What happens when anyone can make it appear as if anything has happened

[rcjordan]

Already available tools for audio and video manipulation have begun to look like a potential fake news Manhattan Project. In the murky corners of the internet, people have begun using machine learning algorithms and open-source software to easily create pornographic videos that realistically superimpose the faces of celebrities — or anyone for that matter — on the adult actors' bodies. At institutions like Stanford, technologists have built programs that that combine and mix recorded video footage with real-time face tracking to manipulate video. Similarly, at the University of Washington computer scientists successfully built a program capable of "turning audio clips into a realistic, lip-synced video of the person speaking those words." As proof of concept, both the teams manipulated broadcast video to make world leaders appear to say things they never actually said.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/the-terrifying-future-of-fake-news

[martinibuster]

When?

All you have to do is repeat the lie over and over.

Birther nonsense?

Anyone who promoted such ideas should be forbidden from running for office just on the basis of stupidity.

[rcjordan]

>repeat the lie over and over.

In sales school I was taught "3 times and it's true!"

[grnidone]

>"3 times it's true"

Look at how many people don't vaccinate their kids.  Or who honestly believe the world is flat.  Or who believe anything Trump says.

I believe that "the three times and it's true" and people will believe it is true.  The stupidity proves it.

[ergophobe]

I would say that people here run better mental antivirus software than most, but remember that we are all susceptible to this sort of thing. To think of it as "other stupid people" immediately puts us at risk.

This has been shown over and over. Top researchers in the field of persuasion regularly fall for techniques they understand well. And research has shown that people are likely to believe something they have heard a lot, even if it is all ultimately from the same source (now where did I read that?).

That might be a single article that keeps popping up or, even harder to filter, an study that pops up over and over in many popular articles. Nutritional "news" is terrible for that. SEO news might be the worst of the worst (in the sense that a tweet from Gary Illyes can spawn 1500 articles of 1000+ words).

Eventually, some of this stuff cycles. I used to hear people say "They say we only use 10% of our brains" and I would try to tell them that was a thought experiment from Will James, not actual research from brain scientists... but somehow, it seems that truth has finally won on that one.

[martinibuster]

>>> we are all susceptible to this sort of thing.

Right. My daughter and I play a car game where we spot a person then look away. As we drive away we discuss what color hair the person has, jacket or no jacket, if so what color and kind, etc.  Almost every time our perceptions of what we thought we saw was different.

I'm inclined to believe that we perceive reality but we don't actually experience it as it is. It's filtered. And that may contribute to how people rationalize what they believe.