weaken America’s body politic…[not] because of the policies…Trump would follow…because his cavalier attitude to the rules of the political game was subverting the American system….

Russia finds flawed democracies easier to live with than healthy ones…[and] getting into the heads of Americans and Europeans has become easier than it was during the cold war.” https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21739941-fascist-admiring-monarchist-and-believer-cosmic-rays-source-national

Find more of my ideas on Medium at, A Passion to Evolve.Or click the Follow button below to add me to your feed.Prefer a weekly email newsletter — no ads, no spam, & never sell the list — email me dochuston1@gmail.com with“add me” in the subject line.May you live long and prosper!Doc Huston

News — At The Edge — 4/21 was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.